Billings 3 for Mac OS X—Professional Invoicing
What is Billings 3*?
Billings 3 is an excellent billing and invoicing tool, which is solely for Mac OS X 10.4 and higher. The following article is my own review of the software after using it.
Once installed, which is an easy enough task, my first step was to see if there were any software updates before I used it. Intuitively, I visited the Billings Menu—and clicked on Check for Updates—and within a couple of minutes, the software was updated.
Before proceeding, I would strongly advise that you go to the Help Menu, then read through the Billings 3 Guide. At first, I didn’t do this and instead just got myself confused when trying to work it out myself—especially regarding the use of Timers (which I will come to later on).
How to use Billings…
One of the first steps I made when using billings was to set up a client. This can be done easily—and your clients can also be imported form the Mac Address Book application.
Once a client is chosen, you simply create a new project, with various other options that are very intuitive to follow. From there, you create Working Slips (which are the line-items on an invoice). Once these simple steps are complete, you are able to start working on a project—keeping track of every minute you spend working on it. What’s good about this software is that these slips can be timed at a flat fee—or by the minute.
Screenshot of Billings Copyright of MarketCircle | *By Affiliate.
Timers
This takes me to the subject of Timers. You can easily set-up a timer that corresponds to each working slip on a given project to record how much time you have spent working on it. For example, if I was working on a project that required internet research, I could create a timer (which handily appears in the Mac menu bar), simply clicking on it like a stop-watch to record how long you’ve spent on a task—and it will be billed accordingly in an invoice.
Invoices
Once all working slips on a particular project are complete, you simply create an invoice and send it to a client. There are many professional templates to choose from, or you can create your own from scratch (with your logo on, etc).
There is also a wealth of information contained in the left sidebar, which amongst other things, shows the balances which are overdue in red. The accounting software is professional, too, with retainer and tax options galore—but all displayed with ease-of-use in mind.
Conclusion
All-in-all, Billings 3 is a very powerful, but relatively easy piece of software to use. As long as you spend time reading the main points of the user manual first, it doesn’t take long to start using the software, which is a really useful—and indispensable tool that you may wonder how you’ve done without all this time.
This is quite a simple review, and there are many aspects of the software that I have yet to use and experiment with. That-said, I know that this software is now on it’s 3rd version, with many amendments made to it by MarketCircle to make this software the best it can be. I know that when I need to use the other varied software options contained in Billings, they will aid me effectively.
Do I recommend this software? Yes. In a nut-shell, it has professional invoicing capabilities, easy-to-use project management and because it’s made for Mac, looks great (especially the red PAID stamp, see image above). I think I’ll be using this software as long as I have a Mac, which will be until the day I stop designing! You can download Billings 3 from MarketCircle on thier site, Billingsapp.com.
