Ballpark, even though it doesn't land high on our review, offers some unique features. This online billing and invoice service provides collaboration tools for creating estimates and invoices that support multiple team members. This service offers a variety of plans, and each plan gives you PayPal integration, unlimited contacts and unlimited estimates.
Ballpark Online Billing and Invoice Service Plans:
Freelancer
- 10 invoices per month
- One user
Studio
- 25 invoices per month
- Three users
Agency
- 50 invoices per month
- 10 users
Corporate
- Unlimited invoices
- Unlimited users
Creating estimates and invoices using Ballpark online invoicing software is rather simple. We would like to see them add an item or product module for this invoice service. Without it, the service is more intended for a group of consultants working on a unique project rather than to be used to invoice products.
We would also like to see them add more customization options. It only offers two invoice templates and doesn't let you set unique terms; you have to choose from a dropdown list. However, we like that you can set a default currency from a long list of currency types. We also liked that it can email estimates and invoices through the service to team members and clients.
This section is not Ballpark's strong point. Ballpark’s online billing features can accept partial payments and email receipts to clients and team members, but not much more. Even the Receive Payment window offers few choices; when you receive a payment through this online billing program you can enter the amount received, the date and notes. It doesn't give you the option to record payment types or the ability to apply a payment to multiple invoices.
Currently, this invoice and online billing service only works with PayPal.
Since this online billing and invoice service can support multiple users, it can create company profiles and individual profiles. Both modules can store similar information. A couple exceptions are that a company profile will have a company name and associated logo and an individual profile can support an image and a person’s name. Ballpark can also support social networking contact information. It can store Twitter, Facebook and website addresses.
One aspect we didn't like is that Ballpark doesn't automatically populate the company contact information when you go to create an estimate – even though you've already entered all the information in a different section. What it does have, however, is an option at the bottom of the screen to select which team members you want to send a copy of the estimate too. The upgraded version of Ballpark also gives you the ability to send attachments with the estimates.
Ballpark did not answer our emails regarding their security protocols. According to their privacy policy they use third party vendors for hosting, but it does not say who hosts their service so we do not know what security measures they have implemented. We must say it did put us off a bit when the first line item of their “general conditions” says “your use of this service is at your own risk.” On the other hand, they use PayPal for payment processing which provides good security to its users.
We found Ballpark online billing and invoice software fairly easy to use. For better or for worse, it offers few customization options or advanced features that would make using it more challenging. Creating invoices and estimates is fairly simple, but we would like to see them add more convenience features. For example, most invoice services will let you select a product from a dropdown menu for easy item entry, however Ballpark only lets you put in a description.
We are disappointed that Ballpark didn't respond to a single email we sent over several weeks of time. We cannot with any certainty say that this online billing system and invoice service will offer good support to their paying clients. As far as online support, they only post a FAQs section that is hosted in a forum-type module.
If you need collaboration tools among a team of people, Ballpark may be able to help you out. However, it offers few customization options, limited online billing features, non-existent email support and only one payment gateway – PayPal. And definitely choose a different invoicing service if you intent to invoice products.
