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Show HN: I've build a stupidly simple invoicing for freelancers and contractors
- _akhe 2y agoAwesome work, I ended up building a custom invoice builder as part of a larger custom SaaS for my wife & my local business, so this product resonates big time. My random internet person's opinion: Instead of a 14-day trial, I think freemium is better where you can use it for up to X # of clients and if you want to go beyond some usage then you have to pay (e.g. Vercel, GitHub, etc. model). For $9/mo, I would also expect React/Angular/Vue libraries to implement this into a larger project or other back office workflow - just my 2 cents! Thanks for sharing, I love stuff like this.
- pplante 2y agoFor $9/mo you are really expecting a library to integrate this in your other applications? I think you forgot a few numbers on that value.
- _akhe 2y agoNope didn't say to "integrate it for me". Simply said I expect there to be an npm to use in case I don't want to use the hosted UI. Very common, almost everyone does it. I would even expect that of free-to-use SaaS. Example: https://www.npmjs.com/package/easyinvoice https://www.npmjs.com/package/easyinvoice Not to mention it's pretty low effort to build to a dist and npm publish - it would be very worth it to get more people using the product. That's why it's so common.
- Champagn3Papi 2y agoI love the landing page! Did you design it yourself?
- kimelnick 2y agoYep, made it myself on Framer
- Aerbil313 2y agoFellow freelancer here. Sorry, but can't understand the business model. Cross-border money transfer fees are sometimes upwards $10. How are you able to finance that with $9/month? Or do you not handle invoicing/money transfer ala remotify.co?
- mongol 2y agoI used to create my invoices with Excel. What does this provide that I could not do with Excel? I think the big value add would be tying it with accounting software but this has no such component?
- kimelnick 2y agoYep, I plan to add an integration to connect it with Xero, Quickbooks & some others
- spacecadet 2y agoI was scrolling on mobile and happen to grab the star and chuck it, feature or a bug? lol I liked it.
- stevage 2y agoThis looks good. I use invoiceninja bet I don't love it. The 14 day trial doesn't really make sense to me though. if you want a limited trial, just limit the number of invoices you can download or send, say to 5. But a freemium model would make more sense to me. That trial is the blocker for me even trying it. What I would like to do is try it with just one client for a few months to see if i like it, then switch everything if I do.
- kimelnick 2y agoThat that I was thinking about was not quite sure. your feedback makes me think that it was a right idea
- 404mm 2y ago“Get started. It’s free” But it’s not. I don’t appreciate this kind of deceiving language. I’m just sharing this as a “free” feedback from somebody who has no need or interest in this product.
- kimelnick 2y agoBut it is. You can’t start for free? What’s wrong with that? Can you explain?
- neerajdotname2 2y agoI built neetoInvoice. https://neeto.com/neetoinvoice https://neeto.com/neetoinvoice. It's completely free because we want you in. We make money using other products.
- wodenokoto 2y agoHow much easier is this than a folder to store documents and google docs/word/apple pages for writing them? Writing an invoice, and giving it a number and save to pdf was not something I found difficult and needed online tools.
- kimelnick 2y agoHey HN. Being a freelance myself for a while I've used dozen of well-known services to run my routines. I've acknowledged that I don't need THAT many different tools & functions where I just getting lost. So I created Onigiri, a stupidly simple & convenient invoicing which allows you to create, send & store your invoices easily Nick
- peterpost2 2y agoI would suggest you put pricing on a separate page. Was about to leave and then only realised i had to scroll all the way down to find it. Other than that looks nice, though i do feel like I should say that I'm not your target audience since I've already rolled my own invoicing system.
- satvikpendem 2y ago> I would suggest you put pricing on a separate page. Was about to leave and then only realised i had to scroll all the way down to find it. This is a very common landing page design though for these types of SaaS apps, lots of them are long single pages with pricing near the bottom.
- Ancapistani 2y agoI did leave the site because I didn't see the pricing, and came back here only to post the reason.
- kimelnick 2y agoHey, thanks for noticing! I've already added a Pricing link to the navigation and it works like an anchor. This is really nice point, thanks!
- 1123581321 2y agoYes, but typically you'd put a Pricing anchor link in the menu that scrolls down to it (next to Tools/Blog, on this site.)
- micromacrofoot 2y agoThe logo looks a lot like Basecamp's
- jonplackett 2y agoYeah I’d maybe change that quick while it doesn’t matter to you. That’s a lawyer letter waiting to happen!
