Nonetheless Good for Freelancers in 2024?

Hey Bonsai payments itself as an all-in-one freelancing resolution for the world’s finest artistic freelancers (really, their identify is solely Bonsai, however their web site is HelloBonsai.com).

However with so many freelancer invoicing apps or different productiveness instruments on the market for freelancers as of late, it begs the query:

Is Hey Bonsai a very good match for you as a freelancer?

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On this in-depth Hey Bonsai overview, I’ll dive into the nice, the dangerous, and the “simply okay” concerning the platform that claims it’ll make it easier to “put your freelancing on autopilot.” I’ll additionally embrace just a few voices and opinions from the freelance neighborhood—actual freelancers who’ve used Hey Bonsai to run their freelance enterprise.

By the tip of this Hey Bonsai overview, you’ll know whether or not or not it’s a very good match for you and if you happen to ought to join Bonsai or not.

In full transparency, we’re an affiliate companion with Bonsai. I’ve finished my finest to not let this affect my overview beneath and, to maintain issues utterly balanced, we’re additionally affiliate companions with a bunch of Bonsai opponents. If you happen to click on a Bonsai (or competitor) hyperlink on this article, we could obtain a small fee at no additional value to you.

The quick reply: must you use Bonsai?

In case you are quick on time or don’t wish to get into all the small print of this Hey Bonsai overview, then I can let you know proper now whether or not or not you must use the Bonsai freelance suite:

YES: If you happen to’re a freelancer with a reasonably easy enterprise, not plenty of over-complicated initiatives, and a modest price range, then you possibly can strive Bonsai utterly free utilizing this hyperlink.

NO: If you happen to’re an company with a lot of difficult initiatives all operating on the identical time otherwise you’re a freelancer hoping to massively develop, then you must strive one other invoicing app. (My prime suggestions are on the backside of this publish.)

For individuals who need a extra complete overview of the Bonsai app, right here we go:

What’s Hey Bonsai?

Earlier than we go too deep into the Hey Bonsai app, let’s speak about precisely what it’s and why it exists.

In an interview with Hacker Midday, Bonsai’s founder Matt Brown defined the freelance device was constructed to “deal with the issues that freelancers don’t like doing or don’t know the best way to do, to allow them to give attention to the work they love and nonetheless receives a commission.

“Meaning,” Matt continued, “we streamline proposals, contracts, time monitoring, invoices, bills, and accounting designed particularly for digital freelancers.”

So what’s Hey Bonsai? Is a device (device or suite of instruments) whose objective is that can assist you run your freelance enterprise extra effectively.

Reviewing Bonsai’s High Options

With that intro, let’s dive into the total Hey Bonsai function overview. From what I can see, Hey Bonsai began by first providing primarily two instruments: Contracts and Funds.

Since then, they’ve added a whole suite of sources for freelancers who wish to run their enterprise on autopilot.

The Bonsai freelance options which we are going to overview beneath embrace:

Bonsai Proposals

It’s no surprise the HelloBonsai web site lists proposals first of their listing of options. I’ve appeared carefully at a LOT of freelancer instruments and never a lot of them do proposals justice just like the Hey Bonsai app does.

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Certain, there’s the stuff you count on: add all the small print of the proposal, customise with photographs and your brand, and many others.

However as soon as the proposal is completed, that is the place Bonsai shines.

Inside your proposal, you possibly can create varied packages for shoppers to select from to extend your revenue by means of upselling.

The Hey Bonsai app will even notify you as soon as your consumer has seen your proposal so that you’re not sweating it out checking your e mail each 5 minutes to see in the event that they reply (I do know you’ve been there too).

As soon as your consumer does have a look proper throughout the Bonsai app, they will approve the proposal with one click on and also you’re able to go!

For extra about Bonsai Proposals, go to the HelloBonsai web site.

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Contracts with Hey Bonsai

Along with dealing with proposals extraordinarily properly, Hey Bonsai has an ideal interface for freelance contracts.

