Lakshan Perera is the Lead Developer of CurdBee, a Sri Lanka-based company offering online invoicing for freelancers. We asked Perera to tell us about the service and what it has to offer the busy freelancer. How does Curdbee work? The notion of having an online tool to manage your invoices and payments from the coffee shop, the airport, or the home office makes sense to us. A big concern when it comes to invoicing services or software is the potential overhead; Curdbee handles that issue quite well.

FZ: What is CurdBee, and why should freelance writers consider using it?

Lakshan Perera: CurdBee is a simple online invoicing tool for creating estimates, sending invoices and receiving payments. For most freelancers, the process of sending estimates/invoices and collecting payments from clients is an extra burden and always causes unnecessary overhead. With CurdBee, we try to streamline the billing process and help you focus on what you do best, be it writing, design or whatever it is that you’ve been called to do.

Is CurdBee expensive, and can I upgrade/downgrade or cancel my account if I need to?

CurdBee’s pricing is designed in a unique manner, so you pay only for the features you actually use. If you compare us with other online billing apps and their price models, you will see that you can save a lot by using CurdBee. Further, you can enable/disable any of our more advanced features at any time with just the click of the button.

What are the differences between the standard and the pro account?

The standard version of CurdBee is completely free. There’s no restriction on the number of invoices or clients you can create with it and it comes with the ability to accept payments via PayPal and Google Checkout. CurdBee Pro version is $5 per month ($50 for the yearly plan) and is a totally unbranded service that even includes the option of using your own domain.

With the option to to use CurdBee with SSL encryption, Pro is ideal for anyone whose business depends on online billing. Pro users will also have the option to enable additional modules such as Estimates, Recurring Billing, and the Authorize.Net payment gateway module. Each additonal module cost only $5 per month. For a more complete overview of what we offer, please visit  http://curdbee.com/features/

Is CurdBee easy to use? How long does it take to invoice clients?

Actually, we developed CurdBee to scratch a personal itch – we needed a simple online billing solution. Thus, we took extra care to make sure the process to be intuitive and efficient. As our existing users will tell you, the process of creating and sending an invoice in CurdBee can be completed within minutes. Features such as the ability to duplicate invoices and convert estimates to invoices often makes this process even faster.

Can CurdBee help a freelance writer brand themselves?

Yes. You can use your invoices to establish your brand among clients. With options including the ability to use your own domain name, logo and color scheme, you can create unique invoices that will really make your business stand out.

Is there anything else you can tell freelancers about CurdBee?

We believe the best way to experience CurdBee is to try it out yourselves. We even have a demo version with all the advanced features enabled at http://demo.curdbee.com.