I debated using a different title for this post, but I felt that it was appropriate and that it would draw more attention. In this post, you will learn how to cut your Paypal processing fees. There is a very easy way to reduce the fees that Paypal takes for accepting payments.

This post will also be about FreshBooks small business accounting software. I debated titling the post something with FreshBooks, or “accounting software” in it but let’s be honest, how many of you would have clicked to read that?

I’m not going to waste anyone’s time here. I’ll lead with how to cut your Paypal fees and then expand on FreshBooks after that.

That’s right. Part of FreshBooks invoicing system allows you to accept an option that lets you accept Paypal payments (of any amount) for a $0.50 flat rate when your client pays using instant transfer! Normal Paypal fees are $0.30 PLUS 2.9% of the transaction.

Take a look at a few sample transactions with the regular fee schedule compared to FreshBooks and their $0.50 option:
I didn’t believe this at first either, but I assure you, this is real.

There is more to FreshBooks than just reducing your Paypal transaction fees, although I am hoping that saving money on accepting payments is incentive enough to look into FreshBooks.

Invoices with FreshBooks

FreshBooks makes sending invoices super easy. If you have repeat invoices going to the same clients, you simply select the client from a dropdown and all of their vital info is automatically entered for you.

When adding items to invoices, you can also save items with prices and select those from a dropdown menu. So if you sell several ad spots on your site for the same amount, you could have an item called “sidebar ad” and when you click it, the item name and price are filled right in!

You can also preview invoices before you send them and download them as PDFs if you have clients who request them that way.

You can also mail physical invoices via snail mail right from FreshBooks! You do have to add stamp credits for this. (You are given 2 for free.)

When a client gets a digital invoice, they simply click the link in the email and can view, print and pay the invoice right there!

Here’s what an invoice received looks like:

Notice the nice, big “Pay” buttons in addition to the perfectly formatted and itemized invoice? Who would’t want to pay that right away? Also notice my company’s logo, which is auto-added to each invoice.

Some other things you can do with invoicing and FreshBooks:

• easily send payment reminders
• set up recurring bills
• easily add tax to invoices
• manually enter offline payments

 

Tracking Expenses

You can also easily and securely add your business’ bank accounts and credit cards to keep track of your business expenses.

You can also manually add or delete expenses as you wish.

You can view your expenses versus income on a nice chart at your account’s homepage to get a nice snapshot of your activity.

Sending Estimates for Work

If you’re a graphic designer or anyone who sends work estimates, FreshBooks is perfect for that too! Easily send clean, professional-looking estimates with their system that acts similarly to their invoicing system.

Your potential clients will get an itemized estimate with as much detail as you care to add.

Time Tracking

If you do hourly work for clients, you can take advantage of the FreshBooks time tracking features, which allow you to add hours worked in a timesheet style.

You can also add notes to any block of hours worked.

FreshBooks takes your hourly rate and creates an invoice based on the hours that you log. So easy!

Wrap

So with all of these things, what is stopping you from grabbing a FREE 30 day trial of FreshBooks today! You can also have a free account for life with limited features!

Me? All I needed to hear was the Paypal deal and they had a customer in me!