Imagine you're living that freelancer life, you have your customers, you've done the work, and then you realize that there's one last thing standing between you and getting your hard-earned money: generating an invoice so your customers can pay you.
Now, depending on your specific situation, you can choose from different types of free invoice generators. Take a look at the solutions they offer and find the most suitable option for you!
One of the hurdles freelancers often face is the question of how to legally invoice your customers. To create invoices, you need to register your company or become self-employed, then you need to handle the tax payments, submit tax reports, and handle other accounting tasks. That takes up a lot of time you'd rather spend on work that actually brings in money. Luckily, there's a solution – company-as-a-service providers.
Since you've landed on the Abillio's blog, it won't be a big surprise that we'll start with our service. Abillio is a Latvia-based company that offers company-as-a-service solutions. In simple terms – by using Abillio, you can invoice your customers immediately, without registering any kind of legal entity yourself.
You sign up for the service, transfer a one-time 1 EUR membership fee to Abillio (this requirement is for Latvia's residents only), and that's it! Start generating your invoices, get notified when the payments come in, and transfer the incoming money to your bank account. Abillio handles tax payments and reports for you, while you get to focus on your work.
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Ruul operates similarly to Abillio – it lets you invoice customers for your freelance work without registering your own company. This way, you avoid all the administrative work associated with tax payments and reports while making sure your freelance work payments are not under the table but official and legal.
Sign up for Ruul, fill out your profile, and start issuing invoices. When the money from your customers comes in, the necessary taxes and Ruul's fees are deducted, and you can withdraw your earnings.
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Juuli is another company-as-a-service platform that lets you create and send invoices without your own legal entity. Like Abillio and Ruul, it doesn't charge you any subscription fees, instead relying on a pay-as-you-go model. Juuli is based in Estonia and the United Kingdom, so you can issue your invoices globally.
It works the same way as the other companies – once you've signed up, you can start generating invoices. When your customers pay you, Juuli deducts the taxes and its service fee, and you get the money.
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If you have a legal entity, you still need a systematic way to handle accounting and generate invoices for the work you've done. This way, you'll ensure all your tax reports and payments are accurate and all your invoices are issued correctly and paid for.
Wave offers a variety of handy money management tools for freelancers, including invoice generation. You can handle all aspects of your business in one place, follow your finances, keep up with tax payments, and more.
Wave is one of the few accounting apps that offer a free version, so all you need to do is sign up and start using it. Depending on your needs, you can choose from various features, but note that some are only available in the paid plan.
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If you charge your customers an hourly rate, your best choice will be time-tracking solutions that also offer automatic invoice generation. When you work on a task, log the time you spent on it with a time tracker and then use the data to issue precise invoices based on your agreed hourly payment.
One of the best options you could go for in this case is a time tracker like Toggl. It lets you track time spent on projects and then use the data to issue invoices. Toggl is a particularly useful tool if you work with many different customers. Unlike with many other similar apps, Toggl's free plan lets you add an unlimited number of clients.
When you sign up for a Toggl account, you can immediately start to track project time and generate invoices.
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Harvest is another time-tracking app similar to Toggl – it lets you generate invoices based on the time you spend working on a project. It has fewer options for managers who want to see what their teams are doing, but it has everything you might need as a freelancer who wants to get paid for your work.
Simply create your account on Harvest, download the app, and start tracking time. When necessary, generate invoices using the time-tracking data you've accrued.
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Hubstaff is a powerful time tracker popular for large teams, but it's also useful for freelancers who need a way to log their hours. The tracker lets you log the time you spend on a project down to the second. Afterward, you can use this data to calculate the amount your customers should pay you based on your hourly rate.
To get started, create a Hubstaff account, download the desktop app for precise time tracking, and add your projects. Use their invoicing feature to generate accurate invoices for your customers.
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What if you have everything else covered, including your own company and a way to track your billable hours, but you simply want to create professional invoices that reflect your brand? There are several tools to choose from in this case as well.
If you've ever needed to edit a photo but don't know the ins and outs of Photoshop, you're probably familiar with Canva. It's an online image editing tool that's intuitive to use and also offers a simple way to create invoices that suit your business and image.
Simply head to Canva's invoice-generating tool and create your invoice – you don't even need to sign up for an account (although it is recommended since you'll access a lot more options and features).
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Adobe is a brand name that anyone will be familiar with, and among its wide variety of tools on offer, there's also an invoice generator that's easy and quick to use. Similar to Canva, Adobe Express lets you choose from various templates to create your invoice, and they're easy enough to customize even for inexperienced users.
Go to Adobe Express, choose your template, and customize it. Download the invoice and send it to your customer. A registered account is preferable if you want to save your created invoices but not mandatory – you can download them without signing up.
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If invoice design doesn't matter much and all you need is a simple way to create a professional-looking invoice, then tools like Invoice Generator will be useful. All you have to do is enter the required information you need to see on the invoice and generate it. You won't be able to customize the template much, but if you're looking for the quickest solution, this will be it.
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As you can see, there isn't one answer to the question, “Which is the best free invoice generator?” It all depends on your specific needs, so start there – figure out what you need and find the tool to take care of that. You could even combine several tools mentioned in this post (using a time tracker to log billable hours and then generating invoices with Abillio's company-as-a-service solution, for example).
Once you know your requirements, getting payments for your freelance work will be smooth sailing with the right tool.