Lendio

Pros

Is easy to use, I'm not an accountant nor have many experience in that field so being easy to use was a big advantage for us. It has the core functionalities we need and many others that I certainly don't know how to use so It should have the required features for advanced users.

The invoicing system is great, easy and customizable.
Has a quoting and estimating system that's easy to convert to an invoice, also has an easy way to send reminders about our invoices and has some automation once you get paid.

It has a bookkeeping system and loans offering but we haven't used those so no comment there.

Cons

Would be great if we could use our own domain to send the invoices, reminders etc instead of the @sunriseapp.com

I haven't found a way to automate the invoicing process, using a csv file or something like Zapier or similar to avoid the need to create each item of the invoice . That certainly would save us a lot of time.

Not sure if these will be offered later or if there's already a way to do it at this time, just haven't found them.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Lendio

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Lendio

Pros

This is the tool I recommend for any business owner/startup for double-entry accounting. It's the tool I used to get serious about my business accounting (moving out of spreadsheets). Getting organized with a chart of accounts, an real Profit/Loss statement, invoice processing/tracking/payments, and more helped me focus and grow. I purchased it when it was known as Billy, but now it's free and improving.

Cons

There is a bit of a learning curve, but it's not too bad. Lendio is improving Sunrise since acquiring Billy, but there are still some areas that can be improved. There is no account dashboard, meaning you have to go into each account individually to see if there are transactions to be reconciled or to check balances (this should be visible on a single page). Also, there is no way to save report settings, so if I want to see my P/L report by months for the current year, I have to make multiple selections each and every time I run it.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Lendio

Reasons for Switching to Lendio

Pros

A basic, fairly easy to use platform for creating and managing invoices. It's utility is fine, it does allow my clients to pay us through their invoices. It's because of this, that I give it a mediocre rating. However, I think there is room for improvement.

Cons

This app lacks the design and integration capabilities of its competitors and they seem to have been experiencing some growing pains lately. The templates are basic and allow for minimal changes in font, some color, and logo changes; that is about it though.

Our company uses sales decks to issue quotes for projects and it would be great if I could integrate billy invoices into that, however design compatibility aside, billy invoices can only be structured vertically, not horizontally, which is how our deck are orientated. We've also experienced some glitches in notifications and connections to stripe, which is the processor they use.

Pros

I love setting my invoicing on autopilot - every month it bills my customers and manages the transactions. I can see who isn’t paying their bills, it’s great.

Cons

They still don’t have a Zapier integration yet, they recently reached out to me to be apart of their beta which is great as I want to integrate it with my all-in-one digital marketing platform Automate CRM. Doing so will streamline my signups / billing for done-for-you clients. I also think they need embeddable payment forms. Currently have to use stripe, but that bypasses their system so that won’t work for the long term. They need to get up to speed like waveapps, I’ve been checking their software out because of the limitations I’m running into.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Lendio

Pros

I originally started using this product when it was called Billy and since Lendio bought them out and turned it into Sunrise they have added options that have been very helpful. The best so far (for both clients and myself) is the subscription feature for recurring invoices. The software is intuitive and has more features than I actually use, but I do think using the expenses features would be great for myself and my business, I just have not set it up yet.

Cons

The editing of recurring invoices is clunky at best. If there are changes to recurring invoices I generally delete the old one and replace it with a new one because I've have several instances where an edited recurring invoice sits in the system and never sends which of course is bad for both us and the client.

Pros

I've used several invoicing platforms and so far, Sunrise is the easiest.
It's organized well, with the expense reports and other things I don't need to see frequently pushed to the side.
The main thing is to see an overview and then see my invoices. It delivers this flawlessly.
The overview shows an immediate comparison of the current year with your last year, and shows a pie chart for which clients have paid the most. It's always encouraging to see this clear info.

Cons

I would like it to integrate with TurboTax more easily. I often consider using Quickbooks invoicing just for this purpose.

I'd also like a receipt snapshot feature like Quickbooks Self-Employed has, where I can just take a picture of a receipt and immediately import it into my expenses.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Lendio

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Lendio

Pros

I've been using Billy/Sunrise since I started my business. They are quick to setup, and can be very simple to track your banking and invoicing, along with some advanced features to automate a lot of your accounting.

The biggest pros I see are:

- Quick and easy invoicing (including recurring)
- Connect your bank account for automatic transaction tracking
- Budgeting
- Integrates with Stripe for collecting payments but also offers their own merchant account (good to have a backup)

Cons

I'm not a power user since I'm a one-man business, but there is one big feature missing.

