using my head

What better way to make a fresh start in the new year than to freshen up my website. I have been so busy with clients that I haven’t had a chance to do it in a while, but I set aside the afternoon today and created a new Portfolio page to highlight some of my web design projects. Although design is not the only thing that I do, it’s one of the things I seem to be doing a lot of lately, and it’s nice to group everything all into one place. Creating the page made me realise that I designed, built and launched 12 websites in 2009, which averages out to around 1 per month. I reckon that’s pretty good going for a one-woman band, especially as I also had plenty of other non-design projects and photography work in the mix.

Funny how the changing of the calendar makes you take stock of life and reflect on how things are going. It’s good to have some kind of external force urging us to do so, because it’s not something us humans tend to do enough. I think it’s best summed up in the words of the immortal John Hughes, who sadly left us in 2009:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” - Ferris Beuller

Well, I’ve kicked the tires on all 3 online accounting/invoicing systems, and the winner for me is FreshBooks. There are several reasons (detailed below) but the main thing is that FreshBooks did everything it advertised, effortlessly. Furthermore, my clients seemed to like what they saw as well: two of them asked me for my opinion about the system because they were considering using FreshBooks for their own online invoicing.

Both Blinksale and LessAccounting appear to be suffering from a few teething problems, which is really not something you want to have to deal with when it comes to finances:

• LessAccounting had a problem linking my invoice to my PayPal account, meaning my client couldn’t pay the invoice online. He got an error message instead – not good.
• LessAccounting also seems to have a glitch where it sometimes displays the amount due as £0.01 even when you enter the payment in full (and double-check it is the exact/correct amount).
• Blinksale created real invoices every time I previewed a design in the template chooser. This meant I reached my limit of invoices without ever having created one! It also meant I had to manually go and delete the invoices. And worst of all: when I sent an email to Blinksale to inform them of this glitch, I received no reply.

Aside from the above, there were also more fundamental reasons why Freshbooks won my business:

Integrated, customisable reminders

FreshBooks will automatically send reminders of overdue invoices at up to 3 different time periods you specify. You can customise the text on each reminder, meaning I could use a different tone of voice in each subsequent reminder (and warn the client when they are about to start accruing interest for overdue payments). Blinksale has one single template for all reminders, and I couldn’t see a way to specify when they are sent. LessAccounting doesn’t offer reminders at all; instead, they want you to sign up to – and pay for – yet another system called GettingPaid.

Integrated timetracking

Freshbooks has a really easy-to-use timetracking tool that is easily customisable to track your time by project, client and/or task. You can then invoice the client at the click of a button. There is also a standalone app timetracker for Freshbooks, and the uber-chic can also get the timetracker on their iPhones, too. Blinksale has no timetracker, and LessAccounting make you sign up for yet another separate app (TimeLessSpent) just to do timetracking.

Simple interface / excellent usability

Entering my expenses in FreshBooks was a dream. I sat down with a pile of receipts an in no time I was able to input them all and generate reports for my accountant. LessAccounting’s expense function is a bit more complex than it needs to be IMO – I mean, who wants to fill out a Tax Deduction Expense Category, specify how you paid, or write a bunch of tags for every receipt? Maybe larger businesses will benefit from this level of detail, but not me. And Blinksale has no expenses feature.

As a general rule, all the other tools and screens in FreshBooks are also more simplified than LessAccounting. If you need/want a lot of detail, then maybe LessAccounting would be a better match for you. Plus, with LessAccounting you can (in theory) link directly to your bank account, so you can keep track of incomings and outgoings all in one place. In practice, I couldn’t get the link to my bank to work.

Blinksale is also very user-friendly – in fact probably the most simple of all three – but I’d say that some of the templates it includes border on the cutesy. I don’t want a sunshine on my ‘thank you for paying’ email. And the bottom line is that it’s just not as rich a package as what you get from FreshBooks for around the same price.

Support

Blinksale scored a big fat ZERO for support, as they never replied to me, but both LessAccounting and FreshBooks were very quick to respond whenever I had a query or problem. Maybe I just got lucky, but the really cool thing for me in terms of support was when I suggested to FreshBooks that it would be nice if the expense reports included the name of the vendor… they agreed this was a good idea, and a few weeks later, it had been done.

Branding

I was able to brand my FreshBooks site to match my business colours and logo, meaning that when clients log in to monitor timesheets or pay an invoice, it all looks very polished and professional, like an integrated part of my business. I don’t think LessAccounting or Blinksale is meant to be seen by anyone other than employees or your accountant, so this point isn’t entirely comparable… but it’s a nice touch nonetheless. And in fact it highlights the fact that Freshbooks is more than just an accounting tool, it also includes some client/project/relationship management features as well.

