Bonsai - All-in-one product suite with automation

What tools are you using now to manage your business? Do you use separate tools for each of the task that you need? Such as invoice, proposal, contract, CRM etc. I came across these questions quite frequently like what tool do you use for CRM? What tool do you use for invoice? Proposal? Contract? Project management??? and so on...

So, here I would like to introduce a pretty good all-in-one tool that do all of the above, Bonsai or also known as HelloBonsai. I have been using this for a couple of months now and I love it a lot as it is able to solve most of my problems. You can try it out with their free 2 weeks trial to get experience the capabilities.

First of all, what is Bonsai? Bonsai is an all-in-one product suite with smart automation that lets you focus on your passion, not your paperwork. Everything you need to run your freelance business or even small enterprise. Below are the list of tools or features included in Bonsai.

1. Proposals
2. Contracts
3. Invoices
4. Projects & Client CRM
5. Time Tracking
6. Task Tracking
7. Forms & Automations
8. Accounting & Taxes

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1. Proposals

Make proposals that help you win more work. Create, send, and track proposals online with custom packages and electronic approvals.

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Highlights:

• Templates and Branding
  Wide range of templates available for various business categories to ease your process when creating new proposal. You can remove or or add new sections from the available preset such as text, files/attachments, images, etc. A touch of personal branding make your proposal looks even more professional. In addition, you can save a proposal created and use them as template for other projects.
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• Service Packages
  You can create a single or multiple packages in the proposal which allow client to have more options. A good way to offer additional services as an upsell option.
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• Create everything at once
  When creating a new proposal, certain info such as client info and project name is required. While creating the proposal, you will be able to create the new client database and sync it into your Bonsai account right away without having to create them separately. That goes the same for project too. In addition to that, once client approved your proposal, the system can automatically generate the invoice directly too. If the proposal is for an existing client, you can just simply select them from the client list.
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• Notifications
  This is one of the feature I love the most about Bonsai. An email notification will be sent to you when your client has viewed your proposal. So, you will know when and what reminder to send them such as reminder for missed email or reminder to reply instead of getting ignored. This is definitely a good way to follow-up.
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• Approval anytime and anywhere online
  Your client can view the proposal anytime and anywhere online from various devices even mobile during on-the-go which make things a lot easier for them and for you. To accept the proposal, your client has to just simply click on the Accept button and congratulations, you got your deal sealed. The system will now automatically generate the invoice based on the accepted proposal. Navigate into the invoice and send to your client, Ka-Ching~!
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2. Contracts

Flexible contracts to secure your business. Create & e-sign contracts from vetted templates. Get peace of mind and get on with your work.

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Highlights:

• Vetted Templates
  Similarly to proposals, Bonsai offer a wide range of contract templates to cater for various businesses. So, you don't have to be a law expert yourself to create a contract to safeguard your business. You still have the flexibility or option to revise the clauses as per your business or project needs.
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• Electronic Signature
  Forget about using paper contracts and having to store them physically. Bonsai's contracts let your client to sign the contract digitally and you don't have to worry where to store them. All filed nicely in your Bonsai account.
  
  
• Auto Reminder
  This is a common feature available in all of the tools in Bonsai's product suite. Set auto reminder to inform client to sign the contract while you focus on your own business. Less worries on all these administrative tasks.
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3. Invoices

Get paid on time with smart, flexible invoicing. Join thousands of freelancers getting paid faster with invoice automation, partial payments and more.

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Highlights:

• Easy Automation
  As indicated earlier in the Proposal section, invoices can be created automatically once client has accepted your proposal. In addition to that, you have the option to create 'one-time' or 'recurring' invoices. Paired with Bonsai's auto reminder, you can set your mind as ease and let the system to handle all these automatically.
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• Flexible Payment Options
  Send invoice and pay directly online. No more excuses from your client. Bonsai offer very flexible payment options. Invoice can be paid partially or full at once using the provided platforms or methods which includes PayPal, Stripe, Bank Transfer (US only), Wire Transfer and Mailed Check. Hooray~ You can now accept payment globally which means more potential clients.
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• Late Payment Penalty
  Yes! You can implement a percentage of penalty for any late payment. This is a good reason to remind client to pay on-time.
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• Attachment Locking
  If you are selling digital products or digital arts, this will be a great option for you. You can add an attachment into your invoice and it can only be unlocked after the full payment has been made.
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• Currency Preference
  Easily change invoice currency if required without having to navigate to your account setting to reconfigure the default currency. This is awesome when you are selling your products or services globally.
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4. Projects & Client CRM

Manage your own digital workspace and client list. From prospect to project and contract to payment, you can now manage everything all in one place.

