Free invoicing tools for your Android tablet

Jack Wallen highlights four free invoicing apps for your Android tablet that are worth your time and effort.

Working on-the-go means you have to, in some fashion, continue to invoice your clients. Or maybe you don't have to send invoices to your clients, but you still keep track of all costs associated with client work. Either way, you need the tools necessary to complete the task. For users who don't enjoy a tool like QuickBooks Online, there are plenty of free invoice tools available within the Google Play Store. But which ones are viable solutions that can serve this very purpose? Here are the ones I've found that I think are worth your time and effort.

 

Some of these tools are free versions of their Pro siblings, so the feature set might be limited. Even with that, the free versions can serve as either a low-volume invoicing solution or a gateway to a full-blown solution. Either way, you should find something to work within this group.

1. W&O Invoice

The W&O Invoice app is a great way to get your invoicing done while you're on-the-go. It allows you to manage your clients (Figure A), add items, brand your invoices with your company logo, and much more.

Figure A

Setting up a client is as simple as tapping the Add client button in the top right corner of the Client screen.

The interface for W&O is clean and very easy to use. With just a few taps, you can create invoices for either products or services, send PDF invoice by mail, track invoices, auto calculate total/tax/discount/balance due, and more. You can even sign invoices before they're converted to PDF documents. 

Before you start creating invoices with W&O, you'll want to set up both clients and items. You can do this on the fly, but it's easier if they're already set up. Even if you don't take this first step, creating both items and clients is quite easy (and can even be done from within a newly-created invoice).

2. Invoice2go Plus

One of my favorite invoicing applications is Invoice2go Plus. If you need to create invoices, estimates, credit memos, and purchase orders -- all from within an outstanding user interface (Figure B) -- Invoice2go will become your go-to invoice app. Its features include: Over 20 invoice templates, invoice for products and services, add Paypal buttons to invoices (for easy client payment), keep track of outstanding invoices, preview invoices, auto calculate tax and totals, easy-to-use reporting tools, and more.

Figure B

Invoice2go running on a Verizon-branded Samsung Galaxy Note.

Invoice2go also offers a great signature tool (Sign2go), which allows you to create a standard signature that can be applied to all invoices (without having to individually sign invoices as you create them). The only caveat to this signature tool is that it's a typed signature instead of handwritten (more along the lines of an email signature). The free version of  Invoice2go does limit both the amount of documents and items you can create.

3. Street Invoice

The Street Invoice application is still in beta, but it has plenty of features to please any on-the-go user who needs a powerhouse invoicing tool at their fingertips. Street Invoice allows you to easily bill on the spot and get paid faster. You can bill from multiple companies, and the app will eventually allow you to sync with a hosted invoicing plan (at the moment, it's all a local application). The feature set to Street Invoice includes: Create invoices, bills, estimates, quotes and credits, add PayPal link to invoices (Figure C), wirelessly sync for backup, track payments and refunds, manage items (goods and services), manage customers, and much more.

Figure C

Adding a PayPal link to invoices is simple to set up with Street Invoice.

Street Invoice also allows you to add custom notes to estimates, invoices, credits, payments, and statements. All of the major features (customers, invoices, credits, estimates, payments, refunds, and items) include an easy-to-use search function so that you can quickly locate specific documents.

Power users will also appreciate the Sync feature. At any time, you can tap the Sync button. Then, if you ever lose data, you can go into Settings and then tap Resync with server to download all your data back to the device.

4. My Invoices

The My Invoices app doesn't have the best user interface. In fact, when you first lay eyes on the My Invoice app, you would swear you were looking at something far too simple to manage your invoices (Figure D). Don't let that flat look fool you, because My Invoices still offers plenty of features.

Figure D

You can re-theme My Invoice, but they're all just re-colored variations of the same theme.

The feature list of My Invoices includes: Manage invoices/sales orders/order forms, export to PDF, preview PDF before sending to customer, manage customers/prospects/products, view invoice history, search all documents and customers, add company logo to all invoices, export documents/customers/products to Excel spreadsheet, sync between several devices, add handwritten signatures to each document, and much more.

The look, feel, and cost of My Invoices shouldn't put you off, because it's a solid tool for the job.

It's time to leave behind the paper trail of invoice chaos you're used to. You have a mobile device that can enable you to manage your billing and invoicing while you're on-the-go. Not only will this go a long way to make your mobile work more efficient, it will also make you look more professional. Give one of these apps a try, and see if it doesn't meet your mobile invoicing needs.