- dewey 2y agoI'm not a lawyer but I doubt that. Onigiri + the stylized Onigiri vs. a tent for Basecamp is pretty different. There's many brands with very simple logos that are similar.
- kimelnick 2y agoAbolutely true. It's yellow outlined Onigiri, and not the camp. Well as to look it from distance it's definitely looks similar but no intentions tbh
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- satvikpendem 2y agoYou need more information on the "What makes Onigiri unique?" section because I don't see any features that aren't already in (or are better than) other invoicing solutions. Hone in on the pain point because saying you're indie is a nice-to-have, not a pressing desire for most I'd say.
- kimelnick 2y agoYeah. I would say I should simplify LP even more and make it more straightforward though
- ChilledTonic 2y agoSee also: https://www.hellobonsai.com/ https://www.hellobonsai.com/ Which I have used on and off as a freelancer; if Onigiri is even 60% of the way there in feature parity, I’ll switch today. Bonsai has always been far to expensive for my tastes.
- kimelnick 2y agonot 60% yet but doing my best to cover the basics though
- awavering 2y agoSecond that, am also on Bonsai. Scheduling, quarterly estimated taxes, and longevity are worth paying for but I wish it wasn't so steep.
- ivanmarketingua 2y agoWhat do you love most about their features? 60% of full functionality can be useless when you need only three features but don't wanna pay for them so much.
- kimelnick 2y agoWhat the most crucial part of Bonsai for you?
- awavering 2y agoNot the OP, but I pay for Bonsai because it does a better job of competitors of bringing a variety of tools together in a way that saves me time. - Scheduling/calendar for client intros and meetings. - Client info is then available to create a project. - I track time to a project as I work on it. - I invoice monthly or at the end of the project. - Forms for collecting feedback and testimonials. - Tax tracking for knowing how much I owe the IRS every 3 months. It doesn't do any one thing outstandingly, but having a single point of reference for all my clients and my business interactions with them is really valuable. I looked at a few similar options (https://www.withmoxie.com/ https://www.withmoxie.com/, https://www.waveapps.com/ https://www.waveapps.com/) but Bonsai beat them on functionality and usability. The main part of Bonsai that I don't use is project management - that always happens in email/slack/asana/monday.
- andretti1977 2y agoThis was posted a few months ago: it's a less structured solution, but it's super simple, free and code is available: https://invoicedragon.com/ https://invoicedragon.com/
- resource_waste 2y agoMeanwhile: Why not use excel/google sheets? (Wont mention libreoffice until their UX for their powerpoint has the text size on the main screen. They have some FOSS saboteur on the team of something)
- stevage 2y agoOk can you explain how you would make an invoice PDF in Google sheets? I'd seriously consider that.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago> Why not use excel/google sheets? My invoices still use the Office 97 template I started with.
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- boatbuilder 2y agoHave been using this for a while. Yep, stupidly simple and super super useful! Thank you
- kimelnick 2y agoThank you! Thanks for your support and glad to see you onboard!
- yieldcrv 2y agothanks! I'm curious about the feature set as well everything I found for my contracting was way too expensive for what it did. hope someone can tackle payroll next! doesn't seem like competition is really working out here, but not for any real reason except some fragmentation amongst how contractors need to make invoices
- alemanek 2y agoNice, congrats on the launch. One small thing. On IPad iOS the Pricing link at the top doesn’t do anything. I was expecting it to zoom me to the pricing part of the page at the bottom. EDIT: Fixed now thanks
- kimelnick 2y agoThanks for noticing! Just fixed this and on mobile version as well
- nashashmi 2y agoStupidly simple invoicing should be easier than this. probably invoice dragon is closest to that. What you should focus on as an additional layer to stupid is database and recordkeeping. "save an invoice" -> 'list of saved invoices" -> "database of invoice, order, product, customer, [etc]". And use logins for storing this data online, with customer info, and product info. Offer fancy templates under paywall. Offer (monthly) reports under paywall. Offer data retention under paywall. Almost there :)
- welder 2y agohttps://wakatime.com/invoicing https://wakatime.com/invoicing I built an invoicing tool that automatically fills itself in based on the time you spend typing on your computer.
