FreshBooks Overview & Magento 2 Integration

Today, we’d like to draw your attention to the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration but before going any further let’s explore the accounting software in more detail. Below, you will find its core features, products and benefits described. Next, we share the most intuitive and user-friendly approach to connecting Magento 2 and FreshBooks. If you are looking for other accounting platforms, check this post: Best Accounting Software Integration With Magento 2. The best accounting tools are gathered there. Also, you will find out how to connect them to your e-commerce website.

Reasons To Integrate Magento 2 with FreshBooks

If you want to avoid multiple daily processes related to core accounting tasks, you’ve come to the right place. The optimization of your workflow is the number one reason to run the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration. The platform offers an all-in-one invoicing and accounting solution for small businesses that simplifies running your enterprise and makes the entire process faster and more secure.

Like other similar systems, FreshBooks provides the ability to spend less time on a plethora of tasks related to the accounting routine. Consequently, you get more time for doing the work necessary for increasing the efficiency of your e-commerce store. What are other reasons to run the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration?

The platform is ridiculously easy to use. Developed with small businesses in mind, it is tailored to the needs of entrepreneurs who don’t have a dedicated team of specialists and need to understand how everything works as fast as possible. Therefore, FreshBooks is intuitive and straightforward. It is valid for both configuration and maintenance, so you’ll spend less time on paperwork when the system is connected to your Magento 2 website and impress your clients with professional looking invoices without tremendous efforts.

FreshBooks offers a robust set of features. The first important aspect of the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration is that you get advanced tools for creating and managing invoices. Furthermore, you will automate all related processes. Next, the accounting system enables you to organize expenses and monitor them. As a result, you will make more informed decisions. Time tracking capabilities are also a substantial benefit introduced with the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration.

The platform is organized in the cloud. It means that you can access your working directory from desktop or mobile devices wherever you are. Also, note that all the provided data is stored securely!

FreshBooks Features

Now, when you know several essential aspects of why the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration is a must, we’d like to draw your attention to the leading platform’s features.

• Simple Invoicing. As mentioned above, it is straightforward to create invoices with FreshBooks. You can freely customize them providing customers with professionally-looking documents. Thus, the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration lets you get paid faster.
• Effective Expense Management. Got used to storing receipts in a shoebox? You will forever forget about this pain tracking your expenses in FreshBooks. The process lets you reduce the number of materials which are not biodegradable making the overall expense management ridiculously easy. Keep an eye on your spending with a matter of a few clicks.
• Built-In Time Tracking. Now, you can control how much time is spent on various routine processes. The Magento 2 FreshBooks integration lets you invoice for the done work. Tracking time with FreshBooks allows logging your hours and then putting them onto an invoice automatically.
• Open Collaboration. If you work on different projects, the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration lets you keep all your conversations, files, and feedback in one place. Furthermore, all members of your team are always in sync while all your projects are on schedule.
• Get Paid Faster. With FreshBooks, you will get paid faster not only due to the professionally-looking invoices but also automatic deposits. They let you accept payments up to 11 days faster in case of credit cards. Say goodbye to less efficient clients chasing.
• Rich Reports. FreshBooks offers rich reports which are at the same time easy to understand. Your accountant will enjoy them, and you won’t lose any vital details.
• Advanced Mobility. We’ve already mentioned that FreshBooks is available in the cloud letting you work anytime and anywhere. Furthermore, there is a corresponding mobile application that simplifies your accounting duties even more. Stay connected with your clients and be able to take care of your accounting anywhere right from the smartphone screen.

FreshBooks Benefits

The most significant benefit of FreshBooks is the ability to save tons of time. Stop wasting it creating invoices manually or following up on payments. You no longer need to make attempts to figure out where your business stands because FreshBooks provides you with detailed reports that describe everything. Besides, it makes invoicing painless and expense tracking simple.

Focus your attention on what matters most: improve customer experience and grow your business while FreshBooks is doing all accounting tasks for you. Keep tabs on your business anywhere with the mobile app. It is designed to capture your expenses and send invoices. Besides, the application informs you every time you get paid.

Furthermore, it is possible to connect FreshBooks to numerous third-party apps. Thus, the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration opens nearly endless possibilities for your e-commerce business.  

And there is a reliable support team that will help you avoid learning various complicated nuances of accounting or digging deep into the software to figure out how everything works.

