Bonsai Reviews: 4.4/5 — Solid Choice

Quick and easy interface to create a customer profile or send out a contract for signature. Allows sample customer to get experience with how the contracts or invoicing works. Customer support is always quick to repsond. Either same day or the next.

Does not have semi annual taxes. Takes a couple weeks for first couple of payouts which is a long time compared to other processors i've used.

This has time tracking, invoicing works well and able to set different types of contracts is really benenficial.

It allows me to manage my proposals, invoices and payments all in one place. I also like that I can manage my services, packaging, contacts. I also think the scheduling too, forms and expense tracking tools are handy as well.

I don't dislike anything but I wish that you could export your contacts and form responses into csv files.

It allows me to have all of the key things i need for my business in one place. It definitiely helps me track tasks, contracts, and proposals.

I like the template proposals that are offered for each type of project which I can engage in with my accounting clients.

At the current time, I do not have much I dislike.

Streamlining sending proposals to potential leads and keeping track of which potential clients are leads and which are clients

I love that Bonsai has all the resources I need and is very affordable.

I wish there were more resources I could use.

Client Management and organization

We are a design as a service company, we need to manage several clients, invoicing and tracking payments, Bonsai has been our best solution for it.

For now, everything works like it shoulhd

Managing invoices, accounting and payment solution

A lot of softwares advertise being an all-in-one resource for freelancers, but, as a freelance designer myself, it was always missing something - until I came across Bonsai. It's minimal, affordable, and super user-friendly. It took me no time to completely set my business up for success compared to other platforms with it's contracts, invoices, taxes, and even tasks taken care of. When I had a question, Bonsai's support team was quick to respond and solve my problem. I use Bonsai every day and look forward to seeing my business grow with them!

I would really like for Bonsai to further develop the task section or develop some kind of integration with Asana. The task section is helpful, but not entirely as advanced as others that I can do without a task management platform.

Becoming a freelancer in 2024, I wanted a program that I could send proposals, invoices, and contracts, keep a record of my receipts and taxes, manage my clients, and keep time for those clients. Bonsai had that in one platform for me so that I didn't have to purchase 3-4 different programs. Although I wasn't originally looking for these things, Bonsai also had banking, forms, and task management which I have utilized since subscribing.

Bonsai is a simple way to create all of your forms, proposals, invoices and so much more all in the same place.

I haven't come across anything about Bonsai that I dislike yet.

Bonsai is one place online that allows me to onboard my clients, get a proposal too them, and invoice them and then they can pay for all of my services online through the Bonsai invoices.

I like it in its entirety. It's full service a covers a broad range of needs, but does so in a very intuitive manner. I moved my business over from Fbooks, and the data transfer was quick and easy and didn't lose a step. If I've had issues the support has been super helpful and quick, it's seriously impressive.

I don't think they're charging in CDN dollars yet. As a Canadian I would like to pay in my own dollars not USA funny money as the exchange is brutal.

It covers a wide range a areas in one service. Previously I had about 3 software to do so.

I can easily issue online-payable invoices from the account where my money sits in checking. It's extremely convienet and simple. Importantly, I can choose to pass the cc processing fee on to my client.

The graph that they display to chart income and expenses is hard to read, and not very helpful.

Bonsai serves a one-stop shop for running a small freelance business.

Bonsai makes my work so much easier. It really helps you from start to finish with getting clients. I have never felt the need to consider another invoicing tool because I love this one. I highly recommend!

With the update the time tracking insights changed and I miss the old version. Other than that I have no compaints!

Bonsai helps me manage my projects and manage my income.

Bonsai has helped me organize my bussiness and speed up my workflows for every step of client and project management. The biggest benefit so far, is the time that has freed up for me to focus on designing.

There are few downsides to this software. But with that said, I think the one thing that needs improving is Bonsai's time tracking features. It's a little clunky on desktop and I think there could be more features around it online as well.

It's speeding up all of my CRM duties that help bring in work as a freelancer. It's saved me countless hours on proposals and invoicing.

I love so many things about Bonsai: the well-written contracts, the ability to add custom branding, the bank account, and bookkeeping features.

When starting a new project, you have to backtrack to create a new client first. Sometimes I want to simply make an invoice for a new client - I wish whatever info I input on the invoice would automatically create a new client rather than having to do that first.

Streamlined system for invoicing, contracts, and proposals. Business bank account to keep all my money in one place - and envelopes to separate out the funds for tax savings and payroll.

I love the proposal templates, and being able to keep track of all my documents.

When creating contracts, I wish some areas allowed for more customization.

Saves me a lot of time, the templates make creating multiple documents easy. I like being able to keep track of my proposals, contracts and invoices.

