If you’re coming from a full accounting tool like QuickBooks, here’s the honest version: it’s excellent at bookkeeping, and Fee-Lion isn’t trying to replace that. What Fee-Lion does is the front half of your money story — getting an estimate approved and an invoice paid — with a lot less friction. Many freelancers run both: Fee-Lion to win and bill the work, and their accountant’s software for the ledger at tax time.
Two different jobs
An accounting platform is built around the ledger: chart of accounts, reconciliation, payroll, sales tax filing. Fee-Lion is built around the get-paid loop — the day-to-day rhythm of a freelancer or small studio.
- Estimate to invoice in one click. Build an estimate with tasks (hours × rate), fees, units, discounts and surcharges, then Convert it to an invoice without retyping a thing.
- A no-login client portal. Your client opens a magic link — no account, no password — to approve the estimate and pay. Coming from a tool that makes clients log in, this alone speeds up approvals.
- Money into your own Stripe. Card payments land in your Stripe account via Stripe Connect, minus a small platform fee. You’re not waiting on a middleman to pay out.
- Made for the work, not just the books. Time tracking that bills straight to invoices, expenses attributed to projects for real margin, and projects with sub-statuses, checklists, and client discussions.
Tip: You don’t have to choose forever. Run Fee-Lion for estimates, invoicing, and card payments, and when your accountant needs the numbers, use Reports → Export to hand off a clean accountant pack as CSV or PDF.
Bring your invoicing over
Switching is mostly about getting your clients and history in. Fee-Lion has a guided importer for that.
- Go to Settings → Data Import in the left sidebar.
- Upload your exported clients (and any open invoices) and map the columns to Fee-Lion’s fields.
- Review the matched records, then confirm the import.
- Open Settings → Preferences to set your payment terms, tax defaults, and deposit percentage so new estimates and invoices match how you already work.
- Add your logo under Branding so the portal and documents feel like yours from day one.
After a migration, it’s worth a quick cleanup pass — merging any duplicate clients and linking contacts to the right company so reports stay tidy.
What you gain day to day
Once you’re set up, the everyday flow is fast. Hit ⌘K to open the command palette and type things like “create invoice for Acme” or “pay INV-204” — no menu hunting. Turn on recurring invoices and auto-pay for retainer clients so monthly billing runs itself. Watch invoice aging to catch slow payers early, and drill into revenue when you want to see where the money’s actually coming from.
Pricing is simple: Solo at $9/mo, Studio at $29/mo, with a 14-day free trial so you can run a few real estimates and invoices before you commit. The fastest way to feel the difference is to send one estimate through the portal and watch a client approve and pay it.
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