Over the month of February, I asked all my regular readers to help me build a better website by telling me how I could improve my website or pointing me to better articles, I have to say honestly that I was overwhelmed by the feedback. Many of you send me private emails with great resources and I want to say thanks to everybody who contact me. As a prize to the best contributions (which I have to admit I randomly selected because everybody was so helpful) the fine people over at Marketcircle agreed to give away three copies of Billings, the most awesome time management and invoicing software for Macintosh.

Billings 3 isn’t about accounting, it’s a time management tool for designers which feels more like an extension of the Mac OS than an account tool. The interface is easy to learn and uses standard iTunes style drag and drop functionality. In fact, the tool appears to be built from the ground up to take advantage of the Mac OS by integrating directly into Mail and Address Book.

The software comes complete with some stunning templates to make your invoicing less about accounting and more about your companies image, which of course is important to any designer. There are around 30 templates to choose from or you can use the invoice designer to create a unique theme for your business.

Sending an invoice is as simple as clicking the button, Billings will then ask you if you’d like to print the invoice, save it to PDF or automatically open Apple Mail to email the invoice to your client.

Improved Wordflow

What’s unique about this particular package is the integration between client management, estimates and invoicing. A typical work cycle for a project outside of Billings involves me tracking most things on paper or spread sheets, leaving dozens of emails marked unread to indicate which tasks have yet to be accomplished but with Billings, I simplify the process using the following steps:

Create a New Client

Using the Mac OS, Billings shares details

Before I can send an estimate to a client, I need to create them as a client but there’s no clunky copy and paste with Billings I simply right click the client’s name in Email and add then to the Address Book. Once the new client is in my Mac OS address book, I import them into Billings. That way, if I change their details in one application (Mail, MS Office, Billings etc) their details are automatically changed in Billings.

Create an Estimate

Now that my new client is in Billings, I can create a quote using the internal quote tool pictured here. Billings allows me to set my overall billing rate for all clients as well as specify my rate per client and per project. Another benefit is that it allows me to quickly offer my client a discount or if they deserve a PITA (pain in the ass) tax I can quickly do it here.

The quote also allows me to set taxes for individual clients or projects, set this specific quote to be billable or “for my eyes only” which allows me to track time regardless of if clients see the final bill or not.

The resulting estimate is automatically formated and transfered to my email application so that I can easily customize my message and send it off to the client.

Working on the Project

Once my client has accepted the estimate, I can begin the project by clicking a simple iTunes style button labeled Start Working. Pretty complicated so far right? It gets better.

Each job is controlled by a series of timers, you can have as many timers as you’d like per job or you can add fixed rate items such as hosting or domain name registrations to the final tally. Timers are used to calculate actual time on the project and can be set to round to the nearest minute or time interval. If I get up to run an errand and leave the timer running, Billings automatically stops the timer and prompts me to deduct the time I was away from the computer.

Once I’ve completed each timer, I accept the charges or choose to mark the time as non billable, which allows me to track a lot more than my client ever knows and improve my billing capacity down the road. Dr. Michael Markovitz, the CEO of Yorkville University once told me that without data you can’t run a business, that’s sound advice for running a multi million dollar company or a small consulting team.

Invoicing the client

Now the fun part, sending the bill … it’s actually a snap with the built in One Click Billing system. Basically, you click the button and send the bill by email or printing it out.

The same system works for generating monthly statements or reports and it’s this simplicity that has done a few things for my small business:

1. Now I know how much time tasks take
2. I can produce estimates faster than other designers
3. My estimates are based on information, not hopeful projections
4. I can track outstanding tasks and complete assignments in a timely manner
5. My invoicing is stream lined
6. My mortgage is paid.

Frankly, I think that last one is very important but more importantly for me is that because Billings makes my life easier, I can focus on what matters … getting jobs done and spending time with my family instead of fighting with other billing software.

Reporting Tools

What I actually love about Billings is that it tells me what I need to know in simple, easy to understand language such as the brilliantly named Billed & Collected report displayed here. 

It tells me what I billed and what I collected. Brilliant.

Other reports let me quickly see who still owes me money, which accounts have retainers applied and who’s accounts are behind schedule or are costing me more money per project or task.

You can download a copy of Billings on a 21 day trial to see for yourself.