Are you on the hunt for the right client management platform to draft contract templates and manage invoice templates for your solo business? As with choosing any other work tool, it takes time - and thorough research - in order to find what would suit your needs in the best possible way.
Dubsado is one of the popular business management solutions on the market. It boasts a number of useful features that help professionals handle client relationships, contracts, invoicing, and workflows.
While it’s a solid software option, it may not be the best fit for your freelance business. There are a number of other platforms that offer different combinations of features and pricing.
In this list, you can find 10 great alternatives to Dubsado, which might as well turn out to be the right solution for your specific case.
Bonsai is an all-in-one product suite for freelancers and a great Dubsado alternative. It helps you tackle all the different tasks that are related to running a solo business. You can prepare and send proposals and contracts with ease, as well as handle client relations and keep an overview on all of your projects. Bonsai also boasts a number of other useful features, such as online signature maker, time tracking, and task management. The platform helps you get a hold of accounting and taxes as well. It supports 180 different currencies, so you don’t need to worry about working internationally.
Bonsai has been trusted by more than 200,000 freelancers and agencies to date, so go ahead and sign up for a free trial today.
17hats is a business tool for solopreneurs and common among Dubsado alternatives. It helps you organize and systematize your work as a freelance professional. More specifically, it supports your lead generation and management, booking coordination, onboarding system, and finance management. 17hats has features spanning from lead inquiry forms and client questionnaires to proposals, contracts and invoicing. It also offers time tracking, to-do lists and workflows.
Bitrix24 is a collaboration and CRM platform that’s a popular alternative to Dubsado. It has a dedicated solution for solopreneurs, which is free. The features that it offers include real-time communication, client interaction management, task and project management, and document management. You can handle the invoicing straight from the CRM as well. Bitrix24 also provides you with time management capabilities, as well as with to-do lists and task dependencies.
HoneyBook defines itself as client management software for small businesses. That makes it a worthy Dubsado alternative. This means it can be quite useful for freelancers as well. The list of features is similar to those of Dubsado. They include proposal and contract preparation and sending, invoicing and online payments, and meeting scheduling. You also get a dashboard with an overview of your projects, document management, and client communication tools. The best thing about HoneyBook is that you can easily set up workflow automation. By doing this, you can save time on repetitive tasks, while ensuring great customer communication.
Dedicated specifically to the freelance industry, Plutio is a platform that helps solo professionals handle the chaos of work. With this tool, you can take care of proposals and contracts to clients, as well as invoicing and payments. Beyond that, Plutio provides support with your branding. It also boasts functionalities like time tracking, task management, projects overview, and email sync. It’s an all-round solution that also has a number of CRM features.
Freshsales is the sales CRM of Freshworks. It is specifically focused on helping customer relationship building and organization. Thus, its features include lead and deal management, event tracking, built-in phone, and email integration. Freshsales provides you with in-depth sales analytics reports. You can also set up intelligent workflows to automate your tasks and streamline your processes.
Salesmate is another sales CRM platform, and one of its popular applications is for consultants and small businesses - a Dubsado alternative worth considering. It’s designed to help you accelerate sales, as well as improve your productivity. It has a rich set of features such as sales pipeline, built-in calling, email tracking and text messaging. With its help, you can also handle deal management, as well as automate your workflows.
Releventful is a customer relationship management solution for professionals in the events industry. It makes customer connection easier, automates their workflows, and allows a better overview of processes. You can handle proposals and invoices, as well as sign contracts in the platform. Releventful also provides you with inventory management and business reports.
Bloom is a CRM and business management solution specifically targeted for creative businesses. Its goal is to help creative professionals better handle the administrative side of their work, without having to sacrifice time from their real job. Bloom helps with lead capturing, client relations, proposals and contracts. It also allows you to set up your own workflows and automate emails. You can handle invoicing and payments and track your leads and contracts straight in the platform.
Studio Ninja is another platform with a narrow focus - on photography studios, which can come in handy for other creative professionals as well. The features of this solution are tailored to meet the needs of photographers and similar creatives. They span lead management, jobs tracking, quotes and contracts, and payment and analytics. You can also create your workflows in the tool, and thus automate many of the administrative tasks. Studio Ninja integrates with a number of popular work tools as well.
Do you want to get started with Bonsai, the best Dubsado alternative? You can sign up for a free trial - no strings attached - and explore the powers of Bonsai to transform how you run your freelance business.
A verbal contract (formally called an oral contract) refers to an agreement between two parties that's made —you guessed it— verbally.
Formal contracts, like those between an employee and an employer, are typically written down. However, some professional transactions take place based on verbally agreed terms.
