7 Best Invoice Software For Contractors In 2024 [TESTED]
Last Updated on June 13, 2023 by John Cirelly
Being a contractor can make invoicing tough. From managing expenses to tracking your billable time, invoicing can feel like a job in and of itself.
I tested 33 different invoicing software tools to finally find the 7 best invoicing software for contractors.
Best Invoicing Software For Contractors
1. Harvest – Best Overall
Harvest is a lightweight yet powerful invoicing software for contractors that makes everything from tracking expenses to managing estimates simple and secure through default SSL encryption. Contractors can create invoices in just a few clicks, track billable hours, and automatically schedule payment reminders from a single interface.
Key Features
- Manual and live time tracking
- Estimate generator
- Team reporting and analytics
- Flexible project management
Whether your business is online or in person, Harvest supports a variety of invoicing processes. From recurring monthly invoices to fixed retainers it’s easy to set a payment type for each of your clients.
I was able to sign up with Harvest and add a new client in under five minutes. As a freelancer myself, I really liked how easy it was to create an invoicing template for each client. For example, you can easily track billable hours for one client, while setting a fixed recurring invoice for another.
In Harvest, it’s easy to quickly pull up your templates and make changes to create custom, customized invoices. For instance, you can quickly apply a percentage discount to any invoice in just one click.
Harvest is great for both small and growing contracting businesses with their team management. Whether you’re tracking your own hours, or your entire teams, you can quickly see view your capacity along with a breakdown of both billable and non-billable hours.
Lastly, Harvest’s expense tracking templates allow contractors to add receipts to any client through a simple dropdown menu where you choose the client and type of expense.
Pricing
Harvest’s flexible pricing makes it a great option for both large and small businesses. Unlike some invoicing software, Harvest’s Free plan doesn’t limit its features, only the number of seats and users you can have.
The Free plan supports one seat and two projects, allowing you to get a feel for how the software work in your business.
The only paid plan is $12 per month, and offers unlimited invoices, seats, and projects. I personally love this pricing model as I don’t have to compare four different plans or pay for extra features I won’t use.
2. Zoho – Best Free Option
If you’re looking for completely free billing software solutions, look no further than Zoho Invoicing. Zoho offers everything you’d expect from invoicing software for contractors at no cost to you. Zoho makes money from credit card processing and its CRM product suite.
Key Features
- Intelligent Zoho invoice tracking features
- Customizable invoice templates
- Simple invoicing process
- Templated expense tracking
Zoho allows you to create professional invoices in just a few clicks. Sign-up takes just a few minutes, meaning you can have your first invoice sent in under 10 minutes.
I found Zoho to work well for online businesses in particular, with its browser-based time tracking, project management features, and flexible online payment gateway options.
For bigger project management tasks, Zoho’s Timesheet features are great for estimating project costs, calculating your team’s capacity, and providing accurate estimates based on past jobs.
You can bill by staff, project, and task hours separately, or opt for a simpler fixed project fee. When it comes to expense tracking features, Zoho uses automation to help you get reimbursed faster and shave off hours to your end-of-month admin duties.
Don’t mistake “free” for poorly made. Zoho Invoice matches all of its accounting software features with its pricier competitors. On the security side, Zoho uses standard 256-bit encryption paired with intrusion prevention and optional two-factor authentication to keep your data safe.
If you’re not a fan of Zoho, I highly recommend Wave as an alternative. Wave is completely free and makes its money from credit card payment processing.
Pricing
Zoho makes its money from its other enterprise products, meaning Zoho Invoice will stay a completely free billing software.
3. Honeybook – Best For Small Business
If you’re searching for billing software solutions to scale with your growing contracting business, Honeybook is your best bet. From digital invoices, e-signing, and workflow automation, Honeybook gives you the features to grow without the enterprise price tag.
Key Features
- Track overdue invoices
- Collect online payments
- Dedicated invoicing platform
- Templated payment reminders
Honeybook’s simplicity, out-of-the-box templates, and workflow automation improves the billing process dramatically, especially for solopreneurs and growing teams. As your business expenses and project management needs grow, so does your cost to keep business running smoothly.
Honeybook has an amazing project pipeline that automates proposal follow-ups, prospect management, and payment reminders in one place. I like to think of it almost as a hybrid CRM invoicing software for contractors.
Internally, it’s easy to add new members, and provide secure access to other contractors or your staff. Inside, staff can track their billable and non-billable hours, tasks, invoice status and lead follow-up.
If you’re generating leads online Honeybooks can integrate directly with your lead flow through one of their many API integrations. Alternatively, you can use Honeybooks to create lead forms, batch emails, and of course send invoices.
If you’re working on growing your business from the ground up, Honeybooks is one of the best invoicing software for contractors that scales with you.
Pricing
You can test out all of Honeybooks’s features through a seven-day free trial. Pricing starts at $19 per month for unlimited invoices, payments, clients, and projects. If you want access to the automation features you’ll need to subscribe to their Essentials plan starting at $39 per month.
4. Jobber – Best For Construction Business
Jobber is one of the best invoicing software for contractors doing physical jobs such as construction, landscaping, and roofing. With Jobber, contractors can simplify complex estimates, track labor, material costs, and send invoices online or through the contractor invoice app.
Key Features
- Cost of materials tracking
- Contractor invoice app
- Templated client request forms
- Accept payments through Apple pay
Contractors in the construction business can manage all of their expenses, leads, estimates, and clients in one convenient location. Signing up for their free trial was quick, and I was able to send my first invoice in under five minutes.
