Now that you understand the basics of being a Freelancer & are all set to shape up your career. Let’s look at the tool that can help you maximize your productive time, so that you do what you love more & more.(#DoWhatYouLove)
There are tools where other than login and few fill-ups, you don’t have to do anything but they make the foundation of your business. Here some commonly used tools that would help you strengthen the foundation of your business.
- Essential Freelancing Tools
- Productivity Tools
As the name goes, essential tools are tools which you must have to get your business started. They are the foundation of your business.
Without them, you can’t get the exposure of a freelancer, and cannot earn accordingly.
And if you can’t get your work done without a certain tool, you need to get that as early as possible.
1. Communication tools : Client communication is the key to success in freelancing.
Freelancers usually work with multiple clients. Thus they have high workloads that they need to manage. The only way to do so is by employing collaborating tools because I am sure that whenever there is another email in the box, we all sigh. I often find that solving problems face-to-face with customers are faster and more effective.
Also, collaborating tools like Skype, LucidChart, Slack, Conceptboard, Troop Messenger always keep the conversation with multiple clients organized and is an excellent tool for customer meetings-especially one-to-one or small group video chat.
Next you’ll be deciding which is best for you to work with. It’s quite possible that you need more than one tool to meet your requirements because features may vary. For example, Skype has linkable Id which will be a plus to your site whereas Slack is better for a meeting of 3–4 members.
2. Accounting software : While freelancing is exciting, it can be immensely stressful getting your invoice paid for every single hour of work you did. With the lack of proper tax and accounting team, keeping record of payments while working with multiple clients is a nightmare you don’t want to deal with.
Fortunately, there are online tools which are designed to manage all of your financials in one place. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have an account that creates all of your invoices, calculate tax return for you, track payments and even sent receipts? Well, such software help you receive your money without the tension of book keeping and has been specifically designed for freelancers and self-employed people.
3. Payment tools : While your business is growing, try using tools online tools that allows you to issue digital invoices and help collecting payments online having multiple payment options, like net banking, cards, UPI, debit cards, pay later options and wallets. Incorporating a tool could be the simplest solution which allows you to quickly create and send customized invoices and get paid quickly in multiple currencies.
Funds are automatically transferred to your savings account , and in contrast to limited payment source, you can add a vast number of clients in any of your selected tool. Also, opting a tool which sends late payment reminder to clients is a bonus in such case where without having to shop for an additional product you can attain the utmost benefit from a single tool. Other notable features of such tools should include the power to set-up recurring payments, and collection of sales tax and addition of discounts if any. You can easily link multiple bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and other assets.
After starting your business and accepting few projects, you need some productivity tools which are targeted to boost your efficiency while speeding up your workflow and making your freelancing life successful.
I agree they aren’t essential to get your work but productivity tools help you to be a better freelancer. Such tools help you get your work done faster, which results in getting paid faster and gaining extra time for new projects
This category includes tools like add-ons for existing profile site, project management, cloud file sharing and collaboration services.
1. Project management tools :
You just heard back from Client No.1: She likes your work and want a draft copy within three days. Client No.2 just sent you edits on your piece of submission and would like to see revisions by two days. Client No.3 needs an invoice for the projects you’ve submitted last month. Meanwhile, you’ve taken works from Client Nos. 4 and 5. Oh, and you’re approaching for Client No.7.
Sounds hectic? But that’s a blessing for freelancers to have clients lined up.
With tools which can manage all your administrative tasks for different stages of project completion, you can actually work care free. There are multiple online tools which are designed to track the spend time for a project, their deadlines, periodical backing up of works and send you reports on how much progress have been done and what still needs to be done. In short, it keeps a record of everything starting from minute details to the big picture by recording multiple tasks and breaking them into sub-tasks with individualized deadlines.
2. Collaboration tools:
As a freelancer, your work requires a lot of storage and your life on backup. To ease out the process, there are online tools like Google Drive, Mozy, Dropbox which are undoubtedly few of best cloud-based file sharing tools.
They also have some of the most powerful and advanced real-time collaboration features available today. You can instantly share and edit Word file, spreadsheet and presentation documents with anyone.
3. Time management tools : When you’re new to freelancing, time tracking might seem simple and easy but mind you, time is your best friend as a freelancer. Never compromise with your friend and try getting a tool that will enhance your work performance and boost your growth to another level.
Luckily, tools like Due, Rescue Time, Harvest, Toggl, allows you to track time by creating project name and tasks to be done. They are excellent for having a record of your billing time, which is crucial if you’re paid on per hour basis. Besides, they will provide you with advanced features like workflow statistics , which will help you for keeping a birds-eye on your spent time.