To begin with, they’ve pre-vetted authorized templates on your contracts which implies you don’t have to rent a lawyer and incur that additional value.

Rating.

Secondly, all you must do is enter all of your firm and undertaking data and, like magic, the Hey Bonsai app will generate a well-written, skilled contract for you so that you don’t have to fret about writing in legalese.

Since Hey Bonsai is out there from any machine which means you possibly can create, edit or signal these contracts regardless of the place you’re or what you’re in the course of.

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The good function of all of it? As soon as the consumer contract is signed throughout the Hey Bonsai app, they auto-generate any invoices you’ll want for the undertaking and queue them up.

That’s most likely why the HelloBonsai web site boasts {that a} Bonsai freelancer sometimes will get paid 13x quicker.

Study extra about how Bonsai contracts work right here.

Time-tracking utilizing Bonsai

For a lot of freelancers, monitoring our time is essential—significantly if in case you have a number of shoppers and a number of initiatives all taking place without delay.

And whereas there are many freelance time-tracking apps in the marketplace, it makes far more sense to make use of a time tracker that integrates together with your invoicing device.

It simply makes every part much more automated.

If you happen to determine to go together with Hey Bonsai on your invoicing device, you’ll additionally get time-tracking inbuilt. Win-win.

With the Hey Bonsai time-tracking device, you possibly can observe your hours with a single click on. Or if wanted, you possibly can enter your time manually.

Bonsai will even make it easier to ship actually fast invoices based mostly in your unpaid hours. So if in case you have 70 hours constructed up below one consumer and also you haven’t despatched an bill but, all it takes is a fast overview and you’ll submit these hours to be paid.

Study extra about Bonsai’s time-tracking capabilities right here.

Hey Bonsai Venture Administration

Alas, right here’s the place the performance of Hey Bonsai begins to fall only a bit quick.

I used to be excited to see what the Bonsai app might provide when it comes to undertaking administration. However once I actually began to look into it, I’m afraid there’s no actual undertaking administration side to the Bonsai freelance suite.

Unhappy.

I used to be confused as a result of there’s this web page that calls itself “undertaking administration” however if you happen to look carefully, it’s referred to as “Venture Administration Time Monitoring” after which goes on to speak all about time-tracking as an alternative of undertaking administration.

Diving into the app cleared it up only a bit. Principally, whenever you click on on a undertaking, you possibly can see a primary overview of the undertaking itself which is basically slick.

From there, you possibly can add duties to every undertaking, see what number of hours you’ve spent and billed on every undertaking, overview notes, and many others. It’s really fairly good.

The place Hey Bonsai does fall quick is on the “managing a number of initiatives collectively” entrance. There’s no kanban possibility, no timeline possibility, nothing like that. So actually, it’s extra of a activity supervisor than a undertaking supervisor.

If you happen to like easy, sortable, filterable to-do lists, then Hey Bonsai is an effective match for you. If not, you might wish to strive a distinct possibility from our listing of undertaking administration app for freelancers.

Bills with the Bonsai App

Expense monitoring is essential to your freelance enterprise since overspending can put you out of enterprise in a short time.

Plus, when tax season rolls round, you’ll want you had a pleasant itemized listing of bills you should use for deductions and different functions.

With Hey Bonsai, you are able to do some primary expense monitoring, however I’ve to say it falls a bit in need of another instruments I’ve used.

For starters, it doesn’t appear to have a receipt scanner—which isn’t an enormous deal for some individuals, however for others saves them from a shoebox stuffed with paper on the finish of every yr.

I additionally tried to attach my financial institution and it wasn’t obtainable to attach. Whereas I half-expected this as a result of small dimension of my native credit score union, I simply must say: FreshBooks (a prime Hey Bonsai competitor) can connect with my small financial institution.

Until you wish to enter bills manually, this is probably not the most effective device for you.

