Archive for the 'Payments' Category

Moneybookers-Your New Payment Mode

Published
by
LimeExchange
on July 8, 2009
in LimeExchange, Payment methods, Payments and Product Update
. 1 Comment

Moneybookers, an FSA regulated transaction service, is a fast, secure and cost-effective payment withdrawal mode available on LimeExchange. It is commonly used by our service providers to withdraw payments but to benefit all our users with this easy to use money transaction service, we are introducing Moneybookers as a new payment mode.

You can now make secure & instant payments for all Non Escrow item purchases like membership plans, top-up plans, online skill test certifications, educational & credential verification, premium project posting fee etc. through your Moneybookers account. Also, you get the ease of online access to view your payment history.

To make instant payments through Moneybookers, you must get your Moneybookers account verified. In case you don’t have an account, you must create one using the same email address with which you registered on LimeExchange.

Steps to make payments through Moneybookers on LimeExchange:

• Login to your LimeExchange account and go to your ‘Wallet’ tab

• Click the ‘My Accounts’ link and select the ‘Moneybookers’ tab

• Click the link to verify your Moneybookers account

• Click the ‘Proceed’ button. You will be directed to the Moneybookers website

• Login to your Moneybookers account.

• As part of our verification process a nominal amount of 1 USD will deducted from your Moneybookers account. This amount will be fully refunded to your Moneybookers account within 5 days.

• In the verification process, you must accept to the pay-on-demand agreement authorizing LimeExchange to debit your payments to Moneybookers.

• Once you agree to the pay-on-demand agreement, you will be redirected to LimeExchange to make instant & recurring payments using your Moneybookers account.

So verify your account now and start making instant payments on LimeExchange.


Five Popular Online Billing and Invoicing Tools for Freelancers

Published
by
LimeExchange
on May 1, 2009
in Accounting, Freelance, Freelancing, Payments and Person to Person Outsourcing
. 8 Comments

Once you have completed the project or achieved a milestone, the first thing that comes to your mind is sending invoice or a bill to the buyer for your services. Sending an accurate and a timely invoice means fast encashment of your payment.

On the basis of popularity, we have listed five Web-based invoicing tools, which are easy to use, cost effective and require no downloading. You can simply access them from anywhere across the world, track and manage invoices instantly.

The list under includes five popular web based resources to create, send and manage invoices. Some of them are free while some others charge nominal fee. Along with this, they also offer additional services like time tracking, saving as PDF, project management and available 24X7 from anywhere on any computer.

We have listed these tools over their pricing:

1. Billing Manager- A product of Intuit, billing manager offers hassle-free billing so that freelancers can focus on other core functions.

billing manager

Special features
• It is a free-of-cost invoicing tool
• You can create multiple customized, professional invoices
• Send them by email
• Track payment history and status

Reviews- “I found Intuit Billing Manager a strong invoicer for the very small business. Getting started takes very little time, and it shows you the info you need when you need it.” Rafe Needleman, CNET news

2. SimplyBill: This tool offers simple invoice management to all. No spreadsheet, no complex accounting required, helps sending attractive invoices in minutes.

simplybill

Special features
• Easily create attractive invoices
• Send them to your clients through email
• Create quotations and conveniently convert them to invoices
• Use your images on email messages

Pricing – Free trial -30 day, plans from $5 (25 invoices / month, upto 10 clients) to $25 (unlimited invoices and clients).

Reviews- “The interface is attractive and easy to use, with plenty of ajax goodness. Prices range from free to $25 per month. A nice little app.”Pete Cashmore, Web 2.0 strategy consultant and entrepreneur, Mashable.com/weblist

3. Blinksale- Winner of webware best 100 apps 2007, Blinksale is one of the coolest looking invoicing resources.

blinksale

Special features
• Design your invoices using CSS (Cascading styling sheet)
• Importing your clients contacts from basecamp.
• Send automated repeating invoices through recurring templates.

Pricing – First 3 invoices free, plans starting from $12 (for 50 invoices monthly) to $49 (for 1500 invoices per month). Unlimited clients.

Reviews- “Blinksale tackles a simple need in a straightforward way” Michael Arrington, TechCrunch.

4. Cashboard- It is one of the essential tools for freelancers and small medium businesses for increasing productivity. The intuitive to use interface and advance features makes it significant web application.

cashboard

Special features
• Track your working hours then create invoices
• Send PDF invoices
• Helps view performance estimates and receipts
• Accept payments online
• Track billable and non-billable hours for yourself, your employees, and contractors

Pricing – 30-day free trial with 2 active projects, plans starting from $6 (3 active projects) to $140 (with 10,000 active projects) per month.