One of the standout features of Jobber is its expense and materials tracking. Instead of fumbling with Excel spreadsheets, you can easily update your material costs in a few clicks to better understand your margins and project costs.
As your team grows, so will your expenses. Whether their reimbursable or not, you and your team can easily scan receipts directly from your phone and collect payments directly in the mobile app. I personally find these features awesome, especially for landscapers and other construction companies or businesses that find themselves on the road more than in the office.
Lastly, invoicing is secure and simple. Whether you’re billing Net 30, 60, or 90, Jobber has a template that makes adding new clients a breeze. I really enjoyed testing Jobber however, my only critique is that there were a few annoying promotional popups while I was trying to get set up.
Pricing
Jobber has four pricing plans with a 20% annual discount. The Lite plan starts at $9 per month and is great for smaller contracting businesses. If you want access to job management and templates you’ll need the Core plan at $49 per month. Finally, if you want advanced features like quote markup, lead and client management,, and automation, you’ll want the Grow plan at $245 per month.
5. Invoice Owl – Best With Multi-Business Support
If your contractor business is growing, or you manage jobs through multiple companies, Invoice Owl is for you. You can quickly toggle between your companies to send invoices, invoice clients add expenses, send POs, and more.
Key Features
- Multi-company support
- Easily accept online payments
- Streamlined payment process
- Intuitive estimate generator
One of my favorite features of Invoice Owl is its central dashboard. Unlike more complex invoicing software, you can easily see outstanding invoices, what’s been paid, and your total revenue for the month.
Through a simple editor, you can easily create professional-looking invoices, however, the default layout is simple, clean, and ready to go. A feature I was a bit surprised about was the tagging system, which allows you to tag each invoice’s status or type. This enables you to sort your invoices outside of the standard client filter, giving you a holistic view of your invoices across multiple companies.
Invoice Owl is easily one of the best invoicing software for contractors that have to manage expenses across multiple business entities. From its simple onboarding to its clean interface, I Invoice Owl can make managing multiple contracting businesses a breeze.
Pricing
Invoice Owl has two plans, Growth and Champion. Growth starts at $11.99 per month and supports up to 50 invoices. If you want access to the multi-company features and unlimited invoices you’ll want the Champion plan at $28.99 per month. You can save %18 by subscribing annually.
6. Xero- Best For Invoice Tracking
Xero stands out for its professional-looking, customizable invoices, invoice management, and project tracking. If you’re looking for a simple yet powerful platform to create invoices and automatically follow up with past-due invoices, Xero is a great option.
Key Features
- Automated invoicing process
- Templated accounting reports
- High-level business insight reports
- Advanced invoicing tracking
Ensuring you’re getting paid on time can feel like a full-time job, especially if you have contract clients that have different payment plans. For example, larger projects are sometimes broken down into milestones, while some clients pay Net 30 or 90.
Xero enables contractors to automate invoice reminders and gives a simplified overview of how many clients are past due. Simply create a workflow for each client to send payment reminders, as well as see exactly when an invoice was opened.
Outside of invoice tracking I really enjoyed how Xero gives a complete overview of the profitability of each project. Simply choose your project to view expenses, estimates, time entries, and cash flow. I can see this definitely being useful for larger projects where estimated expenses aren’t as defined.
Pricing
Xero has three pricing plans starting at $6.50 per month, giving you access to basic insights, and the ability to send up to 20 invoices per month.
For full access to Xero’s project tracking and in-depth analytics, you’ll want to $ 35-per-month plan. Keep in mind, at the time of this review pricing does increase after three month.
7. Square Invoice – Best For Physical Payments
Square Invoice is one of the best invoicing software for contractors, especially if you find yourself taking physical credit card payments often. Square Invoice is completely free, making it a powerful mobile accounting software for contractors of any trade.
Key Features
- Seamless Square reader integration
- Collect payments in person
- Supports multiple currencies
- Mobile app supporting Apple Pay, Google Pay, and ACH bank transfers
Square Invoicing really stands out for its simplicity and feels like it was designed for contractors on the road. While many invoicing software mobile apps fall short, Square Invoice was designed for mobile first.
You can easily send estimates via email, or share your screen with a customer to show them exactly what their project numbers are. I really liked that the platform included e-signature support, making it easy for team members to secure new jobs while on the move.
If you’re juggling multiple contracts Square Invoice is great for the organization. You can quickly pull up your projects, contracts, and expenses giving you a complete overview of where your business is at any given month.
Adding new team members is as simple as sending an email, allowing you to scale your team as needed. My only frustration with Square Invoice was that it couldn’t verify my identity, and required me to enter my Social Security Number to proceed, which slowed down the onboarding process considerably.
Pricing
Square Invoice is completely free, so there’s nothing to lose when testing it out for yourself.
Wrap Up
All in all, there was a ton of invoicing software for contractors to choose from, but only a few really stood out to be the best.
In general, most contracts will find Harvest to have the best invoicing features at the right price. If price is your main concern you can’t go wrong with Zoho. While it does lack a few extra features than Harvest it is completely free.
Lastly, if you have a team and consider yourself a small business, Honeybooks offers a generous trial and unlimited invoices for an unlimited number of users.
If you’re a contractor, let me know what invoicing software you use in the comments below, and if it deserves a spot on our list!