Study extra concerning the Bonsai freelance expense-tracking capabilities right here.

Bonsai Invoicing & Funds

This subsequent part is the place I anticipated Hey Bonsai to completely shine. They usually didn’t disappoint: Bonsai Invoicing is so cool!

Right here’s why:

To begin with, the Hey Bonsai app will auto-generate invoices for you based mostly on proposals or contracts you construct of their system. So, in actually seconds, you possibly can ship an bill to your consumer.

Within the “undertaking” tab I spoke about earlier, you additionally get notified when a consumer sees your bill they usually can let you recognize after they plan to pay it.

Plus, Hey Bonsai mechanically follows up with shoppers who overlook to pay their invoices (or deliberately delay fee) so that you simply don’t must waste time following up each week.

That’s a load off.

Straight from any Hey Bonsai bill, your consumer pays utilizing the standard choices: PayPal, ACH, Credit score Card. After which: they will additionally pay utilizing Bitcoin. Good.

See why I like Bonsai’s invoicing options right here.

Recurring Funds with Hey Bonsai

I like that Hey Bonsai has embraced the tradition of recurring funds for freelancers by together with it of their invoicing device.

If in case you have a consumer you wish to invoice each month, for instance, you simply change their bill from “one-time fee” to “recurring” (or my private favourite “recurring with auto-pay”).

The Bonsai app will mechanically ship your consumer their bill each month (and if it’s set to autopay, you get your cash straight away).

Very good.

You’ll be able to be taught extra about recurring funds right here.

Stories obtainable within the Hey Bonsai App

I’m unhappy to say, that is additionally a bit the place Bonsai falls quick for freelancers. Whereas the Hey Bonsai app does have some primary revenue/expense reporting for accounting functions, I actually want this data-driven firm had some cooler experiences.

For instance, wouldn’t or not it’s cool if I might see my common hourly wage over time? Ideally, that goes up.

Or if I might see the typical period of time it takes to get an bill paid from the time I ship to a consumer? Or the typical length of a undertaking in any given class or consumer folder?

That may very well be actually cool.

It’s not a deal-breaker, however I personally really feel like they might do a greater job with their freelance experiences.

Built-in scheduling for your corporation

With Bonsai’s easy-to-use scheduler, eradicate reserving and appointments backwards and forwards and pay for one much less subscription.

You’ll be able to create your reserving web page,  and arrange your web page for shoppers to select a session and choose a time in keeping with your availabilities.

It takes just some clicks on your shoppers to e-book you, reschedule their conferences, and even cancel.

You’ll be able to automate your scheduling administration and release time to focus in your work.

Banking options

Obtain, spend and save your revenue with Bonsai’s banking resolution. Easy to arrange, with no minimums required, zero hidden charges, and FDIC insured as much as $250K.

• A brand new enterprise checking account in simply minutes. No admin headache, no financial institution appointments.
• Put your funds on auto-pilot by splitting your revenue into completely different buckets.
• Categorize your card’s spending and add receipts to simplify accounting.

It is a new function and it means that you can handle the funds of your corporation from wherever and pay together with your bodily card, digital card, and even Apple pockets.

Customized consumer kinds tailor-made to your corporation

Does it have extra options?

Sure, you learn that proper. For a similar value, you’ve gotten much more, together with:

• CRM for freelancers – From prospect to undertaking and contract to fee, now you can handle every part multi functional place.
• Accounting software program – Preserve a pulse on your corporation funds with revenue experiences, expense monitoring, tax reminders, and extra.
• Not sufficient? – Take a look at the total particulars right here below the “Product” tab

What actual freelancers say about Hey Bonsai (Good and Unhealthy)

Okay, sufficient about what I believe. What are different freelancers saying about Hey Bonsai? I reached out to some giant communities of freelancers which I’m part of (together with Millo’s personal free FB group) and obtained some good responses.

