A Comprehensive Guide to Payment Processing for Small Businesses
Feb 15, 2025
Syed Hassan Zaman
As a freelancer, it is easy to get frustrated when your payment doesn't arrive on time or you miss a deadline. Handling these management tasks while focusing on your core work can become increasingly impossible, especially when your business is growing.
One of the reasons this happens is that freelancers do not understand payment processing and how to handle it. On top of that, they struggle to manage their relationship with the client and bear significant losses over time. It is crucial to understand how payment processing works, the kinds of processing challenges freelancers and small businesses face, and how to overcome them with the right tools.
Let us guide you through this process and suggest an excellent way to not only manage your payments but also your client relationships. Read on.
Common Client Management Challenges Freelancers Face
Client management is often a major headache for freelancers, especially when they have to handle more than one. There are several aspects of client management that a freelancer has to look after, alongside project completion. Later on, we will also look at CRM that help you manage clients like a pro.
1. Juggling Multiple Tools
Freelancers often use a variety of tools to manage their business. They might use one for invoicing, another for tracking projects, a separate one for client communication, and spreadsheets to maintain records. While each tool serves a specific purpose in the overall workflow, having to switch between so many tools and managing them separately creates inefficiencies.
Not only is it hard to keep track of so many tools, adding so much data into separate tools inevitably results in inaccuracies. In addition, when important data is scattered across multiple platforms, it is pretty easy to overlook important details, such as payment deadlines, project deadlines, and the like.
2. Tracking Client History
Your relationship with a client usually extends beyond a single project. Over time, you will do various projects with one client, with different deadlines, requirements, and payment terms. However, keeping track of all these previous details is often too difficult.
Without a centralized record, freelancers may forget important details in their agreements or fail to recognize patterns in late payments. This lack of visibility into important data can harm you financially and damage relationships with the client in the long run.
3. Scaling Issues
As your business grows, you will handle more clients with unique requirements. Ultimately, the workload becomes much more than just product delivery and demands a considerable amount of time in management. Managing invoices, tracking payments, and ensuring smooth communication are indispensable, but slowly become overwhelming for one person. Ultimately, you feel stuck, because you want to grow but the administrative burden keeps you from taking on more projects and clients.
Already, 20% of freelancers work over 51 hours per week, while 40% work 41-50 hours per week. Adding extensive managerial burden to it results in severe burnout – it comes with missed deadlines, struggle to scale, delayed payments, and much more.
4. Maintaining Professionalism
Clients expect professionalism from freelancers – the same professionalism that they have gotten used to from other businesses. However, an overworked freelancer has a hard time staying professional. They are sending manually created invoices, regularly forget to follow up on payments, miss deadlines here and there, and often lose track of project requirements.
All of these shortcomings reflect poorly on a freelancer’s reputation. Disorganized financial management can make them look unprofessional and unreliable, leading potential high-value clients to seek better partners.
Common Payment Challenges Freelancers Face
Most freelancers depend entirely on their income from projects they complete. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for them to face payment issues in the form of delays, subpar invoicing, broken communication with clients, and more. It is estimated that 20% of freelancers face late payments and struggle with covering basic living costs as a result.
Source: The Recursive
The following are some of the most pervasive issues freelancers and small business owners face regarding payment processing.
1. Payment Tracking
Payment tracking takes up hours and hours of your precious time every week. You have to stare at long spreadsheets just to know who has paid and who hasn't. Clearly, this isn't the most efficient way of managing or tracking payments.
2. Chasing Overdue Invoices
Chasing down a payment is both time-consuming and awkward at the same time. Constantly sending your client's emails to get your share isn't a great idea for both sides and can harm the long-term relationship.
3. Not Getting Paid on Time
Closely connected to the first two problems is the problem of not getting paid on time. As a freelancer, your livelihood depends upon the work you do and the payment you receive from it. If this cycle breaks because of the client not paying you, you are in trouble.
Source: Hello Bonsai
In case it happens, you need to follow up on payments after consulting all the details. Doing it manually can take a lifetime, the time that you can spend completing valuable projects.
What's the Solution to Client Management Challenges Faced by Freelancers?
We have discussed the problems faced by freelancers regarding payments, such as high processing fees, payment tracking, security concerns, and the like. The solution lies in a comprehensive CRM system that manages client payments efficiently and helps freelancers focus on their work. The CRM market has grown rapidly and is expected to hit $145.60bn by 2029.
Source: RevPilots
These CRMs make getting paid easier than ever with their comprehensive set of features.
1. Brightenly
The number one CRM tool on this list is Brightenly. Often ranked amongst the top 5 must have CRMs for freelancers in 2025, it is a clean and advanced client management partner. Brightenly is a no-brainer when you want to free up your precious time and spend it completing projects.
After getting frustrated multiple times with deadlines, payments, and non-effective client communication, it is time to try something that works and gives you peace of mind.
No unnecessary features that you will never use but cost a fortune. No hiccups and delays that make you think you were better doing it manually. No more missed deadlines, payment delays, and lost clients. Brightenly manages everything from client relationships to payment invoices on one platform, so no more juggling multiple tools either.
