10 Best Online Payment & Billing Solutions for Home & Office Contractors: Get Paid While Getting Your Billing on Track

A lot goes into running a successful small business. You need the right idea in the right place at the right time. Beyond that, you need tools to help ensure that you’re able to invoice your customers and pay yourself. Too many small business owners, particularly home and office contractors find themselves facing a backlog of invoices and slow-to-pay clients. That means they’re not paying themselves on time (or at all in some cases).

• 20% of small businessses fail within the first year.

• Over 50% of small businesses fail within the first five years.

• 82% of small businesses fail because of cash flow problems.

The takeaway here should be clear. Most small businesses are profitable, but they fail anyway because they lack the right tools. The most commonly missing tool is a solution to ensure fast, accurate billing and invoicing.

If you find yourself in the same boat (or are worried that you will as you open your home or office contracting business), we’ve got some good news. There are plenty of new tools on the market that can help you manage your cash flow, bill your customers, and pay yourself. We’ve done the research and ranked the 10 best online payment and billing solutions for home and office contractors, so you don’t have to spend any more time or energy on this than necessary.

The 10 best online payment and billing solutions for home and office contractors

Let’s go ahead and jump into our list. After all, time is money and the more time you spend looking for a billing and payment solution, the less time you can spend serving customers and generating the cash flow you need for success.

1. Zoho Invoice

Zoho Invoice is part of the Zoho family of products, offering an easy-to-use solution for invoicing for small and mid-sized companies that need a better tool. It offers customizable features, flexible pricing models, and tons of tools that will take care of all of your accounting needs. It's super easy to use and includes quality mobile apps, too. 

Zoho Invoice has rich reporting tools and customer portals to make payments easier than ever. The customization features are beyond impressive, and although some of the tools require the assistance of a developer, the average user will find everything they need right out of the gate. Zoho also integrates with several other tools and platforms, making it easy for anyone to use. 

• Free option? Yes

• Price: Free

• Branding available

• Multiple currencies and languages 

• Automatic payments

• Easily convert estimates to invoices

• Track unbilled hours and expenses

2. Wave

Wave Accounting is a software platform that works just as hard as you do. It helps you track invoices, manage your expenses, and connect everything with automation with plenty of AI features to keep it all optimized. Plus, the software offers several package levels with various customization options and lets you create professional invoices at no cost. 

If you want to use other payment and billing features with Wave, you can pay for them based on how they are charged. Some are a part of a monthly membership, while others are a pay-per-use feature. The invoice software is free to use, while payroll software solutions are offered every month and payment processing services are offered at a pay-per-use rate.  

• Free option? Yes

• Price: Free, plus a % and fee per transaction

• Free professional invoices 

• Automatic payments

• Recurring billing

• Pay-per-use payment processing

3. FreshBooks

FreshBooks is great for easy accounting when you want a platform that’s intuitive, attractive, and full of tools that you can use. It offers tools for invoicing, estimates, projects, team collaboration, inventory tracking, and more. It also has a retainer functionality, making it great for contractors that require these fees. With the iOS app, you also get automatic mileage tracking to help streamline your expense reporting. 

FreshBooks offers time-tracking tools along with detailed client records, anticipating the needs of freelancers and contractors much better than competitors. Although it lacks some customization features, it still delivers one of the best overall platforms that you’ll find on the market today. 

• Free option? No

• Price: Starts at $19 per month for the Lite Plan

• User-friendly interface

• Integrates with other software and tools

• Dedicated mobile apps 

• 2.9% flat fee for payment processing 

• Double-entry accounting

4. Square

Square is one of the newest and most popular digital payment solutions available today. With several options, platforms, and tools available to help the modern business, Square is helping companies and contractors build for the future. Small home and office contractors or freelancers can benefit from this simple-to-use platform that includes payment processing hardware when you need it. 

Square makes invoicing simple and allows you to bill clients, send automated reminders, and tools to get paid on the go, online, or anywhere that you want. Square makes getting paid easier than ever and the platform will save tons of time with stored information, automated features, and impressive reporting to keep you on task. 

• Free option? Yes

• Price: Starts at $29 per month

• Payment integrations and solutions for all contractors and service businesses

• POS tools 

• Robust reporting

• Industry insights and podcasts available

• Cashflow solutions and other resources

5. Xero

Xero is a billing and payment solution that works for all kinds of small businesses, as well as accountants or bookkeepers who want simpler software. This software offers project tracking, new business overviews, and an easy integration process. The user-friendly dashboard makes it simple to use and interactive quotes make it easy to keep up with customer needs. 

With Xero, you will find all the reconciliation tools that you need including custom invoicing and billing solutions, mobile apps, and more. Xero integrates with several different software tools, allowing you to handle all of your billing and payments in one place, including payment processing. 