It helps with taking payments and keeping all your clients in one place. I've been using them for a year now and so far their pricing is great and the features like contracts, forms and invoicing are great.

Cash Card doesn't work well internationally

It helps me take payments from clients that isn't able to use certain methods.

The ability to integrate with multiple SAAS's.

Lack being fully functional from the website.

It's helpful when it comes to generating invoices, integrating with Quickbooks and Harvest, also time tracking freelance worker hours.

Ease of creation of invoices and the ease of sending them to clients

Many features I don't use. Just needed a simple invoice creator

Creating invoices , sending reminders, managing invoices

I am a freelancer and do a lot of subcontracting jobs for different companies. Bonsai is the best app I have seen for creating tasks with notes and descriptions, collaborating with other users regarding those tasks, tracking time spent on each task, and then billing the company for said tasks in a hundred different ways.

The only downside is that, depending on what you do, the premium packages can be a bit expensive, and the subscriptions don't let you pick 1 or 2 aspects of the program to use.

Bonsai allows me to create and maintain a thorough task lists, collaboratively, with the team of my choosing, and then keep track of billing times down to the second. From there I can invoice said company using dozens of different criteria, send them an invoice, and even get payments online through Stripe or other payment services.

As a designer and small business owner, I have tried SO MANY invoicing and payment platforms. All of them claim to be the best for a variety of reasons. After switching to Bonsai I can safely say I finally found the best. Not only is their platform easy to use and user-friendly, but they automate helpful pieces of the payment process and my favorite part is you can charge your customer the CC processing fees. The money I save on processing fees alone MORE than covers my Bonsai subscription cost. It's a no-brainer.

I'm not sure there is anything worth noting that I don't like at this point honestly.

Reminding customers of their pending invoices is super helpful. But I think the main problem they solve for me is allowing me to charge my customers for the credit card fees. This allows me to get paid faster and the savings MORE than cover the cost of my Bonsai subscription so it's a win-win.

The ease of creating proposals, contracts & invoices has saved me so much time. I love that you can add unlimited clients as I run a lot of audits at this stage of my business, and clients don't sign on to continue sometimes or come back in a few months/years, so I end up adding a bunch of clients - something that other systems charged per client. Also, I love the time tracking. Even internally to know how I'm tracking on projects has changed my business and how I integrate with humans I get to work with on projects or retainers. Sending out contracts and proposals and invoices that clients can sign right from their email has been amazing, and being able to do all that in 1 place without integrating three other things has been so wonderful. I genuinely have Bonsai completely integrated into my consultation. Lastly, their support is fantastic.

As a Canadian, the taxes section is not something I can use, and I've tried to attach my expenses through Bonsai. Still, the credit card I'm using doesn't connect to their 3rd party system, so I'm getting different credit cards and procedures to be able to connect better with them and be able to track my business with Bonsai.

Using one system versus four also surfaces the metrics and pieces that I need for my consultation. I'm more productive, and my performance in my business has increased because of using Bonsai.

It's easy to use and has just the right amount of functionalities for me as small business owner. The price is more than fair for the solution and the interface is nice to look at.

Not being able to make changes on my notes from the Bonsai app, which would be excellent when on the go.

I have all my client details in one spot and was able to add custom information for each client that adapts perfectly to my business. I keep track of accounting, contracts and invoices all in the same platform.

I have only been using bonsai for three weeks now, and it has helped me organize my business way faster! I cannot believe that ORGANIZATION was one bonsai away!

I would love to have more automation options.

MORE FREE TIME!!!! I get to have more time for my family and me because I keep track of everything faster than having like three programs with me to make everything that I do here

Bonsai has everything that I need to run my freelance web design business. The program is easy to use, and their support is excellent. It has saved me countless hours, kept me organized, and made it simple to get paid + manage my finances.

I think their white-label features could be a little bit better, but this isn't anything deal breaking for me. I would like to see custom domain functionalities for their white label users.

Problems that Bonsai has helped me solve: - Getting paid on time - Keeping my leads and clients organized - Gathering information efficiently via forms + automation - Keeping my income and expenses organized - and more! This tool has everything you need to run a freelance business.

The ability to have contracts, questionnaires, and client portals alongside my time tracking and invoicing features.

Lack of ability to track income from linked bank account.

I'm able to simplify my tax preparation and spend less time on bookkeeping.

I like the automation factors. It used to take me a while to put together invoices, send them out, monitor if they were paid and what I'm getting paid... Then there were the separate contracts and proposals that weren't uniform. Having the templates there makes it super easy to get all of them done in just a few minutes (or set on recurring). I also love being able to draft invoices, see what's outstanding, and what's been paid. Automated reminders to my clients also saves me a ton, and if I want to nudge them even more I basically just push one button. Overall, I just love that it saves me so much time.

