Hello Bonsai is a tool to help with all the admin stuff small business owners have to deal with. In this post I introduce three of the best new features Hello Bonsai has released recently and how they can help your small business or startup.
What is Hello Bonsai? ... I hear you say! In a nutshell, Hello Bonsai is a tool that allows you to send invoices, contracts, and proposals, as well as track your time and expenses. You can also record basic client details and communicate with your clients through the tool itself. Hello Bonsai is a great all-in-one platform which is especially helpful for freelancers and sole traders and I have been using it for my own business for several years now. In the blog article I want to introduce you to 3 recent features that Hello Bonsai has introduced and that come in quite handy when you're working on the admin side of your business.
In Hello Bonsai you can attach invoices not only to specific clients, but also to certain projects, which is great. However, the new bundled invoices feature lets bundle up several invoices for one client and send them to the client all at once. This is particularly helpful if you are working on different projects for one client and have a separate invoice for each of your projects. Maybe each project also calls for several invoices. With the new feature you can gather several of these invoices together, send them off, but still give your client the option to look at each invoice separately when needed. He can then pay all these invoices at once. Even though you can't mark a bundled invoice as "paid" yet, you can still manually go in and mark each of the separate invoices as paid. Also, keep in mind that you currently can't bundle invoices which have different currencies. However this should not be a problem for most people as usually one client gets billed in the same currency at all times (e.g. a client from the US gets billed in US dollars at all times, no matter the project or invoice). If you want to learn more about bundled invoices, you can do so here: https://help.hellobonsai.com/en/articles/5448985-can-i-invoice-my-client-for-multiple-projects-at-once-bundled-invoice
When you send an invoice using Hello Bonsai, you can set up an individual message which is being attached to your invoice. This was possible for quite a while now, however now you are able to customise the message much better. For instance, you can change the text formatting of your message, as well as the subject of your message. The interface also shows you if you have client reminders enabled and gives you the opportunity to schedule your message and invoice to the same date as the issue date (of course you can also send it right away if needed). What I also love is that there now is a preview feature for your message. Previously you were only able to preview the invoice itself, but not the attached message. If you want to learn more about this functionality, have a look here: https://headwayapp.co/bonsai-updates/new-experience-while-sending-invoices-and-proposals-210719
This is a small but super useful update for anyone sending proposals to (potential) clients. You are now able to put the line items on your proposal in any order you like, as well as do the same for any packages you want to offer to your clients. This makes setting up proposals much faster and less painful (and isn't that something we all want?).
So, if Hello Bonsai sounds interesting to you, check it out or if you are already using it definitely have a play with the new features I've outlined above. Also, if you didn't know, Hello Bonsai has a nifty little app for your phone which lets you see your invoices and expenses on the go (plus you can even draft and send new invoices when you're out and about as well). And don't forget, you can also use it's built-in time tracker, which you can attach to a client project of your choice. If you haven't downloaded Hello Bonsai's app yet, I'd highly recommend you do so. Obviously you need a Hello Bonsai account to make use of it, which you can check out here (affiliate link).
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