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Whats up Bonsai payments itself as an all-in-one freelancing resolution for the world’s finest artistic freelancers (really, their title is solely Bonsai, however their website is HelloBonsai.com).

However with so many freelancer invoicing apps or different productiveness instruments on the market for freelancers as of late, it begs the query:

Is Whats up Bonsai an excellent match for you as a freelancer?

On this in-depth Whats up Bonsai assessment, I’ll dive into the great, the dangerous, and the “simply okay” concerning the platform that claims it’ll assist you to “put your freelancing on autopilot.” I’ll additionally embrace a number of voices and opinions from the freelance neighborhood—actual freelancers who’ve used Whats up Bonsai to run their freelance enterprise.

By the top of this Whats up Bonsai assessment, you’ll know whether or not or not it’s an excellent match for you and in the event you ought to join Bonsai or not.

In full transparency, we’re an affiliate accomplice with Bonsai. I’ve performed my finest to not let this affect my assessment beneath and, to maintain issues utterly balanced, we’re additionally affiliate companions with a bunch of Bonsai opponents. In case you click on a Bonsai (or competitor) hyperlink on this article, we might obtain a small fee at no further price to you.

The brief reply: do you have to use Bonsai?

In case you are brief on time or don’t need to get into all the small print of this Whats up Bonsai assessment, then I can inform you proper now whether or not or not you must use the Bonsai freelance suite:

YES: In case you’re a freelancer with a reasonably easy enterprise, not a variety of over-complicated initiatives, and a modest funds, then you may attempt Bonsai utterly free utilizing this hyperlink.

NO: In case you’re an company with a number of difficult initiatives all operating on the identical time otherwise you’re a freelancer hoping to massively develop, then you must attempt one other invoicing app. (My high suggestions are on the backside of this put up.)

For individuals who need a extra complete assessment of the Bonsai app, right here we go:

What’s Whats up Bonsai?

Earlier than we go too deep into the Whats up Bonsai app, let’s speak about precisely what it’s and why it exists.

In an interview with Hacker Midday, Bonsai’s founder Matt Brown defined the freelance device was constructed to “deal with the issues that freelancers don’t like doing or don’t know do, to allow them to deal with the work they love and nonetheless get paid.

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“Which means,” Matt continued, “we streamline proposals, contracts, time monitoring, invoices, bills, and accounting designed particularly for digital freelancers.”

So what’s Whats up Bonsai? Is a device (device or suite of instruments) whose goal is that can assist you run your freelance enterprise extra effectively.

Reviewing Bonsai’s Prime Options

With that intro, let’s dive into the complete Whats up Bonsai function assessment. From what I can see, Whats up Bonsai began by first providing primarily two instruments: Contracts and Funds.

Since then, they’ve added a complete suite of sources for freelancers who need to run their enterprise on autopilot.

The Bonsai freelance options which we’ll assessment beneath embrace:

Bonsai Proposals

It’s no surprise the HelloBonsai website lists proposals first of their record of options. I’ve appeared carefully at a LOT of freelancer instruments and never a lot of them do proposals justice just like the Whats up Bonsai app does.

Certain, there’s the stuff you count on: add all the small print of the proposal, customise with photographs and your brand, and many others.

However as soon as the proposal is completed, that is the place Bonsai shines.

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Inside your proposal, you may create varied packages for shoppers to select from to extend your revenue by means of upselling.

The Whats up Bonsai app may also notify you as soon as your shopper has considered your proposal so that you’re not sweating it out checking your electronic mail each 5 minutes to see in the event that they reply (I do know you’ve been there too).

As soon as your shopper does have a look proper inside the Bonsai app, they’ll approve the proposal with one click on and also you’re able to go!

For extra about Bonsai Proposals, go to the HelloBonsai website.

Contracts with Whats up Bonsai

Along with dealing with proposals extraordinarily properly, Whats up Bonsai has a fantastic interface for freelance contracts.

To start with, they’ve pre-vetted authorized templates on your contracts which suggests you don’t have to rent a lawyer and incur that further price.

Rating.

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Secondly, all it’s important to do is enter all of your firm and mission info and, like magic, the Whats up Bonsai app will generate a well-written, skilled contract for you so that you don’t have to fret about writing in legalese.

Since Whats up Bonsai is accessible from any system which means you may create, edit or signal these contracts irrespective of the place you’re or what you’re in the midst of.

The good function of all of it? As soon as the shopper contract is signed inside the Whats up Bonsai app, they auto-generate any invoices you’ll want for the mission and queue them up.

That’s most likely why the HelloBonsai website boasts {that a} Bonsai freelancer sometimes will get paid 13x quicker.

Be taught extra about how Bonsai contracts work right here.

Time-tracking utilizing Bonsai

For a lot of freelancers, monitoring our time is crucial—significantly when you have a number of shoppers and a number of initiatives all taking place without delay.

And whereas there are many freelance time-tracking apps in the marketplace, it makes far more sense to make use of a time tracker that integrates along with your invoicing device.

It simply makes every thing way more automated.

