6 Freelancer Tools To Help You Manage Freelancing

I saw this tweet from Eric and I thought it would be interesting to do a deep dive about what freelancing tools I currently use for admin to learn what tools I should be using when you guys comment!

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This isn’t the sexiest part of freelancing but I find that having systems in place, and tools to help make those systems work, is vital to make freelancing work. What I think of when I think of admin, I think of the tools I need to manage freelancing namely financial and client management.

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Let’s jump in!

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Slack -> Puzzl App

Currently, I communicate with clients on Slack. At the moment, I have found clients add me to their slack groups so I can communicate with their team if necessary (even if the team is small). The advantage of this is that it’s free, we can all see the conversation, I can use too many gifs and no assets get lost.

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Puzzl app really interests me though. Cleaner interface, an assets panel so everything is grouped and payments through the platform. Worth checking out here

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SavvyCal

SavvyCal has been an absolute game changer for me. Before I found SavvyCal, the amount of times when people cancelled on me when I used Calendly makes me want to weep in to a pillow for days. SavvyCal is the Tesla of the booking systems in my opinion.

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It’s better because:

• It overlaps your calendar and your clients calendar
• It lets you set up workflows ie. Send a post meeting thank you, send multiple reminders, send a sales demo
• Set up multiple different scheduling links at different times

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Well worth it my opinion!

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As a user, I can give you a month free with this link. I don’t get a kick back or anything but stil, give it a try here:

https://savvycal.com/?r=Jack-Redley-fe63ddfb

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Hello Bonsai

Initially got hello bonsai because I wanted to make contracts simple both from creating but also sending and signing. However, the tool has been useful for tracking hours for retainers and more. I don’t use the proposal tool because I like to customise the proposals more than they allow. Check out this article here to find out more about that if interested.

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Xero

I use Xero to send out invoices. This is linked to Stripe and means that all payments can be tracked using Xero. Xero is a really powerful tool but frankly, I’m not sure if it’s really needed for me as a freelancer now. With HelloBonsai, you can send invoices and my business doesn’t have multiple products for sale or anything that Xero is really useful for. Should probably cancel this - especially in the context of the next admin tool I use…

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Google Sheets

Google Sheets is a simple but vital tool for me this year. I have the last Friday of every month booked off to plug in what I earnt and spent. This is all tracked on my bank account so why do I want to manually do this? Because I find to ensure I understand the numbers and spot trends, I need to be really vigilant as to what I’m spending where.

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Notion

As you guys may know by now, I am a big fan of Notion. It’s like the nerve centre of Webflolio and my freelancing business too. I mainly use it for writing articles and planning. I also use it for the useful go-live checklist from Tristan Adlington. Excellent document if you haven’t got your hands on it by the way!

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