FreshBooks does invoicing, expenses and time tracking for small service businesses, and does it simply. Teams outgrow it in a specific direction.
- ›What it covers well
- ›The question it cannot answer
- ›Two workable configurations
- ›Cautions
What it covers well
Invoicing, expense capture, basic time tracking and a clean client experience. For a solo consultant or a very small firm, that is often the whole requirement.
The question it cannot answer
Which projects made money. That needs the contract value, the hours actually spent, the loaded cost of the people who spent them, and the change orders that were absorbed rather than billed. Those live in a CRM, a project tool, payroll and the invoice — four places.
So project margin becomes a quarterly reconstruction, which means loss-making projects finish before anyone notices. See project profitability tracking.
Two workable configurations
Keep FreshBooks, add the operations layer. Project economics, delivery and the sales pipeline live in a connected system; FreshBooks stays for invoicing and the accountant. Lower risk, solves the actual problem.
Consolidate operationally. Move invoicing, expenses and budgets into the platform and use export plus an accountant for statutory work. Right when your accounting is straightforward.
Where Brainis fits
Finance OS covers invoices, recurring billing, expenses, vendors, budgets and multi-currency, joined to the deals and projects that generated them, with cash-flow forecasting on top. From $29 a month, with every other module included.
The honest gap: it is not an accounting package. No bank reconciliation of the kind a bookkeeping tool provides, no statutory reporting depth. Involve your accountant before deciding.
Cautions
- ›Talk to your accountant first; they have opinions and are usually right about filings.
- ›Move at a fiscal boundary, never mid-period.
- ›Confirm retention obligations before deciding what history to migrate.
- ›Run parallel for a full month including close.
Tip: If your books are fine and your problem is project margin, do not migrate accounting. Fix the operational layer and leave the ledger alone.
FAQ
Can we invoice in one system and account in another?
Yes. Decide which system issues the invoice number and treat it as authoritative.
What about time tracking?
Included, tied to rates so cost is known rather than estimated — which is the input project margin needs.
Is this worth it for a solo consultant?
If invoicing is your only need, probably not. If you are juggling clients, projects and pipeline, the join is the value. See AI for consultants.
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Run your company on Brainis
All 26 operating modules on every plan, from $29 a month. No per-seat pricing — you pay for AI capacity, not headcount.
See pricing