17hats Reviews

Pros

Allows me to create invoices and automate monthly billing. Separates billable work by project. Supports multiple users. Integrates with several payment gateways to automate payments. Handles invoice reminders. Helps with prospecting by providing web publishable intake forms. Includes workflow designs that automate and track projects by stages.

One huge thing this has done for us is to streamline the quote to contract to invoice process. Each is handled and triggered by the previous step. We create quotes and upon acceptance the agreement is sent. Upon electronic signature of the agreement the invoice is created and sent.

It provides some lightweight bookkeeping features but also integrates with Quickbooks Online.

Cons

We deal with some billing that requires calculation in sub-penny increments and the billing suite performs rounding errors because it cannot calculate below 2 decimal places.

I also wish there were a full api for lead intake. The lead forms work well, but cannot be styled to match the landing pages we use for inbound marketing.

Pros

I love an all-in-one service that can combine these features:

- Invoice / expense management
- scheduling online for clients
- CRM style contact management
- workflows and templates to make my life easier
- nice to look at and easy ux

The idea was there but some work needed to go into the original feature development. A lot of the helpful features felt confusing and a pain to set up. Might be better now but when I used it it was such a headache I did not use a lot of the features that drew me in.

Cons

The software is bundled up to draw you in for your one-stop shop for the list of things I stated. However, one of my biggest pet peeves with up-and-coming companies is their lack of focus to improve the functions of their initial systems in play. After their successful launch and drawing me into their somewhat expensive annual fee, I felt they kept working on new features instead of improving current features that could have used some attention for better UX. I got so frustrated with this that I left. Feeling that I was constantly being asked to spend more money on new features that I did not want.

Alternatives Considered

HoneyBook, QuickBooks Desktop, FreshBooks, Daylite for Mac and Moon Invoice

Reasons for Switching to 17hats

17hats did a great job advertising its features. It was the do-it-all software.... it just didn't pan out to be a good fit at the time. I slimmed down and used MoonInvoice which was a lot more affordable at the time, and now I'm back to needing something more robust. I'm currently using FreshBooks & DayLite CRM.

Pros

It allows you to organize all clients in one area for all members of the team. There are so many options to utilize...but quite a few of the email functions are faulty.

Cons

Emails fail to send on multiple occasions. Scheduled emails fail to send on occasions. Its frustrating to type out a detailed email to a client and then press send; only to find out that it never sent.
Time is wasted. Some "insert" links work, while others don't.
I understand that "user error" can be the case on some occasions, however, if it works on certain days and not on others...its the system.

Pros

I love that this CRM literally has everything you would need to run a small business. The client database, bookkeeping, scheduler, invoicing, and calendar are the features I use the most. I love how organized I am thanks to 17 hats.

Cons

I am not missing anything, it's my favorite software and I use it multiple times a day.

Alternatives Considered

HoneyBook

Reasons for Switching to 17hats

The price and ease of use. I got very used to working with 17hats and now any other software seems to have so many unnecessary options.

Pros

being from Canada I loved that the invoices could be split up to have some items charging GST and some items charging both pst and gst within an invoice. Was my absolute favourite part of the CRM! I also liked how easy it was to set up

Cons

It was a little clunky looking to clients and the client portal wasn't as beautiful as others I've tried.

Alternatives Considered

HoneyBook, Dubsado and Sprout Studio

Reasons for Switching to 17hats

At the time I had a friend who had used it and had said good things so I tried it out and found it easy to set up!

Pros

Crisp and clean layout.
Ease of use.
Tutorials help get you started.
Great Template Options
Connects Bank account for bookkeeping/categorizing personal expenses or business expenses
Easily switch from Square to PayPal to accept payments.
The list goes on and on...it is truly a hit...

Cons

I wish they had a feature that texted reminders to clients about their upcoming appointments. This would be SUCH a helpful feature.
Does not let you see YTD Sales for previous years.

Alternatives Considered

HoneyBook and Pixieset

Reasons for Switching to 17hats

There were so many other options I looked into but 17Hats just had everything all in an easy to use program.

Pros

Having one place for our invoicing, bookkeeping​, calendars & workflows has helped us tremendously​. We definitely feel like fewer​ things get overlooked because it is all right there in the same place.

Cons

It would be helpful to have some options to better organize the document & email section. Maybe ​a folder feature so we can go in and edit the email templates from there instead of through an active workflow. This would be helpful when we need to just find all the emails in regards to a specific type of workflow to make overall changes.

Alternatives Considered

HoneyBook and Salesforce Sales Cloud

Reasons for Switching to 17hats

They seemed to best fit our needs at the time for a price we found reasonable.

Pros

We really liked that clients could view and sign the contract and pay the invoice in pretty much one step.

Cons

We had a mentor walking us through with videos and templates. Without their help, we feel that we would have been lost trying to set up our account. Set up is also quite time consuming.

Pros

The workflows. If you have multi-step projects, 17Hats is awesome for organization. It's saved my bacon more than once by reminding me that I'd not completed a particular step. I also like the lead integration and email integration (see above about bacon saving).

Cons

I'd love to be able to ditch my time-tracking software (Freckle) and invoicing / accounting software (Freshbooks), but I just can't at this point. I actually adore Freckle, so they'd have to work hard to beat that, but even compared to Freshbooks time tracking, 17Hats stinks in that aspect. Very clunky.

