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Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
What does everyone use to manage their small business and freelance work, particularly invoicing and project tracking?

My girlfriend has a small one-woman business as a translator. We already use other software to handle our personal finances but I'm planning to take over her project/invoice/etc tracking responsibilities (because if I don't, nobody will) and I'm looking for some free (preferably offline) software to track clients, quotes, and projects (estimates, due date, status, etc) and invoices (send date and status.. it doesn't need an invoice generator).

We don't really have a good system at the moment so that's the essence of what we need, certain extra features like being able to store copies of the invoices within the program would be appreciated but not mandatory. Because the nature of freelance work can vary wildly between jobs, including the slow-rear end turnaround time on invoices, I'm not happy with just creating an extensive excel document. I want a GUI that can filter and group projects by client, invoice status, due date etc.

I'm also interested in hearing of any software you guys use that you find invaluable that I haven't accounted for, e.g. if there's some really fancy thunderbird plugin that perfectly handles invoice tracking etc I'd love to hear about that.

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Minus Pants
Jul 18, 2004
I've used all of these over the years, each has their own strengths/weaknesses:
- Harvest. Nice for consulting/hourly work, need separate accounting app.
- Freshbooks. Accounting + invoicing. Accounting features are very basic (not even double-entry).
- Xero. Full-fledged accounting app. You'd need to use an add-on for project/invoice tracking. More powerful than Freshbooks, but also more complicated (from a non-accountant perspective).

xpander
Sep 2, 2004
I recently started contracting full-time, and Freshbooks was recommended to me. I know nothing about accounting, so can you elaborate on what kinds of activities are going to bump up against its limits?

Minus Pants
Jul 18, 2004

xpander posted:

I recently started contracting full-time, and Freshbooks was recommended to me. I know nothing about accounting, so can you elaborate on what kinds of activities are going to bump up against its limits?

For invoicing and tracking paid expenses, it's totally fine. "Basic" wasn't meant to be a knock on it. Where it falls short is more advanced stuff, like splitting expenses over different reporting accounts, handling different tax accounts, tracking payables so you can pay just before they're due, financial statements beyond "in" + "out" graphs (though I think they do some of these now), etc. On the other hand, Freshbooks is designed for the non-accountant, so it's hard to mess up when you're getting started. I used it for years with no issues.

xpander
Sep 2, 2004

Minus Pants posted:

For invoicing and tracking paid expenses, it's totally fine. "Basic" wasn't meant to be a knock on it. Where it falls short is more advanced stuff, like splitting expenses over different reporting accounts, handling different tax accounts, tracking payables so you can pay just before they're due, financial statements beyond "in" + "out" graphs (though I think they do some of these now), etc. On the other hand, Freshbooks is designed for the non-accountant, so it's hard to mess up when you're getting started. I used it for years with no issues.

Awesome, thanks. It seemed to handle my very minor needs, I just wanted to make sure there were no surprises around the corner.

Knyteguy
Jul 6, 2005

YES to love
NO to shirts


Toilet Rascal
https://www.minutedock.com is a great time keeper. It ties in invoices with Xero, and offers some flexibility like time rounding if that's how you contract (we round up to the nearest 15 minutes).

lic
Jun 25, 2013
Our agency (8 employees around the world) has been on a quest the last 4 months to automate more of our administrative workload to take some pressure off of our project manager, who handles all of this stuff. We've learned two lessons:

1. There's no "one program" that handles project management, invoicing, time tracking, archival, NDAs.
2. The paid options blow the free options out of the water.

We use:
Basecamp (for managing projects and communication with clients)
Quickbooks (for tracking timesheets, profit/loss, and invoicing clients)
Sococo (for internal communication)
Google Calendar (for tracking timesheets on a day-to-day basis)
Google Drive (for storing old projects and internal assets)

We still manually process invoices, timesheets, and NDAs.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
I've been doing a bit more research and I think I'm going to go with Fanurio for the timesheet and income/expenses handling. It seems pretty good, it's pretty cheap if you use it for a few years ($USD 60 the first year, $20 for non-updating renewals) and it's local (not web-based) and can sync using Dropbox. Also handles invoicing templates and all that business. There's a two week trial that I'm about to start - I'll post here with updates once that's done.

I'm also not sure if it's expansive enough to handle proper business stuff, but I may as well throw in an extra 2c and say that You Need A Budget is great, especially for the Steam Xmas 2014 Sale price of $USD 15. Has an Android app as well.

sub supau
Aug 28, 2007

For future reference, specifically concerning translation, Translation Office 3000 is a pretty commonly used piece of software designed for client and project tracking, including invoicing. It's definitely not free, and not especially cheap either, although there's a shot at there being a ProZ group buy available which will cut the price down decently. I've only recently started using it, but already it's showing some potential for helping me actually run a business instead of a gently caress-around.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
I passed that on and it looks pretty good, she's going to try out the 30 day trial thing to see whether she wants it at all, and whether she'll get starter or professional (for project tracking etc).

I don't actually think she's a member of proz. She's pretty lackadaisical about her admin/professional stuff, she's more of the "get the document, translate it, send it back, get paid (maybe, if she ever invoices people)" type. Is proz worth the membership cost?

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Troubadour
Mar 1, 2001
Forum Veteran
Proz isn't bad, but in my experience it's more helpful to be a member of your country's professional organization for translators first. In the US, that would be the ATA, who have forums and conventions that help with generating contacts and business (somewhat). It's kind of a pain to get in without a degree in translation studies though.

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