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Highlights:

• Client Management
  Add leads, existing clients and internal notes to keep track of all your contacts. Easily pull data from your client list to be inserted into your proposal, contract, invoices and other documents. You can also view all the projects, documents and transactions done of the specific client all in a single dashboard view.
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• Project Organization
  Easily keep track of your project information all in single overview page. You won't be seeing advanced project management info such as charts as Bonsai is targeted toward freelancers or small enterprises which has much shorter timeframe for each project and less project research data required. Only the most basic features such as Active Tasks, Messages, Time Tracking and all relevant documents storing is required. As a small start-up myself, I would say these are pretty much sufficient. The tasks can be assigned to any collaborators in the project and set timeline for each of them.
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• Free Collaboration
  Yes, FREE. You can invite collaborators for free and work on a project with you. Collaborators will have limited access to your project's dashboard. They can only view and manage the active tasks list, send messages/files and perform time tracking. This works best when you hired another freelancers or other people to work on a specific task for you. In addition to that, you can invite your client to view the project dashboard as well. They will have limited access to the project dashboard too which will be limited to view messages, activities, invoices, and other documents. So, basically, your client can only view info and send messages. Of course, they will need to have Bonsai account to access this secured project dashboard. In a nut shell, it is great to work together with collaborators and clients all in a single dashboard.
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5. Time Tracking

The robust time tracker made for your workflow. Manage your hours with ease with an all-in-one time tracker, timesheets and billing system.

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Highlights:

• Easily Billable
  Time tracked in your project or task can easily be billable in your invoice by choosing hourly-rate option. Timesheet can be included in the invoice for your client reference and provide a better breakdown on what is billed. Your client will definitely appreciate this. Time tracked will also be separated to billed or unbilled hours. This will give you an overall picture on how long you have spent in a project too.
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• Project Based
  Time tracking feature in Bonsai is pretty right on spot too. You can perform time tracking for the whole project or each task individually. It also works great to track the time for each task when you are working with collaborators so that you can determine the billable working hours to them.
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• Cross Platform
  Instead of just performing time tracking on desktop or laptop, you can download Bonsai's app too. The time tracking in the app will sync directly with your project. If your collaborators or you are not working on a computer but instead meeting client or anything else. Those time can be tracked for billing too.
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6. Task Tracking

Simple tasks built for your project workflow. Prioritize the week for your ongoing projects and create reusable task templates for new ones.

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Highlights:

• Simple & Easy
  Add new tasks in seconds or reuse task templates you have saved in other projects. You can also add sub tasks, task description and attach files into it. Easily set timeline, assign, and change task status.
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• Integrated Timers
  Each task's time can be tracked or added separately (if you missed or forgot to record). This makes your invoice more credible as client will be able to verify the items they have paid for.
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• Collaboration
  Assign task to collaborators easily and add comments to each other. Team work just got easier.
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7. Forms & Automations

Custom client forms tailored to your business. From client intake forms to project-ending surveys, you can now easily collect input from clients automatically.

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Highlights:

• Clients & Projects
  Send forms to clients for specific use-cases with ease using Bonsai's automation. For example, brainstorming process to gather a project details, ideas, references and more from client for easy kick-start. Or comments from developments in progress and even a feedback form on project completion.
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• Flexible Fields
  Easily create forms using the existing components in the form builder and rearrange the sections as needed. The form is pretty basic but it does the job.
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• Reusable Forms
  Save the form and reuse them easily.
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• Automations
  Best feature of all that save you a lot of time for gathering info before start of project and feedback after project completion. For each stage of the project from drafting proposal to completion of project, you can create an automation to send different form to your client for specific purpose. Even email subject and message can be customized as required.
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8. Accounting & Taxes

Easy-to-use financial tools and tax estimates. Keep a pulse on your business finances with income reports, expense tracking, tax reminders and more.

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Highlights:

• Expense Tracking
  Able to import your expenses for accounting purpose. Great categorization and filter for easier viewing. Also, you can setup recurring expenses and various currencies.
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• Profit/Loss Tracking
  Simple and minimal overview dashboard to track your latest accounts. In addition to that, if you are working with various currencies, you can filter to view the accounting for each currency individually or view the consolidated accounting in USD. Unfortunately, you can't view the consolidated report in other currency.
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• Secure accountant-only link
  Easily share your accounting data to your accountant with the system generated secure link. This save you a lot of time as your account has been tracking everything while you work from project to project.
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• Tax Estimation
  Unfortunately, I am not able to comment much on this as it requires additional subscription on top of the Workflow subscription. Anyway, what is does here are auto import of expenses from credit cards and banks, find tax deductions automatically, tax estimation and annual filling reminder and provide a secure accountant-only link.
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Plans & Pricing

The subscription pricing for Bonsai starts from $19/month which pretty much includes all necessary features. However, if you want more features such as white labelling, workflow automations and more, you can go for $29/month plan. You will get 2 months free if you subscribe for annual plan instead.
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Verdict

Overall, I think Bonsai is definitely a good solution for freelancers and small enterprises that are looking for an all-in-one product suite to ease their business management or overall business workflow. The price is pretty affordable too given so many tools and features included. As for customer supports, they are pretty responsive and helpful. So, I strongly recommend for anyone who has yet to try it to give it a shot.

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