When running a small business, collecting timely payments is your lifeblood. Generating invoices takes a lot of time. Even worse, customers may end up delaying payment if your invoicing system is too complicated or poorly designed.
Billdu is an easy-to-use invoicing app that attempts to help you receive payments faster. It lets you track invoicing, payment schedules, and your expenses so you always know where you stand. In this review, we’ll let you know all about it.
Billdu: The Good and the Bad
Billdu has quite a few reasons to be intrigued by it, headlined by its ease of use, project estimate generation, and more. However, it’s not going to be the perfect choice for everyone given its limited design options and lack of advanced features.
What Billdu Is Good At
Practical free trial period: You can test any of the three pay tiers on Billdu for a full 30 days before you decide to pay.
Having such a long trial period is ideal for invoicing software, where you may only send out invoices once a month.
Additionally, you do not have to provide a payment method at the time you sign up for the free trial. Since Billdu doesn’t have your payment information, it can’t automatically charge you unless you decide to subscribe.
Ideal for freelancers: When working alone, you don’t have a lot of time to chase down customers for payments. Billdu streamlines the invoice generation process, making it easy for freelancers on the move.
Billdu allows you to offer immediate payment options for customers, so they can pay by clicking a link in the invoice to services like PayPal and Stripe. This can increase the chances of receiving a quick payment.
Although the invoices that Billdu generates have simple designs, they are professional and highly organized. Using them, you can give an impression of having an accounting department on staff, appearing more confident to customers.
Creating a basic online store: As your small business grows, Billdu can help you sell products online with a very simple online store.
It allows you to easily embed the store in your current website with a link. You can even accept payments through the online store in Billdu.
This online store lets customers make appointments and bookings, which is perfect if your business focuses on providing digital services. Setup is intuitive and easy to complete.
Generate project estimates quickly: If, on the other hand, you work in an industry where customers expect you to generate estimates when bidding for projects, Billdu has the tools to help you deliver estimates straight to your customer’s inbox in a timely manner.
It comes with a series of estimate templates, making it easy to specify pertinent data points. Choose a color scheme and add your business logo. Should the customer accept your bid, you can turn the estimate into an invoice when the project finishes without re-entering data.
Useful mobile app: Billdu’s developers really focused on the mobile experience with their software. You can easily manage all aspects of Billdu from your mobile device, including invoice generation and expense tracking.
If a customer calls and wants a job estimate or another copy of your invoice, send it immediately from your smartphone. You can access all of your business’ financial data whenever you need it, too.
Billdu works well through a smartphone app because it focuses on streamlined invoicing and expense tracking. It doesn’t have a lot of extra features bogging it down.
Strong expense tracking feature: You can use Billdu to help with both invoicing and expenses, making it easy to see where your money is going all on one platform.
It sorts expenses by category, project, or time period. You can then compare your expenses on a particular project to the income you received.
Should you have upcoming bills due, you can see them in Billdu. Or manage your cash flow while you await income from upcoming invoices. Plus, it comes with a receipt scanner so you don’t need to decipher crumpled paper receipts when it’s income tax time.
Billdu’s Potential Drawbacks
Limited invoicing design options: Although Billdu allows you to add your own logo and personalized elements to your invoices, you’re limited when it comes to customizing templates. You can’t really build your own templates, either.
It’s difficult to control the size or positioning of your logo on a template, but you can select a color scheme and add special notes.
Having said that, Billdu provides a space for all of the basic information you need for an accurate invoice, including:
- Your contact information
- Your customer’s contact information
- Delivery date of the items on the invoice
- Price per item
- Tax rate
- Multiple currency options
- Invoice due date
Fewer advanced features for large businesses: Larger organizations that need customized features for invoices and expenses may find Billdu doesn’t quite meet your requirements. It caters more to small businesses and freelancers because it focuses on delivering the essentials.
Some of Billdu’s competitors offer advanced features like inventory tracking, which isn’t available at present. Such competitors come with greater subscription costs as well.
Initial setup is time-consuming: The setup process was surprisingly complicated on Billdu. Don’t expect to start the free trial and send invoices within a few minutes.
Of course, you may not mind having a detailed setup process from the jump. You don’t have to stop and add more information each time you want to access a new feature, after all.
All the same, you need to add quite a bit of information about your business before you can begin using the app. If you are using one of the more advanced pricing tiers with detailed tracking, setup takes even longer.
Billdu Plans and Pricing
Billdu has three distinct pricing tiers, plus a free offering. Pay on a month-by-month basis or annually. If you pay for the whole year up front, you receive a discount.
Each of the tiers allow you to try them for free for 30 days. You don’t need to provide a credit card to make use of the free trial, either, which is a nice feature.
Free
This tier is always free to use, although it is extremely limited in terms of its feature set. You cannot generate invoices, for example, meaning it probably won’t appeal to the majority of potential users.
At this level, you can track an unlimited number of expenses while also giving your accountant access to your Billdu account. It only allows one person—other than the accountant—to use the subscription.
Lite
At this level, you can submit and track an unlimited number of invoices for as many as 10 different clients. The Lite tier costs $5.99 per month, or you can pay $47.88 for the entire year, a 33% discount.
You get every feature from the Free tier, for use for one user on your team.
Standard
For $11.99 month-by-month or $107.88 annually—a 25% discount—the Standard tier is perfect for a small business that needs to generate price quotes for customers.
You don’t have any limits in expense tracking, invoice generation, or price quote generation at this level. Plus, you can submit invoices for up to 50 different clients and connect up to two members of your team along with your accountant.
In addition to the invoice status tracking found in the Lite tier, you can submit payment reminders and payment receipts in the Standard tier.
Premium
The Premium tier is built for busy small businesses. You pay $23.99 per month on the monthly plan or $203.88 on the annual plan, which is a 29% discount. It contains all the features of the Standard tier, plus no limits on the number of clients to which you can send invoices.
You’re able to connect up to 10 members of your team to your Billdu account at this level. You can also set up recurring invoices and expenses. You gain access to the Billdu API, and a high-priority customer support team to contact whenever you need help.
Final Thoughts
Billdu’s greatest strength is that delivers the basics without bogging you down with too many extra features. Unfortunately, that’s also its biggest weakness. Larger businesses that want to track invoices and expenses in detail may outgrown Billdu before they even start using it.
This app is a great choice for small businesses that need help with tracking invoices and expenses, all while emphasizing your brand. It’s easy to use, especially on a mobile device, and it offers a desirable price point compared to competitors that offer similar features.