Freelancers are a good example of this. Often, freelancers will take on projects having agreed on the terms and payment via the phone, or an email. Unfortunately, sometimes clients don't pull through on their agreements, and hardworking freelancers can find themselves out of pocket and wondering whether a legal battle is worth all the hassle.
The main differences between written and oral contracts are that the former is signed and documented, whereas the latter is solely attributed to verbal communication.
Verbal contracts are a bit of a gray area for most people unfamiliar with contract law —which is most of us, right?— due to the fact that there's no physical evidence to support the claims made by the implemented parties.
For any contract (written or verbal) to be binding, there are four major elements which need to be in place. The crucial elements of a contract are as follows:
Therefore, an oral agreement has legal validity if all of these elements are present. However, verbal contracts can be difficult to enforce in a court of law. In the next section, we take a look at how oral agreements hold up in court.
Most business professionals are wary of entering into contracts orally because they can difficult to enforce in the face of the law.
If an oral contract is brought in front of a court of law, there is increased risk of one party (or both!) lying about the initial terms of the agreement. This is problematic for the court, as there's no unbiased way to conclude the case; often, this will result in the case being disregarded. Moreover, it can be difficult to outline contract defects if it's not in writing.
That being said, there are plenty of situations where enforceable contracts do not need to be written or spoken, they're simply implied. For instance, when you buy milk from a store, you give something in exchange for something else and enter into an implied contract, in this case - money is exchanged for goods.
There are some types of contracts which must be in writing.
The Statute of Frauds is a legal statute which states that certain kinds of contracts must be executed in writing and signed by the parties involved. The Statute of Frauds has been adopted in almost all U.S states, and requires a written contract for the following purposes:
Typically, a court of law won't enforce an oral agreement in any of these circumstances under the statute. Instead, a written document is required to make the contract enforceable.
Contract law is generally doesn't favor contracts agreed upon verbally. A verbal agreement is difficult to prove, and can be used by those intent on committing fraud. For that reason, it's always best to put any agreements in writing and ensure all parties have fully understood and consented to signing.
Verbal agreements can be proven with actions in the absence of physical documentation. Any oral promise to provide the sale of goods or perform a service that you agreed to counts as a valid contract. So, when facing a court of law, what evidence can you provide to enforce a verbal agreement?
Unfortunately, without solid proof, it may be difficult to convince a court of the legality of an oral contract. Without witnesses to testify to the oral agreement taking place or other forms of evidence, oral contracts won't stand up in court. Instead, it becomes a matter of "he-said-she-said" - which legal professionals definitely don't have time for!
If you were to enter into a verbal contract, it's recommended to follow up with an email or a letter confirming the offer, the terms of the agreement , and payment conditions. The more you can document the elements of a contract, the better your chances of legally enforcing a oral contract.
Another option is to make a recording of the conversation where the agreement is verbalized. This can be used to support your claims in the absence of a written agreement. However, it's always best to gain the permission of the other involved parties before hitting record.
Fundamentally, most verbal agreements are legally valid as long as they meet all the requirements for a contract. However, if you were to go to court over one party not fulfilling the terms of the contract, proving that the interaction took place can be extremely taxing.
So, ultimately, the question is: written or verbal agreements?
Any good lawyer, contract law firm, or legal professional would advise you to make sure you formalize any professional agreement with a written agreement. Written contracts provide a secure testament to the conditions that were agreed and signed by the two parties involved. If it comes to it, a physical contract is much easier to eviden in legal circumstances.
Freelancers, in particular, should be aware of the extra security that digital contracts may provide. Many people choose to stick to executing contracts verbally because they're not sure how to write a contract, or they think writing out the contract terms is too complicated or requires expensive legal advice. However, this is no longer the case.
Today, we have a world of resources available at our fingertips. The internet is a treasure trove of invaluable information, platforms, and software that simplifies our lives. Creating, signing, and sending contracts has never been easier. What's more, you don't have to rely on a hiring a lawyer to explain all that legal jargon anymore.
There are plenty of tools available online for freelancers to use for guidance when drafting digital contracts. Tools like Bonsai provide a range of customizable, vetted contract templates for all kinds of freelance professionals. No matter what industry you're operating in, Bonsai has a professional template to offer.
A written contract makes the agreement much easier to prove the terms of the agreement in case something were to go awry. The two parties involved can rest assured that they're legal rights are protected, and the terms of the contract are sufficiently documented. Plus, it provides both parties with peace of mind to focus on the tasks at hand.
Bonsai's product suite for freelancers allows users to make contracts from scratch, or using professional templates, and sign them using an online signature maker.
With Bonsai, you can streamline and automate all of the boring back-office tasks that come with being a freelancer. From creating proposals that clients can't say no to, to sealing the deal with a professional contract - Bonsai will revolutionize the way you do business as a freelancer.
Why not secure your business today and sign up for a free trial?