The downsides to Freshbooks? There are few but they include:

• Limited invoice templates. Very limited. Two, in fact. Um, TWO?!? Yes, this is one area where Blinksale and LessAccounting both beat Freshbooks by a mile. LessAccounting has the most standard templates, and Blinksale has plenty too – plus you can even design your own by importing a CSS file.
• No ability to upload photos/scans of receipts for invoices… LessAccounting does this, but it’s more a nice touch than a deal-breaker for me.
• No ability to individualise the email that goes out with each invoice. You can customise the general template, but sometimes it’s nice to add some notes or comments to the specific client. LessAccounting does this, as does Blinksale.
• No ability to automatically add interest for late payments. Blinksale is the only tool I tested that does this.

I didn’t get a chance to test out every single feature of all the tools – for example, the estimates/proposals features of FreshBooks & LessAccounting, but for basic management of business finances, I am happy with what I chose.

So if you think you might like to try FreshBooks yourself, do me a favour and sign up by clicking here or on the round green button. Those kind folks at FreshBooks will give me a little discount for every referral, which is nice. And if you do decide to sign up, let me know how you like it. I reckon it’s a pretty sweet app.

The latest launch in my increasingly long string of Squarespace websites is www.vandervord.com – a wedding photography website.

In this case, the client already had a website that was built years ago, and it really needed a fresh look. But the real frustration for the client was having to go through a middle-man to update his online portfolio. As a sole trader working in the current financial climate, he also needed to save money wherever possible, and it just didn’t make financial sense to have to pay someone every time he wanted to add a new photo or update his photography packages. The great news for him is that Squarespace costs about the same as web hosting alone, and once the initial design/build is out of the way, there are no additional costs for him moving forward. Now he can update the site whenever he wants – without having to worry about whether adding or changing something will affect the bottom line.

As usual, Squarespace’s easy-to-use interface was a big hit, especially for this client who didn’t want to have to learn anything complicated just to change a word or photo here & there. And the really fantastic news is that Squarespace’s search-engine-friendly design (and my advice on SEO) means that he’s already seen an increase in enquiries coming via Google, so I reckon the project will more than pay for itself in the first booking alone. Anything I can do to boost the business prospects for small businesses really makes me smile, so I am thrilled with the results on this one so far… and so is the client, which is nice. In fact, he liked the web designs so much, I have also designed business cards and stationery to match the shiny new look. So a big ‘yay’ all around I think!

Just a little update on my online accounting service trials. So far, I have been quite pleased with Freshbooks, but today I came across a huge hurdle when it comes to LessAccounting: I cannot create invoices on a Mac. Actually, that’s not entirely true: I can create blank invoices, but I can’t add any invoice items. There seems to be a JS bug/error in the code for the “Add invoice line item” tool on LessAccounting that means the items are not saved on Mac OSX10.4 in either Safari or Firefox.

So I guess in effect it is less accounting – because you can’t issue any invoices! Not quite the effect I was aiming for. Here’s hoping that the issue is resolved soon.

UPDATE: The lovely people at LessAccounting responded to my support request within 30minutes, and it turns out I was doing it wrong. All works fine and dandy… just remember not to enter a £ in the amount for invoicing!

I’m fed up of managing my accounts in Excel spreadsheets and creating invoices in Pages, so I thought I would have a look at some of the online accounting and invoicing tools available. The extra benefit of managing this online is that I will be able to access all my accounting info from anywhere and from any computer – which is great as I am often travelling with my laptop, while all my accounts are locked away on my desktop in my office.

I had a good long look at all the different web applications currently available, and narrowed it down to 3 that I felt were most appropriate for my needs: Blinksale,  LessAccounting and FreshBooks. They all do invoicing, and some do a lot more. One of them even allows your accountant to access your accounts directly through the system – and anything that takes the hassle out of bookkeeping gets a big thumbs up from me. There are dozens of others, but I chose these 3 to trial for different reasons:

Blinksale is an invoicing tool and nothing else. I like the simplicity of the interface, and the ability to send clients reminders when payments have gone overdue. Sometimes simpler is better… only time will tell. Full details of Blinksale features here.

LessAccounting handles invoices AND expenses, plus it allows you to keep track of sales leads and business proposals, too. The real selling point for me on this one was the ability to take photos of business expense receipts on your iPhone and upload them directly to LessAccounting. Nice! Full list of LessAccounting features here.

FreshBooks is similar to LessAccounting insofar as it handles all the usual accounting stuff (invoices, expenses, reports, etc), but it also integrates a handy time-tracking tool that means you can easily track time spent on a project and then invoice for that time. Full list of FreshBooks features here.

I reckon I will give them all a whirl for a few months before I decide on the right tool for me. In the meantime, if you have used any of the above and would like to share your opinion, please do so. I did look at quite a few other tools, and decided against them for various reasons, but I am willing to try another if there’s one you really love.

