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9 Comments

How do you manage your work? A tool may help?

Hi freelancers!

I'm Luca and I've been freelancing for about a year as a software developer (though that's my job for way more than a year 😄), I mostly do web development.

I'm currently based in Brussels (Belgium) and honestly, the bureaucracy is well managed and not excessive, but still you need to do a lot of "documentation" for your own company, for the client, invoices, timesheets, contracts, proposals, project sheets, boom 🤯 my head is already exploding.

So I started using Google Drive and Sheets, but after a while, I felt the chaos! I also tried several commercial tools from Asana to Wrike, passing through ClickUp and ERP tools, but none of them seems to fit my need, which at the end is:

  • Exchange and sign documents at the beginning of a project
  • Create timesheets at weekly or monthly
  • Create an invoice (eventually from a timesheet)
  • Send timesheet and invoice to the client
  • Archive all the above docs per-project, per-client for easier retrieval
  • See some stats per-project/client/type of work: revenues, worked hours, project budget, schedules...

Well, you know where this is going, I'm a developer so driven by frustration (and fun and excitement yeah let's say it) I built a small tool to help myself, done 🕺!

So I'm wondering if you're facing the same problems, which are your main pain points and how do you manage your business-related activities, you know: timesheets, invoices, expenses, project management, and tons of documents...?
A dedicated tool would be helpful for the freelancers' community?

I would love to hear from you, just shoot your thoughts! I made a small Google Form if you have 5 mins https://forms.gle/SWNmo8GtJLkw3DfPA

Have a wonderful day

Luca

  1. 1

    I have been freelancing for about two years, here is what I use:

    Timetracking: EverHour, easy to do all my timetracking at the end of the day.
    Invoicing: PayDay, Icelandic application (I am based there).
    Notes: Notion, can customize it to what I need.
    Task management: Whatever client is using.

    1. 1

      Nice! Why do you use PayDay for invoicing instead of EverHour (it seems it creates invoices as well), just curious?

      1. 1

        I use PayDay for invoicing because they are integrated into the banking system here in Iceland, can send invoices directly to ERP systems, so they are very convenient.

        1. 1

          Ah OK makes sense 👌

  2. 1

    We - I unsurprisingly use and built ZimTik exactly to avoid spending time on any of this :)

    1. 1

      Ahahah already found the first potential competitor 🤦‍♂️.
      Nice tool though 😉

  3. 1

    Good question. I recently started in freelancing. So I need to learn lot of things like invoice, taxes, etc.

    1. 2

      Yes, you need to, sadly 😁.
      So keep in touch and good luck with your new adventure!

      1. 1

        Thank you, Luca. Appreciate it.

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