Show HN: I've build a stupidly simple invoicing for freelancers and contractors

[kimelnick]

Hey HN.

Being a freelance myself for a while I've used dozen of well-known services to run my routines.

I've acknowledged that I don't need THAT many different tools & functions where I just getting lost.

So I created Onigiri, a stupidly simple & convenient invoicing which allows you to create, send & store your invoices easily

Nick

[marklyon]

Why'd you wrap it in ads?

[edweis]

How does it compare to https://invoice-generator.com/ ? It’s free and it stores invoices in the browser. It’s so simple that I wonder how this solution is simpler.

[zwischenzug]

Came here to say this. At the point I had to register for the OP, I was out.

[marklyon]

Or Zoho.

[hexnuts]

Not sure if it is unique to me given my ultrawide screen resolution (3440x1440 21:9), but the little arrow covers the words you and also by default.

Link:https://i.imgur.com/bzmlzQn.png

Also, this is a SUPER edge case, since you don't control third party plugins. But I thought you should be aware what your page looks like with the Dark Reader plugin (it more or less inverts a pages colors. It's a tool to make all pages have a dark theme, figured it might be helpful. Mostly because it seems like a fairly popular plugin. link: https://i.imgur.com/YKIzVjl.png)

[kimelnick]

Thank you, that's quite interesting.

Never thought of such a wide resolutions & 3rd party plugins for dark mode

[stevage]

This looks good. I use invoiceninja bet I don't love it.

The 14 day trial doesn't really make sense to me though. if you want a limited trial, just limit the number of invoices you can download or send, say to 5. But a freemium model would make more sense to me.

That trial is the blocker for me even trying it. What I would like to do is try it with just one client for a few months to see if i like it, then switch everything if I do.

[kimelnick]

That that I was thinking about was not quite sure. your feedback makes me think that it was a right idea

[alemanek]

Nice, congrats on the launch.

One small thing. On IPad iOS the Pricing link at the top doesn’t do anything. I was expecting it to zoom me to the pricing part of the page at the bottom.

EDIT: Fixed now thanks

[kimelnick]

Thanks for noticing!

Just fixed this and on mobile version as well

[peterpost2]

I would suggest you put pricing on a separate page. Was about to leave and then only realised i had to scroll all the way down to find it.

Other than that looks nice, though i do feel like I should say that I'm not your target audience since I've already rolled my own invoicing system.

[satvikpendem]

> I would suggest you put pricing on a separate page. Was about to leave and then only realised i had to scroll all the way down to find it.

This is a very common landing page design though for these types of SaaS apps, lots of them are long single pages with pricing near the bottom.

[_akhe]

Awesome work, I ended up building a custom invoice builder as part of a larger custom SaaS for my wife & my local business, so this product resonates big time.

My random internet person's opinion: Instead of a 14-day trial, I think freemium is better where you can use it for up to X # of clients and if you want to go beyond some usage then you have to pay (e.g. Vercel, GitHub, etc. model).

For $9/mo, I would also expect React/Angular/Vue libraries to implement this into a larger project or other back office workflow - just my 2 cents!

Thanks for sharing, I love stuff like this.

[pplante]

For $9/mo you are really expecting a library to integrate this in your other applications? I think you forgot a few numbers on that value.

[Joel_Mckay]

Unless you are consulting local IP and corporate lawyers, than you are almost certainly making mistakes.

There are a few areas one really needs to watch:

1. Dependent contractor status: Unless contracts state otherwise, a business could be hit with a massive tax bill at year end for things like pension contributions for a disgruntled contractor.

2. Comprehensive copyright transfer agreements that prevent edge-cases like disgruntled family suing your firm for ownership after someone passes.

3. Implicit/Explicit ownership of IP generated at/outside a firm depends on contract signing location, and on the nature of external projects. In some places a company can sue workers for ownership of whatever they build outside company hours unless explicitly given an exemption in the contract.

4. You don't necessarily own something just because you paid somebody outside your jurisdictional context. This is a deep copyright/trademark/patent rabbit-hole, and the answer is always "it depends"...

I am not saying you are necessarily exposing people to potential liabilities, but one should at least have legal folks take a cursory glance at your business plan for the service locations.

Best of luck =)

[boatbuilder]

Have been using this for a while. Yep, stupidly simple and super super useful! Thank you

[kimelnick]

Thank you! Thanks for your support and glad to see you onboard!

[neerajdotname2]

I built neetoInvoice. https://neeto.com/neetoinvoice. It's completely free because we want you in. We make money using other products.

[404mm]

“Get started. It’s free”

But it’s not. I don’t appreciate this kind of deceiving language. I’m just sharing this as a “free” feedback from somebody who has no need or interest in this product.

[kimelnick]

But it is. You can’t start for free? What’s wrong with that? Can you explain?

[mrits]

I've been using a spreadsheet for 15 years. One to mark the granular project work log and the other to aggregate everything up and export to PDF

[devoid31]

there isnt any way i would submit anything to this company after reading their privacy policy. going to use my content in perpetuity? like what? my invoices, my clients? my name? every single thing that has to do with my freelance business AND my invoices is pretty personal. no thanks. ill self host invoice ninja. easy peasy.

[satvikpendem]

You need more information on the "What makes Onigiri unique?" section because I don't see any features that aren't already in (or are better than) other invoicing solutions. Hone in on the pain point because saying you're indie is a nice-to-have, not a pressing desire for most I'd say.

[kimelnick]

Yeah. I would say I should simplify LP even more and make it more straightforward though

[yieldcrv]

thanks! I'm curious about the feature set as well

everything I found for my contracting was way too expensive for what it did. hope someone can tackle payroll next!

doesn't seem like competition is really working out here, but not for any real reason except some fragmentation amongst how contractors need to make invoices

[sambazi]

> way too expensive for what it did

business likes comparison to viable alternatives (e.g. doing it yourself)

[kimelnick]

Please let me know how it's going and how do you feel about Onigiri

[Aerbil313]

Fellow freelancer here. Sorry, but can't understand the business model. Cross-border money transfer fees are sometimes upwards $10. How are you able to finance that with $9/month?

Or do you not handle invoicing/money transfer ala remotify.co?

[solardev]

Does it do time tracking?

I'm currently a freelancer using Harvest to track time by project and task with a Chrome plug-in, and it generates an invoice every month. Works really well, even on their free plan. Wondering if Onigiri offers any benefits?

[kimelnick]

I've got time tracking in plans but not yet.

Still trying to figure out what would be better chrome plugin on mini native app. Why do you choose plugin from harvest now?

[wodenokoto]

How much easier is this than a folder to store documents and google docs/word/apple pages for writing them?

Writing an invoice, and giving it a number and save to pdf was not something I found difficult and needed online tools.

[mongol]

I used to create my invoices with Excel. What does this provide that I could not do with Excel? I think the big value add would be tying it with accounting software but this has no such component?

[kimelnick]

Yep, I plan to add an integration to connect it with Xero, Quickbooks & some others

[Champagn3Papi]

I love the landing page! Did you design it yourself?

[kimelnick]

Yep, made it myself on Framer