Chances are you didn’t sign up to be an accountant, but keeping your books straight is vital in order to receive timely payments. There are a plethora of invoicing programs out there, and the options can seem overwhelming. We’ve broken down three of the most popular platforms out there: Harvest, Freshbooks, and Quickbooks to help you decide what best suits your needs.

HARVEST: Pros
The ultimate project management tool, Harvest allows you to create tasks, estimate the time your task will take. As you are logging hours it automatically subtracts the hours you have worked from the hours that you estimated. It highlights any time clocked over your estimate in red. This boosts productivity and is a good indicator when trying to stay within a certain budget.

Another feature that Harvest takes the gold on is their Dashboard. It gives you a great overview of your timeline, and for agencies with several clients this tool is refreshing and a great way to keep your head on straight. It shows you last month’s invoices, as well as what you have going on this month by listing what is finished and what is left.  The dashboard also keeps a running total of your revenue for the current year, which is a great morale boost or a subtle kick in the butt.

Harvest has very convenient time tracking features including an iphone widget and  an easily integrated toolbar timer. In the unlikely event that you forgot to stop your timer when taking a break Harvest tracks inactivity on your screen and prompts you to consider pausing the clock.

HARVEST: Cons
Recurring invoices do not exactly get along with Harvest. You cannot search or sort to find these invoices, which could be problematic for someone who has a lot of them.

You are unable to filter invoices, which can make what should be a quick task of pulling up a past invoice into a time consuming experience.

There is not a feature that shows you when a client has reviewed an invoice; this is a bit disconcerting when you are waiting to get paid.

FRESHBOOKS: Pros
Freshbooks is the cool kid on the block. It is likely the most popular online invoicing option with 3.5 million members, and for good reason too. It is one of the most seamless in terms of integration on multiple platforms. Freshbooks plays nicely with all sorts of management systems, web tools, and accounting software.

You can search for invoice with a variety of filters like invoice id, client name, date of creation, or status.

Freshbooks has an excellent report card tool that helps you to monitor how you’re doing versus your industry’s average. This is a great way to figure out where you are on the totem pole, and helps to judge when and where improvement is necessary.

You can talk to a human when you need help. When you call Freshbooks you are not greeted with a recorded message, and you won’t have to dial down the center to reach a qualified person. In this sense, Freshbooks had us at “hello.”

Freshbooks has a snail mail feature, which is nice when you’re dealing with clients who prefer the stamped and sealed version.

FRESHBOOKS: Cons
One problem with the Freshbooks program is that you cannot specify how long a task should take and compare it with your actual time spent. This is kind of like playing a soccer game without boundaries it’s hard to stay within non-existent lines.

The support ticketing system overall is a great feature, but it may not be ideal for you that it emails your client every time you update the ticket. It would be nice if this were an option instead of a requirement.

The price isn’t right (for everybody) the free plan only supports 3 clients, which is fair for a trial, but by no means sustainable for a growing business. The next step in the pricing plan is $19.95/month and supports 25 clients, which isn’t a heck of a lot more and still not a good long-term option for agencies whose business could exceed that at any given time. So, for most cases the $29.95/month option is your only choice – it gives you an unlimited client list. Most other programs give you this luxury much earlier in the pricing packages.

QUICKBOOKS: Pros
Quickbooks is the grandfather of all invoicing programs, and is the most comprehensive accounting solution out there.

It is undoubtedly the most thorough in terms of bookkeeping, and it’s likely that your accountant or bookkeeper (if you have one) uses Quickbooks. So, when it comes time to do your taxes or check up on your books it is easy to send files over to your accountant when you are using the same program as him/her.

Quickbooks has 5 different plans available starting at $12.95/month and all of those options have a free 30 day trial. So, it is likely you will find a shoe that fits just right.

It is compatible with iPhone, Blackberry, and Android.  So, all of your bases are covered in that sense – you can’t expect everyone to be iLovers, and Quickbooks gets that and embraces all smartphones equally.

Quickbooks has most of the features of the previous programs listed. You can create track, manage, print, export payment information and more.

QUICKBOOKS: Cons
It isn’t exactly common sense, you will become quite close with your user manual when you sign up for Quickbooks. The other programs are more UX centered.

Tracking time for multiple people gets messy, and is nearly impossible. If you choose to use Quickbooks as a time tracking program your best bet is to have all of your billers track their time on paper, and have one person responsible for entering time. So, if you’re all about the trees Quickbooks as a time tracker may not be your best bet.

So what is the best?

That all depends on your needs. Are you a business that is looking for a friendly way to track time send invoices and stay organized? You might choose Harvest to best suit your needs. Is your client a mid sized business with multiple contractors and potential for growth? Give Freshbooks a try. Finally, if you are expecting large long term growth, go with Quickbooks. Chances are you will need an accountant eventually and this will make that transition nearly flawless.