In case you resolve to go together with Whats up Bonsai on your invoicing device, you’ll additionally get time-tracking in-built. Win-win.

With the Whats up Bonsai time-tracking device, you may monitor your hours with a single click on. Or if wanted, you may enter your time manually.

Bonsai may also assist you to ship actually fast invoices primarily based in your unpaid hours. So when you have 70 hours constructed up beneath one shopper and also you haven’t despatched an bill but, all it takes is a fast assessment and you may submit these hours to be paid.

Be taught extra about Bonsai’s time-tracking capabilities right here.

Whats up Bonsai Venture Administration

Alas, right here’s the place the performance of Whats up Bonsai begins to fall only a bit brief.

I used to be excited to see what the Bonsai app might provide by way of mission administration. However after I actually began to look into it, I’m afraid there’s no actual mission administration facet to the Bonsai freelance suite.

Unhappy.

I used to be confused as a result of there’s this web page that calls itself “mission administration” however in the event you look carefully, it’s known as “Venture Administration Time Monitoring” after which goes on to speak all about time-tracking as an alternative of mission administration.

Diving into the app cleared it up only a bit. Principally, while you click on on a mission, you may see a primary overview of the mission itself which is absolutely slick.

From there, you may add duties to every mission, see what number of hours you’ve spent and billed on every mission, assessment notes, and many others. It’s really fairly good.

The place Whats up Bonsai does fall brief is on the “managing a number of initiatives collectively” entrance. There’s no kanban choice, no timeline choice, nothing like that. So actually, it’s extra of a activity supervisor than a mission supervisor.

In case you like easy, sortable, filterable to-do lists, then Whats up Bonsai is an efficient match for you. If not, you could need to attempt a unique choice from our record of mission administration app for freelancers.

Bills with the Bonsai App

Expense monitoring is crucial to your freelance enterprise since overspending can put you out of enterprise in a short time.

Plus, when tax season rolls round, you’ll want you had a pleasant itemized record of bills you should utilize for deductions and different functions.

With Whats up Bonsai, you are able to do some primary expense monitoring, however I’ve to say it falls a bit wanting another instruments I’ve used.

For starters, it doesn’t appear to have a receipt scanner—which isn’t an enormous deal for some folks, however for others saves them from a shoebox filled with paper on the finish of every yr.

I additionally tried to attach my financial institution and it wasn’t accessible to attach. Whereas I half-expected this because of the small measurement of my native credit score union, I simply must say: FreshBooks (a high Whats up Bonsai competitor) can connect with my small financial institution.

Except you need to enter bills manually, this might not be one of the best device for you.

Be taught extra concerning the Bonsai freelance expense-tracking capabilities right here.

Bonsai Invoicing & Funds

This subsequent part is the place I anticipated Whats up Bonsai to completely shine. They usually didn’t disappoint: Bonsai Invoicing is so cool!

Right here’s why:

To start with, the Whats up Bonsai app will auto-generate invoices for you primarily based on proposals or contracts you construct of their system. So, in actually seconds, you may ship an bill to your shopper.

Within the “mission” tab I spoke about earlier, you additionally get notified when a shopper sees your bill and so they can let after they plan to pay it.

Plus, Whats up Bonsai routinely follows up with shoppers who overlook to pay their invoices (or deliberately delay cost) so that you simply don’t must waste time following up each week.

That’s a load off.

Instantly from any Whats up Bonsai bill, your shopper pays utilizing the standard choices: PayPal, ACH, Credit score Card. After which: they’ll additionally pay utilizing Bitcoin. Good.

See why I like Bonsai’s invoicing options right here.

Recurring Funds with Whats up Bonsai

I like that Whats up Bonsai has embraced the tradition of recurring funds for freelancers by together with it of their invoicing device.

When you’ve got a shopper you need to invoice each month, for instance, you simply change their bill from “one-time cost” to “recurring” (or my private favourite “recurring with auto-pay”).

The Bonsai app will routinely ship your shopper their bill each month (and if it’s set to autopay, you get your cash immediately).

Very good.

You’ll be able to be taught extra about recurring funds right here.

Studies accessible within the Whats up Bonsai App

I’m unhappy to say, that is additionally a piece the place Bonsai falls brief for freelancers. Whereas the Whats up Bonsai app does have some primary earnings/expense reporting for accounting functions, I actually want this data-driven firm had some cooler reviews.

For instance, wouldn’t it’s cool if I might see my common hourly wage over time? Ideally, that goes up.

Or if I might see the common quantity of time it takes to get an bill paid from the time I ship to a shopper? Or the common length of a mission in any given class or shopper folder?

That could possibly be actually cool.

It’s not a deal-breaker, however I personally really feel like they may do a greater job with their freelance reviews.

Built-in scheduling for your enterprise

With Bonsai’s easy-to-use scheduler, get rid of reserving and appointments forwards and backwards and pay for one much less subscription.

You’ll be able to create your reserving web page,  and arrange your web page for shoppers to select a session and decide a time in response to your availabilities.

It takes just some clicks on your shoppers to e-book you, reschedule their conferences, and even cancel.