What I wish Bonsai had was the ability to add intake forms to my client profiles- not stuff that they have to fill out themselves, but forms I can fill out while I'm doing a call with them. I also wish I could import forms from my website, say if I were to have an intake form with information about how they found me. Another thing I wish it had was adding up my incoming income, as in, if I make a bunch of drafts that'll be sent out when the project is complete, i'd love to see what all of that adds up to rather than calculating it myself. Projecting my income would be super helpful.

As a freelancer, I really don't have a lot of time, and keeping things looking professional and streamlined (like I have a real process), helps me stand out to my clients but also just helps me stay organized, as well as speeds up a lot of my processes (like intake and onboarding).

Bonasi makes it incredibly easy to create, edit, and send proposals and contracts. What would have taken me countless hours of research, copying and pasting from other online sources, took mere minutes with their easy to use contract templates. The overall UI is clean and simplified making it easy for me to see what payments I have due and what contracts and other documents need signing.

The automation is fairly basic compared with other similar software like HoneyBook. Not that I need too much automation as I only have a few clients, but that type of functionality would be nice in future updates. I also don't like that the forms option is restricted to the top payment tier.

It's helping me streamline and simplify proposals and contracts that I send to my clients. It helps me see everything in one place which makes my life so much easier as a freelancer just starting out!

After tons of research, I pulled the trigger and purchased Bonsai. In the past I've used Freshbooks and Quickbooks, and what I enjoy most with Bonsai is the updated and modern look-and-feel. I know that when I send my proposals, contracts, or invoices, my clients will get a simple and easy to pay invoice. I recently added the tax and accounting software, and I'm really excited that I no longer have to manually track income and expenses in a spreadsheet. It lays everything out in the dashboard, and I can easily see how much money I've made each month or quarter!

The one thing that I've struggled with with Bonsai is the onboarding process. I think Bonsai could really benefit from some recorded training material walking new users through each specific portion of the product.

I'm now able to quickly and easily send pre-populated contracts for my clients to sign, that way we're both covered. As mentioned above, I also really like the accounting and tax software.

Simple to use, creates a very professional experience for clients, and they keep adding new features all the time.

Some of the navigation is a little confusing at times and the mobile app isn't as powerful (full-featured) as the mobile web experience.

Creating proposals, contracts, and invoices. Bonsai has all of these plus more under one umbrella. You can keep track of all your clients and projects easily as well as track you business finances all from one app.

Just the document management and automation save me hours. I literally cant without this. Sorry for being dramatic, but I don't care. I have ADHD, and this cured it.

Well thats a trick question. It took a minute for me to figure out how to do the customization but once you figure it out, you realize how stupid easy it is. I would like a little more customization but hey. Thats why I'm a designer. I like to put shit exactly where I want it.

No more bloatware. Everything is time-tracked, managed, and in a sales pipeline to see on my phone or on the go. I don't have to stress about asking for money anymore because this reminds my customer and even has a beautiful portal, which is perfect since my new redesigned website is still under construction, but I got bills to pay. Makes me look professional as fuck too. Hire me haters.

I like that I get to organize different tasks with different clients on different projects in ONE PLACE! That's awesome!

I hate that I cannot export my time tracking. I have to take a screenshot to show my clients my tracked time. I would love to be able to export them in a PDF or spreadsheet file for any other purpose that I may need it.

Staying on top of everything is something Bonsai has definitely helped me with. I realized that I needed a tool to do that and not just an ordinary spreadsheet or notes.

Bonsai is the most intuitive freelance tool I've ever used. I've used all the different freelancing tools out there from Quickbooks, AndCo, Square, Due, Invoicely, etc. and none compare to how feature-packed Bonsai is. It has all the features you would need to have a service-based business, including invoicing, time tracking, proposals, contracts, accounting (+tax estimates). It's the best tool for a Sole Proprietor by far without having to pay the annoying fees their competitors charge. It keeps me extremely organized.

I wish there were more support for non-Sole Proprietor users. I genuinely love using this tool, from the UI to all the different features, but the fact that if I scale my business, I'll eventually need to migrate off this to a more enterprise-supported tool like Quickbooks is unfortunate

I originally found Bonsai because I needed a tool to invoice my clients. I was new to starting my business, so doing this easy and fast was a priority of mine. When I signed up with Bonsai, I found that not only do they handle the invoicing, but they have a complete workflow for leads built-in. You can input a lead as a company and create multiple proposals, contracts, and invoices all under the umbrella so that you can manage multiple agreements and contracts. All of which is fully customizable, and their latest features allow you to automate the steps.