There is no automatic payment/debit feature. Recurring invoices are just automatically sent, but need to be paid by the client. There is no way to auto-debit every month, which slows down a few workflows.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Lendio

Pros

I do appreciate my accountant follow up and keeping my books very updated, she is available all time to respond to any question and updates

Cons

friendly use, but more changes are need to adjust different accounts in running the Invoices

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing Lendio

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to Lendio

Pros

Sunrise offers even better features and functionality for my small business than QuickBooks online, and for a fraction of the cost!

Cons

My accountant is not interested in learning to use Sunrise. She is a Quickbooks expert, so I still have to keep my bookkeeping there and currently only use the invoicing features in Sunrise. I would really like to switch, however.

Pros

After being a long time QB user, I appreciate being able to get in quickly, do what I need and get out. I use it primarily for invoicing.

Cons

Nothing. Everything works great for my needs

Pros

I purchased a lifetime deal of Billy through AppSumo, which is really the only reason I am using it. Admittedly, my experience with Billy is colored by me being a longtime user of Freshbooks (which I was very happy with!), so perhaps I had a set of expectations coming into Billy. That being said, Billy is a nice software that gets the job done. They've recently implemented Paypal payments, which I couldn't believe was missing, but so glad it's here, as I have many clients who prefer to pay that way. It shows that they listen to feedback and are actively working on their roadmap. Another plus I appreciate is that you can collect signatures for quote approvals, which is nice.

Cons

However, the two pros mentioned above, Paypal and the quotes functionality, have a flip side.

The downside to Paypal is that I can't offer the option on an invoice for clients to pay via Paypal or credit card, I can only offer one or the other -- which completely defeats the purpose! Ideally, I would offer clients as many options as possible, since I don't know in advance which way they would prefer to pay. So, in order to continue to offer payment via Stripe, I can't use the (much anticipated!) Paypal feature.

For quotes, it's not immediately apparent in the UI when a quote has been accepted (you have to navigate to each one individually and open it, and even then, it's not glaringly obvious). When you have multiple open quotes, this is a waste of time to continually be checking in this way. There is an option to be notified via email when a quote is accepted, but for a while this wasn't working. I ended up missing a few quote acceptances.

I have also run into some weird glitches when setting up payment options. Customer support was pretty slow to respond via email, and I had to follow up multiple times to get any sort of closure on my issue.

The biggest con for me (and this is only because I am used to Freshbooks) is that there is no integrated timekeeping feature. I had to search high and low to find a cost-effective solution to track time against projects.

Pros

The Income and expense overview - I always know where my money is and isn't, Creating Invoices is almost too easy, just enter the details, generate a PDF (with your company logo on), and email to the customer, done and dusted. Bills, scan, upload, everything in date order, I always know whatI've had to pay out, and to which customer to deliver their final invoice.
Top customers and Top vendors, AWESOME feature, s much information from these two tools can be streamlined, who is happiest with what I do, who do I need to check in with so I don't lose a client, cost per vendor, find a cheaper better way to save money, yet maintain the same level of service I've personally come to expect, always streamlining :)
Seriously, this is the greatest app in my arsenal, don't believe me, TRY IT FOR YOURSELVES, Billy really does deserve a 10 star rating.

Cons

There are two things (one I know is happening), and one that would just be a cherry on the cake. The first is currently no way to link UK bank accounts, although I've been told that will appear hopefully Q2 this year, the only other feature I feel is needed, is a personal diary/journal & a personal calendar. I do a lot of meetings, it would be great to integrate new clients and their idea's from the initial meeting as part of the historical process and the calendar because it's always a useful tool to share information with to whoever is working with you. There the only things that for me would make Billy the ultimate app for anyone.

Pros

Looks pretty. Wish I could have used it. Looks amazing from the surface. Customer support was terrible.

Cons

I don't know WHEN I have more frustrated with a companies 'service'. VERY frustrated. I was excited about this deal and jumped right on it. I tried syncing with my Cap One Spark business account (from my phone) and it didn't work so I emailed asking if this really wasn't an option. I got a list of 9501 banks emailed to me NOT in alphabetical order. What am I supposed to do with that?

I tried the chat option and explained when I added my cap one account it pulled in my PERSONAL banking details and not my business accounts which made no sense. They told me to talk to cap one, which I did.

Then I tried adding my business account info again and it kept reverting back to my previously synched personal accounts. Frustrating. So I went ahead and added my personal bill account and then deleting it and hoping that would work. Nope.

I tried calling over and over and it was always busy. They take forever to respond on chat and were not helpful at all. I finally got ahold of them and they said they dont have phone support.

