ClearBooks

ClearBooks is a decent online accounting software for service companies, yet comes with some surprises in multi-currency invoicing moments (Multi-currency invoicing is not the same as multi-currency accounting). Overall usability is provided, yet we recommend to read their Help files.



Getting Started
Signing up with Clearbooks requires minimal efforts. It has clear dashboard, where you can track Unpaid invoices, Unpaid bills, Bank Account trend and brief Profit & Loss statement.
There are also quick actions to create invoice and register bills, import bank statements and add contacts which come quite handy. Navigation also looks simple at first glance.
Adding Contacts
Adding customers/contacts is an easy task. If you have a CSV file to upload into the system you can do so, and you are not confined to Outlook, Google or whatever CSV pattern as you might have observed in most online accounting applications. However, there are shortcomings as Clearbooks while importing we came across few more limitations, as not all vital fields that would bind to a customer could be found when matching.
Invoicing
When in “Add Invoice” view, we were not lost. In fact, lot of things looked intuitive, however customer billing details were missing in the invoice form, which is an unwanted deviation. When we issues a multi-currency invoice to a customer, Invoice template (PDF) still showed in home currency, that makes ClearBooks not suitable for multi-currency invoicing purposes (Maybe this is a current bug).
First time when we were issuing an invoice, there was no item/service name, but only description. So we looked under the hood and enabled everything we found in their settings and finally item name is there. However, adding items in ClearBooks might seem easy, but not quite logical, as it offers to add items as “Sales” and “Purchases” separately. Having said that, if ClearBooks ever decides to introduce inventory management, it would be long time from now, as technically this would require a lot efforts due to wrong implementation at the outset.
After creating an invoice, we could email, print and view in HTML form, and all worked fine. We also could maneuver with email templates, and list of variables it offered was good enough to create a professional one. Navigation between paid, unpaid, draft and recurring invoices proved intuitive.
Expenses
In ClearBooks, a user has an option to add a bill or register a cash receipt.  We also came across Billable Expense feature, which is charging expenses onto a customer, and when we tested it worked fine. As for Purchase Order, there is no item to select, and requires you to populate description only. Which again proves, that despite ClearBooks offers “inventory management”, this software is simply not meant for that.
Inventory Management
As we aforementioned, in ClearBooks, you cannot manage inventory, as there is no stock valuation report, thus for SMEs looking for managing their stock ClearBooks is not an option. It suits service type businesses at this stage.
Reports
ClearBooks offers a good sets of reports enough to be on top of your business operations, even though it requires a bit of getting used to, due to a bit unusual financial reports formats and accountants’ beloved tool – journal entries are pretty much like identical to that of most online accounting solutions we have reviewed so far, and lacks flexibility.
Also, ClearBooks also offers ratio analysis for management decision purposes which could be a great help for board members.
Conclusion
ClearBooks is a nice online accounting software for service companies that we can recommend and received above average score of 60%.