Despite appearances, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I have just had an incredibly busy few months, juggling web consulting projects while at the same time working on getting my photography career back up & running after a 12-year hiatus. I’ve also published a book! Before I knew it, months had passed and I hadn’t blogged in ages. I guess the old adage about gardeners’ own gardens being full of weeds is true. So here I am, with my trusty spade and rake, ready to get back in there and do some weeding.

Today I’ve taken the opportunity to update this site with some testimonials and case studies, to help explain a bit more about what I do. I’ve also got some notes from this year’s ad:tech conference, which I’ll share with you all tomorrow. And I’ve also found a few nuggets online that I’d like to talk a bit more about (but they’re on my del.icio.us if you just can’t wait). Last but not least, over the coming weeks I hope to share some research and lessons learned from my recent projects that I was too ‘in the thick of it’ to post about earlier… right after I have myself a nice cup of tea and a sit down. It’s been a busy few months, and I think I deserve it. Aaaahhh.

I’ve decided to see if I can make it without biting the bullet and shelling out for MS Office for my business. So over the past few months I have been trying 4 alternative products: Apple’s iWork, ThinkFree Premium, openoffice.org and NeoOffice.

They all offer more or less the same tools as the standard Microsoft Office package, and as I am not in need of any database functionality, I based my trials primarily on MS Word and Excel equivalents, with a tiny bit of Powerpoint-y presentation work thrown in.

The first product I tried was iWork, but I quickly encountered problems when trying to send files back & forth to clients who use Word. When converting from Pages to .doc format, things went really weird with the formatting of text, especially tables. Although the interface and default templates were the prettiest of all of them (which is to be expected from Apple), it was all style not enough substance. Workflows in all the iWork products also took some getting used to, as the tools and steps were very different from MS Office. In some cases they were more intuitive, in others less so. I found Numbers really fiddly to work with, I had trouble getting charts & graphs to work as expected, and some key formulas were missing. The real star of the iWork show in my opinion is Keynote. This beats Powerpoint hands-down. It’s easy to create slick, polished presentations, and some cool features – like the instant alpha for removing backgrounds from photos, and an awesome built-in image/effects editor – really set it apart. If and when I need to make more presentations, I will be shelling out the dosh for iWork; the price is worth it just for Keynote alone.

OpenOffice.org was next, but their Mac offering was so unwieldy and frustrating, I could quickly see why the folks at Planamesa started the Neo Office project, which is another open source offering based on the OpenOffice suite. So I switched over to Neo Office, and things were instantly better. Neo Office isn’t going to win any beauty contests, but it seems to be a solid product and I haven’t yet experienced any major problems. I particularly like the ease in exporting to PDF from Writer, and out of all the office products on trial, Neo Office had the best compatibility with MS Word in my experience. The downfall seems to be their Powerpoint equivalent, which is ironically named Impress. I was wholly un-impressed, especially with the 1980s templates that make Microsoft’s cheese-fest look positively appetising.

But the most interesting package I tried out has to be ThinkFree. I got the ThinkFree Premium suite free when I spoke at Office 2.0, and although it’s a beta product, it shows real potential. The difference between ThinkFree and the others is that online/offline file synchronisation and storage is a core part of the product. This means you can access and back-up your files online, which is pretty damn handy. I did have some problems getting everything set up properly, but maybe that’s because I got a freebie. The big downside for me was the stability side of things, and ThinkFree seemed to run much slower than most of the other products I tried. Perhaps when it moves out of beta things will improve, and I think ThinkFree is definitely one to watch.

The winner?

For now, I’m sticking with Neo Office. It does exactly what it says on the tin, and once you get used to the workflows, it’s all pretty intuitive. It’s pretty basic, but that’s all I need right now. I like the idea of open source as a concept, and this is one of the movement’s true success stories so far. Yes, you can use it for free, but I like it so much I’ve made a donation to the project.

In future if I have some more cash to spare, I may consider iWork, even if it’s just to play around with Keynote more – it seems like fun even for non-work projects. And I have also kept my ThinkFree account active just in case. In a year’s time, who knows – maybe my opinion will have changed as the products grow and develop.

After 2 years at NESTA, I decided it was time for me to move on to new challenges. I have decided to take the plunge and go freelance, in hopes of being able to share my experience and skills with a wider variety of organisations. I am looking forward to the accelerated learning experience this will afford me, by being exposed to a mix of different types of projects, companies and people in a shorter space of time.

So I now take on the much misunderstood title of ‘consultant’ or other such non-specific wording, and will spend the next few weeks working out how I can best use my skills in the big wide world of self-employment. This blog will become my business blog from now on, and I will be posting lots of the thoughts and ideas that I’ve had over the years that never quite managed to fit into my business blog that was tied to an employer.

It’s been an interesting experience blogging for NESTA, with some limitations as well as some unique freedoms. I hope they will continue to keep using blogs as a way of engaging in conversations with people who are interested in innovation. As for me, I’m going to keep on blogging about all that’s happening in the world of online, right here, so stay tuned.