Any free/simple billing websites available?

January 26, 2009 1:18 AM

Is there a free website/service that allows simple billing? I pay for my daughters cell phone bill monthly but she has to pay $10 towards it. I'd like to "bill her" via email automatically every month to get her introduced to the responsibility of paying bills on time. Ideally this "billing service" would be free, would allow me to enter her email and sms and keep a running tab of what she owes. Has anyone built this yet? If not, any other suggestions?
posted by olddogeyes to Work & Money (11 answers total)

Um, perhaps the free version of Freshbooks would help, since you could invoice her via email from there...

Barring that, using Google Spreadsheets and sharing a sheet with her in read-only so that she can see which bills are due when and which have been paid?
posted by disillusioned at 2:33 AM on January 26, 2009

This Inquirer article about Paypal might be helpful.
posted by devnull at 2:35 AM on January 26, 2009

You can send her a Paypal invoice easy enough. She can pay it via check on the Paypal system, or to you personally and you mark it paid.
posted by letahl at 3:56 AM on January 26, 2009

Best answer: I've used Billmonk before for exactly this, with my brother. It allows you to set automatic bills, send email or sms reminders.
posted by deadtrouble at 4:10 AM on January 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

There are lots of online 'invoicing' systems to do most of what you need ('billing' implies there's money moving in the system, too).

http://invoicemachine.com/
https://invoice.zoho.com/
http://www.blinksale.com/
http://www.greenerbilling.com/

For one or two invoices a month, they're free (you need to pay to get into meaningful volumes like 20-100 per month). And I believe that they all let you set up automatic recurring invoices every month and statements to date.
posted by rokusan at 6:32 AM on January 26, 2009

also, billshare.
posted by alice ayres at 7:59 AM on January 26, 2009

I use Freshbooks for my invoicing and like it a lot. You can easily set up an invoice to automatically create and send monthly. It's free for up to three clients, with no limit on number of invoices you can send.
posted by camcgee at 8:24 AM on January 26, 2009

I'm a fan of blinksale. They've got good paypal integration that will mark your invoice as paid as soon as you receive the money.
posted by systematic at 1:49 PM on January 26, 2009

seconding Billmonk, my roommate and I use it and love it.
posted by theDrizzle at 5:00 PM on January 26, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks everyone! Exactly what I needed!
posted by olddogeyes at 9:16 AM on January 27, 2009

Response by poster: Billmonk is great - that's what I'm using .. thanks!
posted by olddogeyes at 10:31 AM on February 4, 2009