Easy to Use
What sets Brightenly apart from many other CRM tools is its ease of use. Of course, you do not want to encounter a tool that takes weeks and weeks to master – it kills the purpose of having such a tool in the first place. You need something that doesn't make you sift through tons of documents and endless tutorials.
All you need to do is provide your details, create an account, and you are ready to go.
Payment Tracking Solution
Instead of hiring a manager to track payments, you can use a tool like Brightenly. It lets you create clean and professional invoices within seconds – and with that, the inbuilt payment processing system automatically updates you regarding the status of those invoices on your dashboard. No longer do you need to create templates, manually track invoice status, or send follow-up emails to clients.
Automated Reminder Emails to Clients
You don't need to involve a collection agency to claim your payment. Brightenly can resolve this issue by automating reminder emails for missing or late payments.
All Communication in One Place Imagine having to juggle multiple tools to check the emails and messages exchanged with your client. It sounds like a tiring experience, but a better alternative in the form of Brightenly can ease your burden significantly. Be it emails, messages, or follow-ups, everything is just one click away. No matter which piece of communication you want to explore, it is easy to locate.
Hence, no more communication lapses, which means happy clients and more earnings.
Brightenly Pros
An excellent and easy interface that everyone can understand.
Minimal learning curve, so you can start using it instantly.
Advance invoice creation that makes you look professional in front of clients.
Sends regular reminders of late payments to clients.
Brightenly Cons
The extensive set of features are great but might overwhelm you in the very beginning.
2. HubSpot
HubSpot is a popular CRM tool for businesses of all sizes, including freelancers. It is an intuitive tool that can handle multiple aspects of a freelance business, such as emails, marketing, and the like. Since freelancers usually do not have large sums to spend on plans, HubSpot has a free plan with access to all software hubs. On top of everything, HubSpot is pretty easy to set up and has a simple interface that everyone can understand within a short period of interaction.
Pros
A free plan that makes HubSpot accessible to everyone.
Solid automation capabilities that are regularly updated.
Several certifications and educational resources to help users.
Cons
Advance features are available only at hefty price tags.
Contact management needs improvements.
3. Brevo
Brevo is a comprehensive CRM platform that helps freelancers manage client relationships over multiple channels. From email automation and WhatsApp integration to data management, Brevo has many features for any capable freelancer. In addition, Brevo offers integration with over 150 tools, so you do not have to use them separately. The platform can be accessed at an affordable rate, which makes it better than many competitors charging exorbitant amounts.
Brevo Pros
A great free plan with some advanced features like automation.
A user-friendly email template system.
A highly functional live chat option.
Brevo Cons
Missing features in lower level plans.
The mobile app needs significant improvements.
4. Bitrix24
Bitrix24 is popular for its omnichannel Contact Center that lets freelancers streamline client communications. On a single platform, solopreneurs can access CRM forms, telephony, live chat, social media messaging, and video calling. Bitrix24 also has a quality CoPilot AI to help freelancers generate content for emails and tasks within minutes. It is one of those platforms that offers extensive customizations in the form of niche-specific modules to manage projects and clients.
Bitrix24 Pros
A dedicated e-commerce module that helps manage products, orders, checkouts, and payments.
A unified inbox for all communication.
Helpful AI for chat, email, and CRM tasks.
Bitrix24 Cons
Free plan doesn't include phone and email communication.
Group pricing for paid plans doesn't usually benefit solopreneurs.
5. Bigin by Zoho CRM
Bigin is Zoho’s mini platform designed specifically to aid freelancers. That is why Zoho has included basic contact management and recurring task automation functionalities in the basic, free plan. With that, Bigin allows freelancers to modify pipeline stages and data fields as they see fit to their project requirements. The built-in telephony functionality is really useful for solopreneurs who want to stay in touch with their clients on the phone.
Bigin Pros
Payment processing proposals available in all plans.
Built specially for freelancers to manage projects and clients.
Bigin Cons
A 7-day free trial without any basic, free plan.
Most AI tools aren't available for free and are often included in plans.
6. Capsule CRM
Another AI-powered CRM that has earned a stellar reputation due to its ability to create and optimize sales emails. The best part about it is that this AI email optimization tool is available for free in the basic plan. Similarly, the in-built task and project management features are also available to everyone without requiring a single penny. The basic plan also includes analytics and free email templates.
Capsule CRM Pros
Built-in project and task management for maximum functionality.
The email marketing campaign is free and comes with several useful features.
Capsule CRM Cons
You can only store 250 contacts and basic dashboards in the free plan.
AI capabilities only applicable to email content.
Manage Client Relationships With Brightenly
Payment tracking and management is just one aspect of a capable freelancer CRM tool. It also manages the overall relationship with the client to provide the small business owner peace of mind.
You do not need those tools that promise tons of features but deliver on those that you need most. Paying hefty sums for such tools when they don't even handle your client relationships at crunch times is a bad deal. Ultimately, these problems add up, and you end up losing clients.
Brightenly resolves all of these annoying issues with its advanced and reliable CRM platform. Payment management? Check. Client relationship management? Check? Timely reminders? Check. We offer the best of both worlds when it comes to managing your payments and keeping a healthy relationship with clients.
So, sign up with Brightenly today and experience a new, more efficient freelancing era.