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Ask HN: Freelance Management Services/Apps

57 points by n_coats ↗ HN
What services are freelance developers using to manage time logging, expense tracking, invoice generation, and reporting for multiple clients?

Preferably a service that offers both a web and native app.

38 comments

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adrianmoses
AND CO is a good service https://www.and.co/
n_coats
This looks amazing - much better than most of the comparable services I've looked into. Going to give it a shot - thanks!
alphabettsy
Time: Toggl
lgbr
I have to second this. Toggl is fantastic not just for freelance time management, but for managing time spent on any project. It has a lot of features that you'd just expect to be there, like when the browser icon changes whether you're on the clock or off the clock, or how you can just click 'play' on a previously logged task to resume the timer for that task.
ddrmaxgt37
I've been using http://hellobonsai.com for invoicing. It has been an amazing experience.

They do time tracking and a bunch of other things as well and are continually improving the product.

mgkimsal
freshbooks for basic accounting/invoicing/timetracking.
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caycecan
Gsuite / Trello / Toggl / Xero . This is comprehensive as I have found a combination of services to be and still be relatively low overhead.
xforteversilov
QBserve is a great Mac app for time tracking and logging.
0xEFF
https://books.zoho.com is international and has been wonderful for my project billing. I've been using it for ~2 years as a freelancer and have no complaints. I don't have any business or accounting education and I credit the design of the UI with helping me learn basic accounting principles.
_neil
https://cushionapp.com/ is a favorite of mine. Mainly a scheduling/forecasting app but has some great, newer features around invoicing/payments and time tracking.
froztbyte
Very early on:

* time tracking: a frankenstein combination of system logs (especially helpful when jumping between workstations), paper notebook, and chatlogs

* invoicing: http://billable.me/

* both: some elbow grease

Evolution (and current, w/ a small team):

* time tracking: http://getharvest.com/

* invoicing, accounting, etc: https://www.xero.com/

The first one carried me for a few months, at an average workload of 60~140h/mo and a maintenance workload of about 4 hours total.

The latter is solving somewhat different problems, but does equate to time won on the admin side.

marpstar
I use Pancake (https://www.pancakeapp.com/) for my invoices, expense tracking, proposal/estimate writing, and reporting. They don't offer a native app, but the site is responsive and works well enough on mobile. Pay once and run on your own server.

I previously used Toggl for time-tracking, but have been transitioning out of hourly billing and haven't been tracking time for months.

drspacemonkey
Freshbooks. It's not free, but it has all the features you want, both on web and mobile. It costs me ~$200/year, but it saves me enough time that it more than pays for itself.
jcassee
I use Timely for time tracking because of it's fast time-to-data-entry. Also, they integrate with calendar and todo services for those "what did I do today" moments.

https://timelyapp.com

sheriffderek
I've been using harvest for years - and It's been great. The time-tracking widget has been updated - and the invoicing is smooth.