What is Pancake App? Why use Pancake?
Pancake is online invoicing, project management, time tracking and proposal software for your business. You only pay for it once and then you're done! No monthly payments snapping at your bank balance.
Pancake app does what Freshbooks, Quickbooks and Wave does- but better.
I've been using Pancake to invoice my clients for the last two years and even though I've tried a lot of other invoicing systems, they haven't come close to what Pancake can do.
With Pancake I can:
- Create, brand and customize my invoices.
- Create payments plans for my clients (which is sadly something I couldn't do when I tried Freshbooks.)
- Send estimates and proposals.
- Bill my clients in any currency (which I couldn't do in Wave.)
- Track my time.
- Track my expenses.
- Manage my projects with my clients and other team members.
I've tried Freshbooks, Outright and lots of other systems for invoicing, but I've come back to Pancake each time because it offers more. It's probably the best business tool I've ever had the pleasure of using in my biz!
Since a lot of freelancers were asking me questions about it on Facebook, I thought I'd do a review so I could dive deeper into what Pancake app can do and show you how Pancake app can benefit your business.
5 ways to use Pancake app for your freelance business
1. Create and send proposals. Pancake has a simple, easy-to-use proposal system that allows you to create beautiful multi-page proposals. This is the perfect way to win client work! While other freelancers are sending one-page estimates or quoting directly within emails, you can create beautiful documents that will not only outline the cost of your projects but also impress your clients.
You can even create reusable sections so that creating proposals again and again doesn't take up much time.
2. Create, brand and customize your estimates and invoices. If you don't need to send multi-page proposals to your potential clients, you can send one-page estimates. You can create reusable invoice items detailing each of your services and what they include, so you don't have to keep writing out every estimate. You just choose the services the client wants and they appear on the estimate!
When the client accepts the estimate, Pancake turns it into an invoice and automatically creates a project for you in the Project Management section.
Creating invoices using Pancake app is really fun and easy! You can customize them with your brand colors and logo, and you can even tweak fonts and layout if you know CSS.
You can create payment plans that go at the bottom of your invoices, so you can easily charge your client a deposit and then split their remaining payment however you'd like- without having to create a separate invoice for each part of their payment.
Your clients can pay a number of ways through your Pancake invoices: credit cards, Paypal, Stripe, bank transfer... you name it!
3. Manage your projects. Managing projects shouldn't be complicated. With Pancake, you get a project management section where you can set project milestones, tasks, create discussions with your clients and share files.
4. Track your time. Pancake has built-in timers (and even a mobile time-tracking app!) to help you time your work and see how much time you're spending on each project. Pancake then creates timesheets and gives you a snapshot of what projects/tasks you spend the most time on.
5. Track your expenses and view financial reports. Pancake app lets you upload expenses, categorize them and attach your receipts to them. It also offers a range of financial reports that show you how much money you earn per client, how many payments are overdue, the most popular payment methods your clients use and more.
Other things you should know about Pancake app...
- It allows you to see when a client has viewed your invoices.
- You pay once for it and install it on your own website (but please beware: you can't install Pancake on Squarespace websites. Pancake is perfect for Wordpress website owners though.)
- If you don't know how to install it on your website, that's cool. The Pancake team will install it for you for free!
* You should know- the links in this post are affiliate links. But don't worry- I'm only an affiliate for products I truly love; products that have benefited my business and improved my process.
* The images in this blog post are property of Pancake App.
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