Regarding invoicing / bookkeeping, I have a couple of main complaints, but they're big ones:
1a) You can't let clients have multiple payment options. You can implement Stripe, for instance, or PayPal. But you cannot have both active at the same time.
1b) Which leads me to the next issue. Payment method is global, not per client. So if you credit cards, for instance, so that clients use ACH transfers (thus saving fees), that's site-wide. But say you have an international client or a client who wants to use PayPal? You have to change your payment method FOR EVERYONE. Granted, it's one click of the button, but meanwhile, anyone paying an invoice is getting option B instead of option A.
2) Profit / Loss Report: This is critical, but you cannot run the whole year and have it broken down by month. To see each month, you have to generate a new report. Freshbooks allows quarterly, yearly, and custom date ranges with a month-to-month total and grand total all on ONE SCREEN.

So while I'm using 17Hats and don't plan to stop, I really wish they'd get their act together when it comes to the bookkeeping aspect of the software. It's not there yet.

Pros

I love this software. It helps me to manage my time, tasks, opportunities and contacts efficiently and productively, and therefore to forecast sales. And all this with an easy-to-use interface and the possibility of winning new customers.

Cons

The software works very well, nothing to complain about. On the contrary, I highly recommend it.

Pros

I love how easy this program makes it for me to keep track of all steps of my workflows for all of my projects from the initial lead capture all the way through the completion of the project.

The workflow templates make new client onboarding a standardized and efficient process while still giving me the flexibility to adjust to the project's specific needs. The lifecycle gives me an easy at-a-glance status of each project. The calendar and e-mail integration means that all client communications are in one place and I never double book myself.

I really like being able to automate the proposal, contract signing, invoice process. I have only been using this for 2 months and I feel like I have only scratched the surface of what it can do. Customer service is quick to respond, friendly and professional.

Cons

While I overall love this service, there are some things to be desired. There is no phone support available but their e-mail/chat support has been food so far.

The mobile app is very limited in features and glitchy and from what I've seen they are not planning on improve it now that their website is mobile responsive. There are very few integrations, I would love it they could support Zapier.

The client portal is a nice concept but I am not using it because it doesn't have the features I need. Their bookkeeping feature is a joke but I guess it's better than nothing for a freelancer that may otherwise not do any bookkeeping.

Pros

It has streamlined everything from client inquiry to payment and everything in between! I love that I can send clients a bundle with their quote, contract, and invoice. I use workflows to keep each project organized. My clients also love it and have commented on how easy it is to use from their side.

Cons

There is no way to pull reports/data. I'd like to be able to see how many inquiries came in, turned to bookings, sales figures, etc within certain time frames. I would also appreciate a way to see data from questionnaires. Specifically, I have inquires fill in "where did you hear about me" and it would be great to pull those answers and gather data.

Pros

Easy to set up and navigate. The mobile app is great.

Cons

Only one user allowed per account. Customer service was not easily accessible.

Alternatives Considered

Oz Software

Pros

The only thing I like about 17hats is that it (almost) lets you get done what you need to get done. Basically just contracts, invoices, and bookkeeping.

Cons

It’s not user friendly at all. I’ve been using this for over 2 years and there are still features I’m finding out how to use. It’s kinda a messy program.

Pros

17hats does so much more than just the basics. It manages incoming leads, turns them into invoices, and allows me to set up workflows so the system does much of the work for me. It has saved my company a ton of time and probably money, too. The support team is incredibly responsive and helpful.

Cons

The accounting is lacking, but it's not meant to be a primary accounting software. It has the ability to sync with Quickbooks Online which works.

Pros

17Hats is a great all-in-one client management system that is easy to use and implement in your business.

Cons

I would like more options on recurring invoicing.

Pros

Ease of use

Cons

None to think of

Pros

features are constantly expanding. Great way to organize contract process and payments and look super professional.

Cons

Could use more links to other apps but they seem to be working on adding new features constantly so no real complaints.

Pros

We use this for everything with our family handyman business and it creates a more professional front than we had before, more organization and efficiency for us on the business side and was easy to teach our office staff member to use.

Cons

Once when we had an issue with the platform being inaccessible/down for us, the customer support response was on the slow side.

Pros

I think 17hats is a great software! It seems so streamline and easy to use. I like how the calendar can connect with other calendars that someone may be using, and it keeps all the invoices and emails in one location. Which makes it easy to locate!

Cons

I have not run into anything that I dislike about this software. When running a business, you need a software that will keep things simple and organized and that is what 17hats is all about.

Pros

Quoting is fantastic. I can send a quote out with the contract and a payment schedule attached. When the person accepts the quote, they then get sent the contract. After that they are shown the payment schedule.

Building a quote is equally great because I can offer three sections. First section: the required items of the quote. Second section: Choose one of the options. Third section: Choose any of the options.

This has been very helpful for website design where I put the website design in the first section, me hosting or them hosting in the second section, and add-ons like maintenance, SEM, e-Commerce, and more in the third section.

Cons

Customers can't setup automatic payments for recurring invoices.

Pros

This has just streamlined my business and finances. I can let 17 hats do the heavy lifting and allow my book keeper to maintain and I can get on with the business of my business.

Cons

The billing system seriously needs an overhall. To be able to have auto billing would be a godsend. That still needs work

Pros

The automation of follow up invoicing is brilliant.
This software does so much more than just accounting for your financials.
It is accounting, a CRM, email, contracts, and much more.
Tutorials, webinars and online help.

Cons

Like anything that completes multiple tasks, it is quite complex once you start digging.
Has great multipurpose functionality, but you need to spend the time in it to make it work to its maximum capacity for you.

Pros

This is hands down one of the best pieces of software I use. My business couldn't run without it! All my projects are kept in line, workflows, bookkeeping, and more. Fantastic investment and well worth the money with all of the improvements they are constantly making.

Cons

The one thing I wish they did was make it so that clients could easily share files and documents back and forth through the software with me.