FreshBooks Products

Now, let’s divide FreshBooks tools into different categories. As it was mentioned above, the platform offers robust Invoice Software simplifying invoicing and billing.

Various tools for Expenses and Receipts are also represented on the platform. A powerful and at the same time simple expense tracker dramatically simplifies the corresponding routine. This product is designed to make business expense monitoring easy and fast. Keep control over your spending and check how profitable your enterprise is. FreshBooks reduces the headache of spreadsheets management or receipts storing.

And with advanced Time Tracking, you will always know how much time you’re spending on clients and projects. A corresponding invoice can be created with a click.

The Project Management tools of FreshBooks lets you collaborate with a team within a unified environment where various information can be shared. Members to keep things moving forward and deliver amazing results, faster.

There is also Estimating Software designed to set clear expectations with estimates and proposals. As a result, you dramatically increase the efficiency of your projects taking the guesswork out of planning.

Software for Online Payments lets you accept payments two times faster. Your clients get a simple mechanism for paying invoices.

And with Financial Reports, you will keep your business growing making well-informed decisions. Note that reports are easy to understand and at the same time quite informative.

Pricing

Before running the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration, you need to choose one of the provided pricing plans. The platform lets you start with Lite designed for self-employed entrepreneurs who are on the go. The plan costs $15 per month and allows up to 5 billable clients.

For small businesses with big goals, FreshBooks offers the Plus plan which costs $25 per month. With this plan, you can connect up to 50 billable clients to the system.

Of course, there is the Premium plan that extends the number of billable clients up to 500. Its price is $50 per month.

If you need more extended conditions, choose the Select plan which has custom pricing.

The basic plan offers all core FreshBooks features + unlimited invoicing and time/expense tracking + online credit card payments. As for the most extended version of the platform, it adds unlimited proposals, double-entry accounting tools, various automation processes (recurring invoices, late payment reminders, late fee charges), bank reconciliation, and additional reports.

Furthermore, you get a personal account manager, customized platform training, lower transaction rates, integrations with other accounting systems, and advanced payments.

Magento 2 FreshBooks Integration

Now, when you are familiar with the core features, benefits, and products of FreshBooks, let’s take a look at how to connect Magento 2 to the accounting system. Unfortunately, it is impossible to integrate the two platforms using the default Magento 2 import and export tools. Therefore, we recommend you to install the Improved Import & Export Magento 2 extension – a very convenient module that dramatically simplifies all possible integrations between your e-commerce store and any external systems. What does it do?

The extension enables you to automate data transfers between Magento 2 and FreshBooks by establishing a bridge between the two platforms. It uses API connections to make data transfers seamless, but what exact information can be passed?

Product Data Transfers

When you add a new product or update an existing one, the Improved Import & Export Magento 2 extension transfers all the corresponding data to FreshBooks.

Order Data Transfers and Invoices Synchronization

When a customer places an order on your Magento 2 website, and it is paid successfully, an invoice is created in FreshBooks. Note that the invoice can be automatically associated with the original customer, the customer’s organization, or an online sale customer. Besides, associated products and payments can be created as well.

Customer Data Transfers

When a new customer registers on your Magento 2 website, Improved Import & Export sends the corresponding data to FreshBooks. When a registered customer applies changes to an existing account, the module also transfers the data to your accounting platform automatically.

Income Tracking

Income tracking is another opportunity related to the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration based on Improved Import & Export. Our extension can quickly transfer income data from your e-commerce website to FreshBooks and back. For some integrations, it even updates incomes to your profit and loss statement automatically according to a schedule or when specific conditions are met.

Payment Methods Mapping

Another opportunity related to the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration is related to payment methods. You can easily map them enabling free data transfers between the platforms. Keep track of different payment methods popular among your customers in your Magento 2 with Improved Import & Export.

Tax Rates Mapping

The Improved Import & Export module provides the ability to map tax rates of Magento 2 orders to FreshBooks ensuring that tax calculation in Magento 2 and FreshBooks are correct.

Other Features

The Improved Import & Export extension provides the following features useful for the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration:

• Choose what entities to synchronize: products, customers, orders, invoices, credit memos, etc;
• Enable automated data transfers via schedules or events (e.g., an order was placed);
• Map Magento 2 attributes to ones used in FreshBooks with presets to synchronize the two systems within a few clicks.