Reviews- “There are lots of little touches here that make it obvious that Cashboard is being built by web workers for web workers”. Mike Gunderloy, Web worker daily

5. Freshbooks- This tool has been facilitating its clients with easy to create invoices since 2004. Their online invoicing application is helping small businesses better manage their finances.

freshbooks

Special features
• Snail mail invoices
• Time tracking feature
• Secure tool to save your data
• Professional designing of the documents/ invoices with your company logo, color etc.

Pricing – Starts with 3 clients with unlimited invoices. Plans starting from $14 per month for 25 clients upto $149 per month for 5000 clients.

Reviews- “focus on growing your business rather than worry about getting paid” Fox Business

Hope these invoicing tools help you get your payments faster than before. Experience them and invest your valuable time more in your business to make your freelancing career a great success.

Milestone-Based Escrow Payments: An Effective Risk Mitigation Strategy

Published
by
LimeExchange
on April 23, 2009
in Freelance, Freelancing, LimeExchange, Payments, Service Providers and Small and Medium Business
. 2 Comments

Payment terms are equally important for buyers as well as service providers. Payments are a big concern for buyers. Often, they pay upfront for project delivery only to be surprised that the final deliverables do not meet their expectations and that the payments they made have gone waste. Milestone-based escrow payments provide an excellent mechanism to link payment schedule to quality and schedule. It’s also important for service providers to get some steady working capital while they work hard to complete an assignment. The best way they can safeguard their interests is by setting up their own milestones for escrow payment.

What are Milestones?

Milestones serve as signals that mark the completion of different stages of a project. They not only signify the ‘distance traveled’ (key steps in project) but also reflect ‘direction of travel’. Payments along with a set of deliverables are fixed corresponding to each stage of the project.

Milestone-based payments…as risk mitigation tools

Milestones are important steps in the project life cycle that outline a delivery schedule and corresponding payments for progressive stages of the project. These are generally set for big projects and also for ones, which need constant supervision at every step.

At the time of bidding, the provider can break the large project into smaller chunks and draft a project contract specifying the milestones. Project Contract is a mutual agreement between buyer and service provider on scope, deliverables, payment and schedule of a project. It allows both the parties to agree in advance how the project will progress from stage to stage or milestone to milestone.

This is indeed a great way for both the buyer and service provider to ensure that the project is on track and progressing as scheduled. It minimizes risks related to outsourcing and helps justify payments besides reducing risks through visible progress.

For example, if there is web development project and both the service provider and buyer have mutually agreed on the below listed milestones through a project contract, then the payments would be released by the buyer to the provider after successful completion of each milestone.

Milestones: (a) Approval of Design (b) Preparation of Prototype (c) Development of Complete Solution (d) Testing (e) Go Live

Milestone-based payments on LimeExchange

Project execution starts on LimeExchange after both the parties, buyers & service providers, have mutually agreed on scope, deliverables, payment and schedule of a project. However if there is any kind of disagreement, the buyer can add, modify or delete the milestones as per his wishes and then send it to the provider for his consent.

Once the provider approves of the same, the project execution receives a green signal. As soon as the the buyer escrows the first milestone payment to LimeExchange, the provider starts working on the project.

Release of payments as per the milestone status

On LimeExchange, the Payment Status column in the milestone details shows the status for each milestone in the business agreement. Following are three phases of milestone payment schedule:

1. Escrow Pending – The buyer has not escrowed the payment. Work cannot be started on any milestone until the payment for that milestone has been placed in escrow.
2. Escrow Deposited – This means that the buyer has escrowed the payment and the milestone is in progress.
3. Escrow Released – This means that milestone deliverables have been accepted by the buyer and payment has been released to the service provider.

Milestones which have been completed cannot be modified. Once payment has been escrowed for a milestone, only the delivery time can be extended. Milestones which have not been escrowed can be modified by making changes to delivery dates, milestone amount or attachment.

Be in control of your payment schedule!

Zero Percent Fee* for Freelancers and Service Providers

Published
by
LimeExchange
on April 13, 2009
in Business, LimeExchange and Payments
. 0 Comments

This month LimeExchange registered our 25,000th member, bringing the total number of buyers and providers to over 8,000 and 20,000 respectively (a significant percentage of buyers are also providers). As far as we can tell, no other services marketplace or freelancing site has added these many users in their first year of operation, and it’s only been 9 months since our global launch. We could not have achieved this phenomenal growth without our diverse base of talented service providers – which is why we are extending our 0% commission promotion for another 90 days – it’s our way of saying thanks for helping make LimeExchange a success.

Zero Percent CommissionNo hidden charges….No transaction fee…..No payment-processing fee.

Our 0% commission promotion offers waiving off all project related fees and commission for a period of 90 days.

The affiliation program is active and you still have the opportunity to earn USD 0.1 per referral and 50% of the 1st project fee from referrals. Get started and spread the word.

Start using our 0% offer now…

*Limited Period Offer