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The Billbooks Blog

Practical guides on invoicing, getting paid, and running a small business. Written by the people who build the invoicing app.

featured guide

Connecting Billbooks to Xero, Zapier and your own systems
Industry guides

Billbooks now connects to Xero, to thousands of apps through Zapier, and to whatever you want to build yourself through a public REST API. If you have been raising an invoice in one place…

Read guide 6 min read

Browse by topic

Find the right guide fast. Everything's grouped by what you're trying to do.

Invoicing basics

What to include, terms, and getting invoices out the door.

105 guides

Freelancing

Rates, contracts, and getting clients to pay on time.

83 guides

Small business

The day-to-day of running a small operation, sorted.

64 guides

Running a business

Margins, cash flow, and the numbers that keep you afloat.

101 guides

Productivity

Work smarter, waste less time, get more done.

27 guides

Startups & growth

Burn rate, runway, and building something that lasts.

31 guides

Marketing

Find clients and win the work, without a big budget.

9 guides

Industry guides

Invoicing playbooks for specific trades and professions.

59 guides
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The getting-paid path

1 How to invoice as a freelancer: a simple step-by-step guideYou did the work. Now you have to ask for the money,… 3 min 2 What to put on an invoice: a complete checklistAn invoice does two jobs: it tells the client exactly what they… 3 min 3 How to get clients to pay on timeLate payment is the quiet killer of small businesses. The work is… 3 min 4 How much should you charge? A freelance rate guideSetting your rate is one of the hardest parts of going freelance.… 3 min 5 How to work out your burn rate and runwayBurn rate and runway are two of the most important numbers a… 3 min

Latest articles

Industry guides
Time Tracking Software: What Actually Matters If You Bill by the Hour
Industry guides
Time Tracking Software: What Actually Matters If You Bill by the Hour
A buying guide to time tracking software for anyone who bills by the hour: what to check before…
8 min readSep 2Read
Industry guides
Invoicera Alternative: Skip the Multi-Entity Price Tag
Industry guides
Invoicera Alternative: Skip the Multi-Entity Price Tag
Invoicera's own pricing page now runs four tiers from $50 to $250 a month, scoped around business entities,…
8 min readAug 31Read
Industry guides
Square Invoices Alternative: Beyond the Square Ecosystem
Square Invoices is free to start and plugs into the rest of Square, but it has no multi-currency…
8 min readAug 29Read
Industry guides
Harvest Alternative for Invoicing After the 2026 Price Hike
Harvest's 2026 pricing replaced a flat per-seat fee with a base rate plus usage charges on invoices, projects,…
9 min readAug 29Read
Industry guides
PayPal Invoicing Alternative: Beyond Basic Payments
PayPal Invoicing sends unlimited invoices for free, but has no expense tracking, limited branding, and payouts that sit…
9 min readAug 29Read
Industry guides
HoneyBook Alternative for Invoicing: When You Only Need to Get Paid
HoneyBook bundles lead forms, proposals and a client portal with your invoicing. If the only thing you use…
10 min readAug 25Read
Industry guides
Invoice Ninja Alternative for Invoicing: No Developer Needed
Invoice Ninja's free plan is real and its self-hosted licence is cheap, but that route means running a…
9 min readAug 25Read
Industry guides
Bonsai Alternative for Invoicing: What It Actually Costs
A Bonsai alternative is invoicing software that lets you send an invoice, take a payment and give a…
8 min readAug 25Read
Invoicing basics
Cloud Based Invoicing: How It Works and What to Look For
Invoicing basics
Cloud Based Invoicing: How It Works and What to Look For
Cloud based invoicing stores your invoices on a provider's servers and runs in a browser. How it works,…
6 min readAug 21Read

Latest from our socials

Fresh from the feeds: the last couple of posts on each channel.

X @BillbooksApp

Late payment isn't a cash-flow problem, it's a terms problem. 3 wording changes that get invoices paid faster.

2 days agoView post

New on the blog: the lowest-fee invoicing tools of 2026, compared on what you actually pay to get paid.

5 days agoView post

LinkedIn Billbooks

What makes a good profit margin for a small business? We broke down the benchmarks by industry, and how to read yours.

3 days agoView post

Freelancers: your rate isn't just "market rate." Here's the break-even math most people skip.

6 days agoView post

Facebook Billbooks

Sending your first invoice? Our step-by-step freelancer guide takes you from blank page to paid.

4 days agoView post

Electricians: deposits, materials markup, job line items. The invoicing guide built for the trade is live.

1 week agoView post

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