As you can see, it is possible to perform your integration operation regularly via flexible schedule settings or triggers. Also, note that Improved Import & Export lets you integrate FreshBooks with Magento 2 in several ways. You can load data in one direction or establish complete data synchronization.

FreshBooks API

Since the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration is based on APIs, we need to say a few more words about this method. Since Magento 2 lets you transfer data via CSV files only, you cannot integrate both systems without third-party solutions.

The Improved Import & export Magento 2 extension supports several API standards that can be utilized in the integration, but the main one is REST.

As for FreshBooks, it offers an API interface for accessing data via JSON. The availability of API makes it much easier to create apps that integrate with external systems such as Magento 2. Creating and sending invoices, pulling lists of client data, transferring data to third-party services, and more opportunities are introduced. For further information, follow this link: FreshBooks API.

Improved Import & Export Magento 2 Extension Features

Now, when you are familiar with the main directions of the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration, we’d like to draw your attention to the Improved Import & Export features that simplify the data synchronization between the two platforms. Since our module introduces absolutely new data transfer tools, completely replacing the default import and export functionality introduced in Magento 2, you can not only create a bridge between the two systems but also avoid many issues associated with the built-in tools. Note that the native import/export solutions don’t let you:

• Establish API connections;
• Automate data transfers via cron or triggers;
• Map attributes;
• Transfer all entities;

As a result, seamless integration is impossible. You have to repeat numerous processes every time an update is required wasting tons of time since the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration requires multiple updates per day.

Luckily, the Improved Import & Export lets you transfer all information from Magento 2 to FreshBooks and back automatically: different external attributes and their values can be matched to ones used internally, multiple API connections – leveraged in the integration, and all entities – imported/exported! As a result, you effortlessly synchronize FreshBooks and Magento 2.

Automated Import & Export

The FreshBooks Magento 2 integration is a continuous process that requires advanced automation. And Improved Import & Export provides the ability to avoid daily duties related to data transfers by allowing you to automate data transfers in two different ways. As mentioned above, you can streamline either schedules or event-based triggers.

Schedules

Schedules are often used to automate different data transfers, and the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration is not an exception. The flow of information between the two systems can be based on cron. It is only necessary to set a time interval so that the extension could import/exports updates according to it. Our module lets you create fully independent import and export jobs with several different options:

• custom intervals,
• customizable, predefined update schemes,
• profiles with no schedules (which are suitable for maintaining such tasks as migration to Magento 2),
• and asynchronous data transfers (launch every scheduled profile manually whenever you want).

Сonfiguring a schedule is quite simple:

Events

Event-based triggers are the other huge improvement provided by the Improved Import & Export extension. The introduced approach is even more useful when it comes to the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration since it requires real-time updates. Use the following algorithm to automate data transfers between the two systems:

1. Create a trigger;
2. Connect it to an event;
3. Link an action to a trigger to launch it automatically.

Transferring data to FreshBooks with the help of a trigger dramatically simplifies the integration as follows: something happens in Magento 2 -> the add-on transfers the corresponding data to the accounting platform.

Let’s take a look at a short example to understand the feature better. A customer makes a purchase on your website; a new order is placed; the payment is successful; the extension automatically transfers the corresponding data to FreshBooks to create an invoice there.

Note that in the case of FreshBooks Integration Add-On for Improved Import & Export, you don’t have to create this scheme manually! Follow the link below for more information regarding triggers: How to Run Magento 2 Import or Export After Specific System Event or Process.

Advanced Mapping Features

With Improved Import & Export extension it’s not a problem to map FreshBooks attributes to ones used in Magento 2 to enable automated data transfers between the two systems. The module radically simplifies the FreshBooks Magento 2 integration in terms of attributes and their values since you can rely on the following features:

Mapping Presets

Use our module to solve the problem of different attribute standards without headaches and enable the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration in the most intuitive way with mapping presets – predefined mapping schemes that eliminate manual attributes matching.

