Top Tools for Freelancers to Stay Financially Organized

As a freelancer, you always want to focus on growth, yet at the same time, you want to stay very well organized. Making sure that you have the right tools for the job will help quite a bit. That does bring the question, how can you stay financially-organized? Here are some of the right tools to get the job done.

QuickBooks

QuickBooks has a self-employed toolkit for gig workers, freelancers and sole proprietors. The idea here is that you can easily categorize transactions, send invoices, calculate taxes, track your income, etc. It’s very effective because they have all the tools you need for accounting. There’s also a mobile app they provide, along with tax features. All in all, it’s the ultimate tool for any freelancer, and one of those great solutions you do not want to miss.

Bonsai

Bonsai is very good for invoicing, and it can help you track time spent on projects, but also create invoices. A lot of people love it mainly because it’s reliable, easy to use and adaptable to your requirements. And on top of that, they have late payment reminders, global payment support, tax-friendly income reports and so on.

PayStubble

The utility bill generator from PayStubble is great because it helps you create documentation required when you deal with landlords and clients. It’s very easy to customize, the templates provided are very professional and the overall experience is second to none. It comes as highly recommended to use this utility bill generator, and you will find it to convey an exceptional return on investment.

YNAB

YNAB is short for You Need A Budget and it’s one of the best budgeting apps on the market. It’s very effective because it allows you to easily track expenses, categorize them and figure out what expenses you can lower to have the best profits. It truly helps provide a really good ROI, and the best part is that you will be very happy with the process and overall experience. Plus, the app has a simple interface, which makes it super powerful even for beginners.

PocketSmith

With this tool, you have forecasting tools and cashflow projections. As a freelancer, you do want to know what’s your cashflow, what payments need to come, etc. Here you have that, along with income forecasting, transaction labeling, multi-currency and multi-account support, etc. Once you start using this app, you will find it easier to work with people from anywhere in the world. It’s an exceptional solution and one that you do not want to miss.

TurboTax

Dealing with taxes as a freelancer is one of those parts of the job that most people dislike. But the truth is that it makes a lot of sense to check out this app, because it gives you deduction guidance, it integrates with expense tracking tools, and you can easily file your taxes with it. That being said, it has a very user-friendly interface, and the guidance they provide is magnificent. You should definitely consider trying it out, if you can, as it’s well worth the investment.

Stripe

Stripe or PayPal for Business are 2 great tools for payment processing. If you want to create your own website and generate sales that way, you need a payment processor integrated onto the site. And these 2 are some of the best payment solutions on the market.

Both of them are nice, because you have a developer-friendly API, along with global currency support, custom checkout workflows, recurring payment and subscription support, among many others. That’s why you have to give it a try for yourself, as you will find it to convey a great experience and it’s definitely important to have a payment system that you can rely on. And that’s exactly what you’re getting here with any of these platforms.

Expensify

As the name suggests, Expensify is all about tracking your expenses. It becomes more difficult to manage and track expenses as a freelancer, especially when you have pretty good success. That’s why it makes a lot of sense to give Expensify a shot, because it offers great features like receipt scanning, automatic categorization of expenses, credit card or bank integration, real time expense reports and many others. It’s certainly worth giving it a shot, and the results you’re getting are very good, too.

Everlance

Everlance is a similar tool, both an expense and mileage tracker. It can be great for transportation businesses, but also a variety of other niches. They offer credit card and bank syncing, along with tax report generation and many others. You can narrow down the right deductions, ensure that there’s minimal input from you, and the process is more automated than manual. That can prove to be very useful and certainly a game-changer in these situations, that’s for sure.

Toggl Track

As a freelancer, you need adequate time tracking solutions. You want to know how much time you spend on any project, so you can avoid under-charging clients. Instead, you want to charge them fairly, based on how much time you actually spent on their work. Toggl is very popular, and it has one click time tracking, visual reports, offline tracking, but it also integrates with CRMs and billing tools, which is a thing to keep in mind.

Catch

Catch is a tool for freelancers that want to focus on setting money aside for retirement. It can be difficult to set retirement money aside when you freelance, and that’s why Catch can be a good option. It has custom saving goals, investment options for retirement, but also automatically saves a percentage of your income for retirement. It might not seem like much at first, but this is an excellent tool that can help you set money aside even if it’s difficult to achieve that.

Indy

You can also use Indy, which is a very good tool that encapsulates everything you need as a freelancer. It has task management, time tracking, proposals, contract and invoice management in a single place. That’s handy, and it helps provide an exceptional service, something that you do not want to miss. 

Harvest

Freelancers can also try out Harvest, which is a great tool for invoicing, expense and time tracking. Having all of those things under a single roof is great and it can make the experience a whole lot easier to manage. You can check the billable hours of the project, you can check expense logging, and it even has integrated invoicing with support for PayPal and Stripe. That’s great, because having all those things in a single place will help a lot, and it certainly conveys a much better result than expected.

Closing thoughts

There’s no denying that finding great tools as a freelancer can help you save both time and money. It’s not easy to do, but once you manage everything adequately, results can be nothing short of impressive. We highly recommend giving all these tools a try if you’re serious about growing as a freelancer. Having tools that will help you expand as a professional is always handy, and it makes the experience a whole lot more cohesive. Granted, it will take a bit to figure out what apps are the best and which ones might not be a good fit. But once you find the right ones, results can be incredible!