• Free option? No, but there is a free trial available

• Price: Starts at $7.50 per month

• Integrates with most payment processors

• Makes claiming expenses and tracking projects easy

• Connects to banks electronically

• Mobile apps available

6. OneUp

OneUp bills itself as being as powerful as it is intuitive. Designed for small business owners like you, it’s streamlined and easy to use, but that doesn’t mean it lacks important bells and whistles. From the user-friendly interface to the baked-in capabilities, OneUp has a lot to offer, which is why it’s included on this list.

You have lots of possibilities here, including invoicing from quotes, by hand, or from sales orders. It connects to Square Register but also offers plenty of other integrations, too. You’ll be able to track customers and what they owe, manage receipts, create memos, monitor sales orders, and more. You can also customize the interface to reflect your usage needs.

• Free option? No, but there is a 30-day free trial

• Price: Starts at $9 per month for the Self tier (one user)

• Flexible invoicing

• Integrates with Square Register and more

• Includes accounting capabilities

• No credit card required

• Email reminders and lots of reporting

7. Intuit QuickBooks

A lot of people have heard of Intuit QuickBooks — it’s one of the most commonly used billing and invoicing programs out there today. It integrates with all kinds of CRM tools, marketing platforms, and other software solutions. Payment processing is easy and the customization options will allow you to generate all of the business accounting documents that you need in minutes. 

Intuit QuickBooks has several iterations and variants available for its users today, which makes it a valuable choice for those small to mid-sized contractors who need something simple. There are a lot of free or cheap features of this platform, and you can choose to use QuickBooks online or through the cloud rather than installing the full software suite on your hardware. 

• Free option? Free to try for 30 days

• Price: Starts at $15 per month

• The ultimate money management tool

• Manage contractor expenses

• Handle payroll and taxes

• Live bookkeeping

• Receipt capture

• Easy app integration

 8. HoneyBook

HoneyBook offers a simple, streamlined solution for small businesses like yours looking for an easy way to bill and pay. It’s an online native, too, so it was built from the ground up with digital functionality and ease of use in mind. For instance, you can save time thanks to the combined invoicing and payment experience. You can also accept credit cards, bank transfers, and even set up autopay.

When it comes time to pay yourself, you can get your despots in just minutes. There’s no transfer necessary, which means you don’t wait for days to get your money. You set the payment terms (one-time, recurring, etc.) can accept deposits, send payments quickly, create email reminders, and save money thanks to competitive fees.

• Free option? No, but there is a free trial

• Price: $8 for the Starter tier billed annually

• Unlimited clients and projects

• Accept credit cards and bank transfers

• Create email reminders

• Lots of reporting

• Create proposals and contracts

9. Stripe

Stripe is a payment processor, but it’s more than that. It's also a cloud-based business management tool that makes payments and billing easier than ever before. The unique software and API make integrations easy while allowing you to create your own custom tech stack to integrate with things like NetSuite, Zoom, Instacart, and others. It also offers 99.9% uptime as well as intelligent optimization for revenues and fraud recovery. 

Stripe offers hundreds of upgraded features and integrations that change with the needs of the industries that the brand serves. It includes invoicing tools, financing solutions, and features to manage all of your business spending. This platform brings it all to one place, so it’s easy to find and manage your accounting for your small contracting business. 

• Free option? No
• Price: Pay-as-you-go for 2.9% + 30 centers per card charge
• No monthly or setup fees
• Volume and multi-product discounts offered
• Country and interchange pricing
• Custom UI toolkit
• 24/7 support

10. Invoicely

Invoicely offers a powerful free platform that makes it easy for you to handle all of your invoicing and payments in a single place. The full-featured software suite keeps everything organized with the ability to integrate with Stripe, PayPal, and other payment gateways to make accepting payments easy, even from mobile. Users also get unlimited mobile invoicing with iOS and Android apps. 

Tracking time or expenses is a breeze with Invoicely because of its hourly billing and payroll tracking tools. It’s easy to generate bills, create estimates, connect to customer data, and take care of all of your transactions in a single place. You can even customize and create labels for invoices, automate workflows, and more. The platform even handles all the complicated discounts, taxes, and shipping costs. 

• Free option? Yes

• Price: Starts at $9.99 per month

• Branding options available

• Recurring statements and billing

• Save client information

• Designed for use by teams or solo users

Get your billing — and your business — on track with the integrated solutions from Smith.ai

Without the ability to invoice customers, pay suppliers and vendors (and yourself), and transfer funds, your business might be profitable, but cash flow problems will make it difficult to stay afloat. Use the list we’ve provided to find the right online payment and billing solution to fit your needs. There’s something for everyone.

And remember that tools come in all shapes and sizes. At Smith.ai, we offer virtual receptionist services so that you can focus on what you do best while we handle your phones and lead intake. Whether you need around-the-clock service, help with payment collection, appointment booking, or just want to make the spam and sales calls stop, we can help.

Schedule your free Live Chat consultation today. You can also reach us by email at hello@smith.ai or on the phone at 650-709-2947.