You’ll be able to automate your scheduling administration and unencumber time to focus in your work.

Banking options

Obtain, spend and save your earnings with Bonsai’s banking resolution. Simple to arrange, with no minimums required, zero hidden charges, and FDIC insured as much as $250K.

• A brand new enterprise checking account in simply minutes. No admin headache, no financial institution appointments.
• Put your funds on auto-pilot by splitting your earnings into totally different buckets.
• Categorize your card’s spending and add receipts to simplify accounting.

This can be a new function and it permits you to handle the funds of your enterprise from anyplace and pay along with your bodily card, digital card, and even Apple pockets.

Customized shopper kinds tailor-made to your enterprise

Gather and centralize your shopper info from consumption kinds to end-of-project surveys. Ship kinds to particular shoppers, on particular initiatives, for particular use circumstances with ease.

With customizable subject varieties, you may create the proper type to suit your wants.

Standardize your end-to-end shopper course of by reusing the identical kinds for brand new initiatives. These kinds work along with your shopper record and initiatives. Embed your lead seize type in your website or ship surveys through Bonsai.

Bonsai comes with a ton of type templates. ❤️

Does it have extra options?

Sure, you learn that proper. For a similar worth, you could have much more, together with:

• CRM for freelancers – From prospect to mission and contract to cost, now you can handle every thing multi functional place.
• Accounting software program – Hold a pulse on your enterprise funds with earnings reviews, expense monitoring, tax reminders, and extra.
• Not sufficient? – Try the complete particulars right here beneath the “Product” tab

What actual freelancers say about Whats up Bonsai (Good and Unhealthy)

Okay, sufficient about what I believe. What are different freelancers saying about Whats up Bonsai? I reached out to a couple giant communities of freelancers which I’m part of (together with Millo’s personal free FB group) and received some good responses.

Freelance designer and artist Amy Kumo shared this with me:

“I take advantage of it for my backend – a lot of my shoppers are hourly (non-retainer) and it’s simple to make use of the timer function and convert these hours straight into an bill.

“I additionally use their contract builder. The one time shoppers interface with it’s to pay invoices.

“I take advantage of Asana for my client-facing mission administration system in addition to my very own activity supervisor for issues like content material constructing; I just like the simplicity of simply having duties inside initiatives and that’s it, no bells and whistles.”

She appears to have observed the somewhat-lacking mission administration options as properly however in contrast to me, it doesn’t appear to trouble her an excessive amount of.

And must agree: changing these timer hours into invoices with one easy click on is tremendous superior.

Sam Ochoa has been researching freelancer instruments for his enterprise and, in his opinion, Bonsai appears to be like promising however has come up a bit brief:

“Bonsai has a tremendous look and feels nice for designers however they gave me some supply points and the white labelling is pricey to get and wasn’t really white labelled so I kinda handed on them.”

József Juhász feels the identical means: “I attempted it however discovered it missing in some areas aside from proposals.”

However freelance marketer Joey Berrios informed me he has used Whats up Bonsai for some time with none difficulty. He significantly enjoys “the templated proposals and contracts, in addition to a number of cost choices for shoppers.

“I used to battle with contracts as a result of I always altered them to suit the shopper.

With the built-in legalese, it makes it simple to create one thing with perhaps 5 qualifying questions.”

Conclusion: do you have to join Whats up Bonsai?

In any case of this discuss, the actual query nonetheless stays: do you have to join Whats up Bonsai? Is it one of the best freelancer device for you proper now?

Right here’s my take:

YES:

In case you’re a freelancer with a reasonably easy enterprise, not a variety of over-complicated initiatives, and a modest funds, then you may attempt Bonsai utterly free utilizing this hyperlink.

NO:
In case you’re an company with a number of difficult initiatives all operating on the identical time otherwise you’re a freelancer hoping to massively develop, then you must attempt one other invoicing app. If you wish to attempt one thing else, you may assessment my high picks beneath:

Finest alternate options to the Whats up Bonsai App

If after studying this assessment you aren’t positive Bonsai is the appropriate selection for you, there are different high quality choices accessible on the market.

Listed below are simply three of my high suggestions:

What did you resolve?

In case you made it this far by means of my Bonsai assessment, bravo. You’re an actual trooper. That was a variety of info.

And I’d love to listen to what you in the end determined. Did you join Bonsai? Did you resolve to go together with a Bonsai various? Are you continue to investigating? Have extra questions?

Let’s chat in Millo’s free FB group! I can’t wait to listen to from you.

Hold the dialog going…

Over 10,000 of us are having day by day conversations over in our free Fb group and we might like to see you there. Be a part of us!

Written by Preston Lee

Editor at Millo.co

Preston Lee is the founding father of Millo the place he and his workforce have been serving to freelancers thrive for over a decade. His recommendation has been featured by Entrepreneur, Inc, Forbes, Adobe, and lots of extra.

Preston’s Articles

Reviewed & edited by Alex Skinner, at Millo.

At Millo, we attempt to publish solely one of the best, most reliable and dependable content material for freelancers. You’ll be able to be taught extra by reviewing our editorial coverage.