This month we have been on the hunt for an online invoicing tool.

With the launch of the toggle design laundry™ service a few months ago we have found we are now generating more reoccuring invoices than ever before. The dates and amounts of these invoices vary from client to client and on top of that we have quite a few hosting invoices to get out each month too. Our plan was to find an Open Source invoicing application that would generate recurring invoices, let us know if any are overdue and allow us to use our own invoice numbers (were picky about these things). It also made sense for this application to be online so we could access it from anywhere and give a login to our accountant if they needed it.

Siwapp

In terms of design this is the most promising of the three systems we tested. The layout is clear and the feature set is spot on for what we needed (although custom invoice numbers were not quite right). One thing that we really liked about it was the running total on the dashboard (seen above). The huge let down at this stage is the installation procedure. The application requires the Symfony framework to run and as a result needs plenty of command line attention and the correct web hosting environment to get it running. Siwapp shows real potential and is worth keeping an eye on.

Simple Invoices

The latest 2009 builds of Simple Invoices feel much better designed that the previous versions but unfortunately the application is still in beta. As a result it feels incomplete and the generated invoices look unprofessional. As a design agency we have always take great care over the presentation of our invoices and it was one of the main reasons we decided not to use Simple Invoices. Once again though it shows the potential to become an excellent tool.

phpBMS

phpBMS is a full featured business management tool featuring calenders, to-do lists, detailed user permissions, sales, products and invoicing. The interface is a little clunky but it feels together and stable. If you are just starting out your business then you may want to consider giving phpBMS a try – for us though all the extra features were overkill.

The winner is?

Having tried out a handful of options we decided to go with a product called The Invoice Machine. In this instance the Open Source options were not polished enough – we felt we needed a product we could trust and rely upon. So far The Invoice Machine has been excellent and the API means we can tie it into other systems if required. It also offers a full data export if we decide to go Open Source in the future.