A freelancer’s best friend
By Noah (resources)
One of the more time consuming (and annoying) parts of doing freelance work is keeping track of time and money. For a long time, I had a large Excel spreadsheet that was broken up by client and project. At first, it worked fine. But, as I added more clients and more jobs, it became a nightmare to keep updated and organized.
For a while, I started using Side Job Track for free. It was leaps and bounds above my Quicken and Excel solution. While I still recommend Side Job Track for people to try, the latest project tracking service I’m using is almost perfect.
FreshBooks is awesome. It automatically does many things I was doing manually in the past. I’ll list my 3 favorite features that keep me a loyal customer.
1. Time tracking and invoicing
Plain and simple, time tracking saves me time and money. Create clients, add projects and then launch the time tracking tool to record your time as you work. When you’re done, the time is logged in the right place. You can even log time directly by telling FreshBooks how much time you spent on any specific project or item. What really makes this feature a time and money saver is the ability to generate an invoice automatically using any unbilled hours for a specific project.
2. Paypal integration and recurring billing
Actually getting paid can often times be a hassle. Especially if you are billing monthly or yearly. FreshBooks makes this easy. For example, if I charge a client $120 per year for web hosting I can set up an recurring invoice that will automatically generate and send that client an invoice. This is a lifesaver considering how forgetful I am. In addition to this, you can link FreshBooks to your Paypal account (or other service) and let your clients pay you online via Paypal.
3. Reports
Having access to all my activity over the past year is quite helpful. I can see where my money came from, how much time I spent on each project, etc. This can also be useful for tax purposes and learning how long it takes you to complete certain tasks, on average.
There are plenty of other great features that make FreshBooks worthwhile. I highly suggest it to anyone who is looking to simplify time tracking and invoicing for their freelancing business. And the best part is you can use it for free (up to 3 clients).
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