Our extension performs all the necessary stages automatically. It analyzes the input data file transferred from FreshBooks, discovers third-party attributes, and matches them to the ones used in Magento. The same algorithm is applied to export processes. Magento 2 FreshBooks Integration Add-One for Improved Import & Export knows what attributes are required by the accounting system and modifies ones utilized in Magento according to the requirements of the external platform. You only need to select a matching scheme suitable for your migration. The process is shown below:

Matching Interface

Importing/exporting data between FreshBooks and Magento 2 can also be based on manual attributes mapping right in the Magento admin! The Improved Import & Export module provides a unique matching interface which offers full control over the process: you specify external (internal) attributes and link them to the corresponding internal (external) ones in a particular grid enabling the data transfer. Here is how everything works:

Attribute Values Mapping

The Improved Import & Export Magento 2 extension offers a separate interface for attribute values mapping that provides the ability to simplify the Magento 2 FreshBooks synchronization and automate it entirely. With our plugin, third-party designations will no longer interrupt transfers since you can choose an external value from FreshBooks and specify the internal one from Magento 2 as a replacement. Repeat the procedure until all third-party designations are mapped to ones utilized in Magento 2. Note that the created schemes are saved and applied for further updates. For details, read this article: Attribute Values Mapping.

Attribute Values Editing

If attribute values mapping is not enough, streamline attribute values editing while transferring data between FreshBooks and Magento 2. To modify attribute values in bulk, use the following rules:

• Add a prefix to multiple attribute values;
• Add a suffix to numerous attribute values;
• Split various attribute values;
• Merge multiple attribute values.

Note that you can combine them and create conditions to improve the efficiency of the applied changes. Don’t miss the flexibility of our module! For further information, follow this link: How to Modify Attribute Values During Import and Export in Magento 2.

Category Mapping

Category mapping is a feature developed for product data transfers from any systems to Magento 2. It lets merchants match external categories to ones used internally reducing the number of difficulties that usually occur when products are transferred from other platforms to Magento 2. The Improved Import & Export module allows mapping external product categories to ones used in your catalog as follows:

To create new categories right in the import job, choose a parent category and specify a new one that will be generated automatically. Thus, the extension will link products to it during the import process. If your Magento 2 website doesn’t include a category from an imported file, it’s no longer a problem. You can find more information about this feature here: Category Mapping.

Attributes On The Fly

And if a data file transfer from FreshBooks lacks attributes, the Improved Import & Export Magento 2 extension lets you create them on the fly via the following general form:

Attribute|attribute_property_name:attribute_property_value|…

The feature is described here in more detail: Product attributes import.

Extended Connectivity Options

As for the extended connectivity options, they are designed to improve all data transfers as well as make the seamless Magento 2 FreshBooks integration possible. With Improved Import & Export, you can use multiple file formats and two alternative ways of transferring data between your e-commerce store and external systems. As for FreshBooks, the REST API standard is used.

Multiple File Standards

The Magento 2 FreshBooks integration cannot be established via data files, but you should know that the Improved Import & Export extension supports CSV, XML, JSON, ODS, and Excel. You can use them for other integrations.

Another feature that radically simplifies data transfers into Magento 2 from other systems is support for compressed data. Our module can unpack file archives automatically while the default tools work with uncompressed CSV files only!

Multiple File Sources

The following file sources can be leveraged to import and export data files between Magento 2 and external systems:

• FTP/SFTP. Transfer data files using a local or remote server.
• Dropbox. Use a Dropbox account to establish a connection between the two systems. Alternatively, you can rely on Box, OneDrive, Google Drive, iCloud, and Amazon Drive.
• URL. A direct URL can be used to import a data file as well.

Alternative Ways of Import & Export

As for the alternative ways of import and export, they are not represented in Magento 2 by default. However, direct API connections make the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration possible. As we’ve just mentioned, the Improved Import & Export extension provides the ability to leverage REST for the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration as well as other APIs if necessary. In addition to this standard, our extension supports SOAP and GraphQL.

Note that all API connections are fully compatible with the extension’s features so that you can leverage mapping, schedules, and triggers while transferring data from Magento 2 to FreshBooks via REST API.

As for the intermediary services, the extension allows using Google Sheets, Office 365 Excel, and Zoho Sheet. Although they cannot be utilized in the FreshBooks Magento 2 integration, you can streamline them to connect to other systems. The following image shows how to use Google Sheets to move data to Magento 2:

The video below displays our extension in action:

Final Words

FreshBooks is reliable accounting software for small and midsize businesses. It is powerful and easy to use. And do to the availability of multiple plans, you can leverage its outstanding scalability. As for the Magento 2 FreshBooks integration, you can seamlessly connect your e-commerce website to the accounting software using the Improved Import & Export extension. For further information regarding the integration, follow the link below and contact our support:

Get Improved Import & Export Magento 2 Extension