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- hexnuts 2y agoNot sure if it is unique to me given my ultrawide screen resolution (3440x1440 21:9), but the little arrow covers the words you and also by default. Link:https://i.imgur.com/bzmlzQn.png https://i.imgur.com/bzmlzQn.png Also, this is a SUPER edge case, since you don't control third party plugins. But I thought you should be aware what your page looks like with the Dark Reader plugin (it more or less inverts a pages colors. It's a tool to make all pages have a dark theme, figured it might be helpful. Mostly because it seems like a fairly popular plugin. link: https://i.imgur.com/YKIzVjl.png https://i.imgur.com/YKIzVjl.png)
- kimelnick 2y agoThank you, that's quite interesting. Never thought of such a wide resolutions & 3rd party plugins for dark mode
- stevage 2y agoYou definitely should include a dark mode.
- huhtenberg 2y agoArrow is at the same spot on a 1920x1080 monitor. I can drag it away, but the default position is like in GP's screenshot.
- edweis 2y agoHow does it compare to https://invoice-generator.com/ https://invoice-generator.com/ ? It’s free and it stores invoices in the browser. It’s so simple that I wonder how this solution is simpler.
- zwischenzug 2y agoCame here to say this. At the point I had to register for the OP, I was out.
- marklyon 2y agoOr Zoho.
- SamBam 2y agoSmall copy edit, in your questions section: What is Onigiri and how DOES it WORK? "How it works" is not a question in English.
- solardev 2y agoDoes it do time tracking? I'm currently a freelancer using Harvest to track time by project and task with a Chrome plug-in, and it generates an invoice every month. Works really well, even on their free plan. Wondering if Onigiri offers any benefits?
- kimelnick 2y agoI've got time tracking in plans but not yet. Still trying to figure out what would be better chrome plugin on mini native app. Why do you choose plugin from harvest now?
- solardev 2y agoWell, in my case, I'm always in Chrome anyway, so having it as a browser popup is super convenient for being able to start/pause the timer in 2 clicks. If it was an app, I'd probably never use it because it would take too much time to unlock my phone, find the app, wait for the app to launch, go to the timer, and then hit pause. It's a lot of friction for something I'll typically do 3-4 times a day, starting and stopping the timer to work on other things or just to take a break.
- kimelnick 2y agoAnd if we would speak about desktop app - how does that fill? Some app that living in your tray area?
- solardev 2y agoJust for time tracking? That seems overkill to me, in terms of having to manage the app downloads, installs, and updates across multiple machines. And I'd worry about security concerns. The Chrome extension is tied to your user profile and auto-synced across browser instances when you log in, and is just a tiny bit of JS that's sandboxed and subject to Chrome's robust permission model. I'd choose that over a desktop app any day for something as simple as a time tracker. This is the one I use, and I think it's not even an official Harvest app but a third-party thing that hooks into their API: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/harvest-time-tracker/fbpiglieekigmkeebmeohkelfpjjlaia https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/harvest-time-tracke... (edit: My bad, it DOES seem like an official app) On the other hand, if you were thinking of building the full web app into a native experience, then yeah, a desktop app would be better than an extension. But I still probably wouldn't use it over the regular website, especially if it were just an Electron/Webview wrapper anyway. In my experience the desktop apps/PWAs tend to be clunky and limit the UI in some significant way (such as not being able to easily right-click, or see the URL bar, or use uBlock, or easily silence notifications or prevent on-launch updates, etc). My work currently uses Basecamp and I tried their desktop app once or twice, but it was so bad I went back to the website.
- Joel_Mckay 2y agoUnless you are consulting local IP and corporate lawyers, than you are almost certainly making mistakes. There are a few areas one really needs to watch: 1. Dependent contractor status: Unless contracts state otherwise, a business could be hit with a massive tax bill at year end for things like pension contributions for a disgruntled contractor. 2. Comprehensive copyright transfer agreements that prevent edge-cases like disgruntled family suing your firm for ownership after someone passes. 3. Implicit/Explicit ownership of IP generated at/outside a firm depends on contract signing location, and on the nature of external projects. In some places a company can sue workers for ownership of whatever they build outside company hours unless explicitly given an exemption in the contract. 4. You don't necessarily own something just because you paid somebody outside your jurisdictional context. This is a deep copyright/trademark/patent rabbit-hole, and the answer is always "it depends"... I am not saying you are necessarily exposing people to potential liabilities, but one should at least have legal folks take a cursory glance at your business plan for the service locations. Best of luck =)
- devoid31 2y agothere isnt any way i would submit anything to this company after reading their privacy policy. going to use my content in perpetuity? like what? my invoices, my clients? my name? every single thing that has to do with my freelance business AND my invoices is pretty personal. no thanks. ill self host invoice ninja. easy peasy.
- mrits 2y agoI've been using a spreadsheet for 15 years. One to mark the granular project work log and the other to aggregate everything up and export to PDF