Free support
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (800) 241-7365
Help center: www.billyapp.com/support

That's right on the dashboard when new users sign in. I get ahold of them via chat and Joshua suggesting 'bombing' the account and starting over which I did. He said 24 hours later I could try again and hopefully it would work that time. Even though nobody did anything to help it work the next time but maybe so.

Here we are over 24 hours later and, of course, it pulls up my personal (not business) info.

I give up. Incredibly frustrated by the terrible response, being sent a list of 10k sites to dig through, being given a number they DON'T answer, having chat and not being very available.

Pros

Ease of use. The interface is easy and very accessible. Workflows and billing are simple. I don't need a professional accountant to help me get used to this software.

Cons

Pre-set settings or personalization features a bit lacking in the interface. For example, if I am looking at all my invoices, I want to see the fiscal year only. But whenever I go to that page, it shows me the full history of things which I don't prefer.

Pros

(We don't use the accounting features so the focus is on the billing features). It is very easy to create a professional-looking invoice and share it with the customer instantly via email. It's simple to use, user-friendly and self-explanatory.

Cons

One feature that I would like to see is that I can go to the products overview and see all the invoices that have one of these products on it. In addition, it would be nice to be able to select certain products and bulk-change products (for example, increase pricing on all items selected by 2%).

Pros

the cost of the program is very cheap which is good to keep track of where money is, creating invoices, uploading bills, and generating PDF's to send to customers. The interface is very great as well and allows you to reconcile with your banks in a pretty easy fashion

Cons

There really isn't that much to this program aside from basic accounting practices and reconciling. Sometimes the imports, especially when trying to upload a file can result in errors. Setting something up such has recurring payment reminders, I think would make this app a lot more efficient.

Pros

Really fast interface, modern UI, streamlined functionality. These are all connected and that's the most appealing thing about Billy, it's really blazing fast and it has all the basics you need for bookkeeping and creating invoices.

Cons

A couple of months ago I would have say that everything is fine. I really liked the software. Now they decided to sell the company and the new owners do not support residents outside of US and Canada. So my story stopped here with Billy. If this does not apply to you, try it, use it. It's a really simple app that just works.

Pros

I find the software very simple and basic. It does exactly what I need it to, with no complications or awkward stuff. That being said i am an accountant and I know what I'm doing - might be a little bit too basic for a total beginner....

Cons

Billy is still very much in start up phase, and not everything works exactly as I would want yet, although I think they are heading in the right direction. Over the last six weeks or so I finally managed to connect my bank account nd transfer transactions automatically - once I manage to connect my Paypal account too I will be in heaven

Pros

I like how you can setup accounts for your employees to log in to send invoices, This software allows you to setup recurring monthly invoicing (which is awesome). You can upload your receipts and keep track of expenses all in the same app.

Cons

The invoicing can be a bit of a hassle until you get all the items input into the system. But, it does work great. I can't update my banking information yet. I contacted support and they are aware of the issue with my bank, and they are getting it fixed and said in October it should be up and running. This is a new company and I do love the platform so I don't mind. I think this was a great investment for my business.

Pros

The UX is made for non accountants which is great. You intuitively understand where to click and how to do the different processes and the customer support is fantastic.

Cons

The accountants don't like it. This is a con in a world where the accountants often decide what software to use in their domain. The problem is apparently that some of the features are built in a way where you can mingle around with the accounting so the balance in accounting terms does not fit. Would recommend the product for smaller companies, but once you grow bigger it is harder to use.

Pros

This product is way simpler to use for the average small business owner than other, more costly and more complicated accounting products. Everything is very intuitive and easy to understand.

Cons

I have had repeated issues with integrating my bank information to the software.

Pros

I find this software extremely user friendly. I've never had a significant issue with the app, it has always worked very well. While I likely do not use it as heavily as others might, it has been perfect for my needs. Especially come tax time, Sunrise makes the paperwork as simple as a few clicks.

Cons

There are some limitations in customization, for instance it continues to ask for tax info, and asks to email invoices, even though I don't have to do this in my business. But these are minor quibbles.

Pros

The Sunrise dashboard makes it easy to keep a pulse on my business finances when I need to make investment decisions and manage daily operations.

Cons

I wish I could customize the email template for sending invoices. I'd like to set the subject line and body text.

Pros

Simplicity, clean interface and free customizing of Chart of accounts.
Lot options for exporting in xls format (i love excel).

Cons

It have some minor things about local settings and shortcuts but it minor things! Thanks to friendly support i don't worry.

Pros

Very easy to use
Low monthly fee
Great customer service
Quick upload receipts feature which allows for quick expense records
Professional invoices
Easy to add discounts and corrections on invoices

Cons

It is a little 1 dimensional and lacks a bit of features