FreshBooks leads with invoicing — a polished builder, recurring invoices, time tracking and client management, aimed at freelancers and small agencies billing by the client or the hour. 2Fin leads with expense intelligence: it reads your bank feed, categorises spending automatically, surfaces deductions through the year, and connects your finances to ChatGPT and Claude. If invoicing isn't your main workflow, that difference matters.
Built differently where it counts — here is how.
FreshBooks is built around billing clients. The other half — what you spent, and what of it is claimable — is categorised here as it arrives, with each row naming the rule, pattern or feed behind its category.
Every transaction is scanned for claimable expenses as it arrives, rather than relying on manually logged expenses against a client. 2Fin helps you find and organise potential deductions; always confirm eligibility with your accountant or tax authority.
BAS for Australia, the VAT return for the UK, GST34 for Canada, GST101A for New Zealand and GST F5 for Singapore, GSTR-3B’s sales table (3.1(a)) in India, and GST, VAT or sales tax on record for 88 countries. FreshBooks’ tax tools are built around invoicing rather than the return.
Ask questions about your real spending and deductions in plain language via the 2Fin MCP integration.
2Fin’s free plan isn’t limited by how many clients you bill — FreshBooks’ entry tier caps billable clients at five.
The same situation, in both
Your freelance practice grows from five clients to six.
FreshBooks’ Lite plan covers up to 5 billable clients at about US$19 a month, so the sixth moves you to Plus at about US$38.
You bill as many clients as you like from your invoicing tool — FreshBooks included — and track each invoice to paid in 2Fin, which has no client cap on any plan, while the expense side is categorised and checked for deductions as it arrives.
Pricing snapshot: FreshBooks’ Lite plan runs about US$19/month for up to 5 billable clients, rising to Plus (~US$38/month, 50 clients) and Premium (~US$65/month, unlimited clients) — see freshbooks.com for current pricing; 2Fin starts free with live bank feeds from your own provider account, with automatic categorisation on Premium (US$23/month).
Based on publicly available information. Competitor features and pricing may change — verify directly.
Three things you notice in the first week with 2Fin, whichever tool you are coming from.
A 3D calendar of every transaction in six layouts on every plan, and on ELITE+ an expense terrain, a pattern map and a cash-flow Sankey you can turn and zoom.
Interactive views →Each category projects where you will land from what you have spent so far, flags what is running ahead and suggests limits from your real spending — free.
Budget allocations →An Integrations API, API keys, signed webhooks and an MCP server, documented end to end — and invoices from any tool, tracked to paid.
For developers →Both are good tools — the right pick depends on what your business needs most.
2Fin is free to start. Premium is US$23 a month (US$222 a year), ELITE+ is US$42 a month (US$432 a year) and AUTO+ is US$54 a month (US$555 a year), billed in US dollars.
Hover, tap or tab to any underlined feature to learn more.
For getting every record in one place, at no cost.
Included
For employees and sole traders who want every deduction found and the busywork done.
Everything in Free, plus
For businesses and accountants who lodge, report and keep the books.
Everything in Premium, plus
For owners who want receipts and reports to arrive on their own.
Everything in ELITE+, plus
Swipe to see every plan
| Feature | FREEUS$0 | PREMIUMUS$23 / month | ELITE+US$42 / month | AUTO+US$54 / month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capture | ||||
| Statement uploads into bucketsCSV, Excel or PDF. On the free desktop app, statements come in through the CSV import instead | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Live feeds from your own sheet or bank-feed accountA Google Sheet, or a provider account you hold such as SimpleFIN or BankSync | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Photo and PDF receipts, read and matchedRead in the language they are printed in | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Forward receipts by email | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Organise | ||||
| Transactions, categories and bills in one placeIncluding recurring payments | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Upcoming bills, pay days and money you are owedPayments matched to what you are owed as they land | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Budgets against what you actually spent | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Travel and vehicle trips | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Properties: what each one really costsRented, business and private parts | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Automatic categories | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Your own categorising rules | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Spending and bills analytics | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Views by project, client or tax purposeCalled Lenses in the app; the Properties lens is built in on every plan | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Tax | ||||
| Tax analysis that knows your situation | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Tax exports, including ATO myDeductions | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Tax reports and summaries | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| BAS, VAT and GST statements | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Asset register, depreciation, profit & loss and TPAR | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Property write-offs and scheduleDepreciation, capital works, a schedule for your accountant | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Automate | ||||
| Ask Fin about your money | 25 messages a month | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Fin reads the files you upload | Not included | Included | Included | Included |
| Fin, your assistant, with its own workspace | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Your week in review, on the dashboard | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Signed webhooks for Zapier, Make and n8n | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Reports emailed on the schedule you set | Not included | Not included | Not included | Included |
| Share | ||||
| Push to Google Sheets, Excel, Notion or AirtableBank-feed transactions included | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Send transactions to Xero or QuickBooks OnlineCoded, with the receipt attached | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Practice workspace for accountantsYour clients can be on any plan | Not included | Not included | Included | Included |
| Connect Claude or ChatGPT, with the access you approveWhat they can read follows your plan | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Desktop app, with your data on your machine | Included | Included | Included | Included |
Enterprise-grade data control is the default here — on every plan.
Your records can stay on your own machine or in your own cloud, telemetry stays off unless you turn it on, and Fin keeps an auditable record of everything it sends. Enterprise adds the people and the paperwork: dedicated support, custom deployment and reviews for large-scale operations.
Verify it yourselfFreshBooks is built around global invoicing rather than the Australian tax system — it does not have native GST or BAS reporting. 2Fin tracks GST on every transaction and organises the figures you need for your BAS. 2Fin helps you find and organise potential deductions; always confirm eligibility with your accountant or tax authority.
If invoicing and client billing are your priority, FreshBooks’ purpose-built tools are hard to beat. If your main need is automatic expense categorisation, deduction surfacing and tax tracking in the countries you file in, 2Fin is built for that — and has a free plan with no client cap.
Yes. Some freelancers keep FreshBooks for client invoicing and use 2Fin for day-to-day expense intelligence and deduction surfacing — the free plan makes trying that combination easy.
FreshBooks is a hosted app, so your books live on its servers. 2Fin runs as a hosted service too, and also ships as a desktop app for Windows (macOS and Linux to follow) where your database and receipts are files in a folder you own — you can open it, copy it and back it up, and the free plan needs no account. The desktop app lists every outbound request it makes, with a switch for each connection, and if you bring your own provider key or run a local model, nothing of yours has to reach 2Fin’s servers at all.
The parts of 2Fin behind the comparison above — what each one does for you, and how it reaches the answer.
Ten real transactions walked through the categorisation chain, so you can see why each one landed where it did rather than take it on trust.
Invoicing with any toolKeep the invoicing tool your clients already pay; Fin tracks what each one owes and matches the payment when it lands — and your assistant can draft the next invoice.
Cost tracking & job costingRead the same transactions by project, client or department to see what each job actually cost you.
Tax treatment & activity statementGST and tax treatment worked out line by line as transactions arrive, and the activity-statement view that follows from them.
Free plan, no card needed. Start in seconds.
Get 2Fin free →See all comparisons, or explore free tax tools.