Freelance designer and artist Amy Kumo shared this with me:

“I take advantage of it for my backend – a lot of my shoppers are hourly (non-retainer) and it’s simple to make use of the timer function and convert these hours straight into an bill.

“I additionally use their contract builder. The one time shoppers interface with it’s to pay invoices.

“I take advantage of Asana for my client-facing undertaking administration system in addition to my very own activity supervisor for issues like content material constructing; I just like the simplicity of simply having duties inside initiatives and that’s it, no bells and whistles.”

She appears to have seen the somewhat-lacking undertaking administration options as properly however not like me, it doesn’t appear to hassle her an excessive amount of.

And must agree: changing these timer hours into invoices with one easy click on is tremendous superior.

Sam Ochoa has been researching freelancer instruments for his enterprise and, in his opinion, Bonsai seems promising however has come up a bit quick:

“Bonsai has a tremendous look and feels nice for designers however they gave me some supply points and the white labelling is dear to get and wasn’t really white labelled so I kinda handed on them.”

József Juhász feels the identical means: “I attempted it however discovered it missing in some areas aside from proposals.”

However freelance marketer Joey Berrios instructed me he has used Hey Bonsai for some time with none situation. He significantly enjoys “the templated proposals and contracts, in addition to a number of fee choices for shoppers.

“I used to battle with contracts as a result of I consistently altered them to suit the consumer.

With the built-in legalese, it makes it simple to create one thing with possibly 5 qualifying questions.”

Conclusion: must you join Hey Bonsai?

In spite of everything of this speak, the actual query nonetheless stays: must you join Hey Bonsai? Is it the most effective freelancer device for you proper now?

Right here’s my take:

YES:

If you happen to’re a freelancer with a reasonably easy enterprise, not plenty of over-complicated initiatives, and a modest price range, then you possibly can strive Bonsai utterly free utilizing this hyperlink.

NO:
If you happen to’re an company with a lot of difficult initiatives all operating on the identical time otherwise you’re a freelancer hoping to massively develop, then you must strive one other invoicing app. If you wish to strive one thing else, you possibly can overview my prime picks beneath:

Finest options to the Hey Bonsai App

If after studying this overview you aren’t positive Bonsai is the correct alternative for you, there are different high quality choices obtainable on the market.

Listed here are simply three of my prime suggestions:

Model	Description	Score	Worth	Hyperlinks
Finest Total	Moxie • All the things it is advisable to thrive as a freelancer. From contracts, proposals, and consumer administration to invoicing, branded consumer portal, and a t…	5/5	Begins at $16/moTry free for 14 days	Study Extra or learn our Moxie overview
	Bloom • Handle your artistic enterprise in a single place. Bloom offers a strong enterprise administration and development toolset, that can assist you launch your side-g…	5/5	Begins at $7/moTry free for 7 days	Study Extra or learn our Bloom overview
	Indy • Indy simplifies enterprise administration for freelancers and small enterprise homeowners by providing an all-in-one platform. Handle proposals, contract…	5/5	Begins at $0-9/moBasic Instruments Free Without end	Study Extra
	Honeybook • A device with every part it is advisable to get enterprise finished. Over 100K freelancers belief HoneyBook to handle initiatives, e-book shoppers, ship invoices,…	4/5	Begins at $16/moTry free for 7 days	Study Extra or learn our Honeybook overview
	Dubsado • Streamline your corporation with Dubsado’s complete suite of instruments. From contracts and invoices to consumer portals and automatic workflows,…	4/5	Begins at $20/moUnlimited Free Trial	Study Extra

What did you determine?

If you happen to made it this far by means of my Bonsai overview, bravo. You’re an actual trooper. That was plenty of data.

And I’d love to listen to what you finally determined. Did you join Bonsai? Did you determine to go together with a Bonsai different? Are you continue to investigating? Have extra questions?

Let’s chat in Millo’s free FB group! I can’t wait to listen to from you.

Preserve the dialog going…

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