Web Apps
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or rent a space? Bill hourly or by the job? What kind of hours should you assign as ‘work time’?
Amidst all those decisions that have to be made, you also have to choose what tools you’re going to use to actually do your job. And the web is both a blessing and a curse in this regard. It’s a blessing in that it gives you a plethora of choices for the different categories of applications. But it can be a curse because there are so many good options to choose from.
What’s a poor, green-behind-the-ears freelancer to do? Well, you can start by letting us whittle down the list a little for you. Separate some of the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. You’ll still have find which of the tools below best fit your needs and style, but this is the right place to start.
We’ve broken down the apps into larger categories, highlighted the best or most interesting in each category, and included the best of the rest. Click away — each image will take you to the app listed. Enjoy!
Invoicing and Time Tracking
First things first — you need to get paid. And so you need to bill your customers. And if you bill by the hour, you need to track your time. Whether it’s sending professional looking invoices or easily tracking your hours, these apps are the best available and a pleasure to use.
the Invoice Machine
A beautifully designed application that focuses on simplicity, the Invoice Machine is one of the nicer invoicing tools available. A professional looking invoice says a lot to your client — Invoice Machine can help complete a great impression.
Ballpark
The better way to send invoices.
Harvest
Sleek, intuitive, fast.
FreshBooks
Track your time and send invoices.
LessTimeSpent
A simple time tracking solution.
Blinksale
A focus on ease of use.
Tempo
Simple time tracking, powerful reporting.
Financial/Accounting
Once you start getting paid, you have to do something with the money. Taking care of the finances — bookkeeping, accounting, taxes included — is probably one of the least enjoyed aspects of working for yourself. But it has to be done, so you’re best off finding a tool that makes these tasks easy and efficient.
Mint
One of the more refreshing apps to come along recently, Mint was changing the way people were able to manage their finances. With their recent sale to Intuit — makers of Quicken — there has been a bit of a backlash and a lot of people deleting their accounts.
Regardless, Mint is still one of the nicest tools to keep on top of your finances.
Wesabe
Your money. Your community.
LessAccounting
Accounting made simple.
Geezeo
Make sense of your money.
e-conomic
Online accounting for novices.
Pulse
Monitor the heartbeat of your business.
Project/Task Management
Once you’ve gotten the business side of things out of the way, you need to manage the actual work. Projects, recurring tasks, and sharing tasks are all part of the life of a freelancer. Whether you’re looking for a full fledged project management tool or a simple way to track your own work, there are many tools available.
Use any of these top applications to stay on top of what you do.
Basecamp
Despite a lot of other sites copying their style, 37signals still lead the way in the project management space. Basecamp is simply the best application to manage your work. With a focus on simplicity and communication, it’s an enjoyable tool to use.
Ad with so many other web based applications integrating with Basecamp, it doesn’t appear that it’ll be knocked off its perch anytime soon.
Staction
Stop managing projects, start managing people.
Remember the Milk
The best way to manage your tasks.
Subernova
Project management for rockstars.
task.fm
Outsource your memory.
Action Method Online
Too many ideas. Not enough action.
Huddle
Work better together.
Comindwork
Manage projects online.
Remindr
Dead simple reminders.
TaskBin
Managing tasks for groups.
FIle Management
After you spend the time figuring out what needs to get done — and start doing — the result will in many cases involve files to manage or share. Some of the project management tools above include file management and online storage. But many do not.
Not to worry though. There are lots of options for storing, sharing and backing up your data. Here’s some tools focused on this essential aspect of your business.
Dropbox
I’ve talked here recently about Dropbox and I have to confess — this is one of my favourite tools. It has been a great boon to my business and makes collaboration a cinch. Add the peace of mind with its file revisions and tight integration with the operating system and it simply fades into the background.
Actually, for a web tool, it feels like a part of your operating system. This still amazes me.
drop.io
Simple real-time sharing and collaborating.
UploadRobots
Upload, share and download files.
FileGears
File collaboration made easy.
Google Docs
File sharing from your Internet overlords.
KnowledgeTree
Connect your global workforce.
Fluxiom
Online media management.
CRM
One other vital aspect to your business is keeping track of customers. Tracking interactions, leads, tasks, meetings and follow-up’s is needed to make sure that your revenue streams are always flowing.
Gist
Still in beta, Gist is still working out the kinks. But for those who like to get the big picture, this is a tool with a lot of promise. How does it work? It takes your interactions with others from Twitter, Facebook, your email and others and analyzes who you talk to. It then tracks the online activity of those people and ranks the updates based on their importance to you.
This is a simplified overview — sign up to check it out for yourself. It’s probably not for everyone, but it is an interesting way for busy freelancers to stay on top of the people they depend on.
Highrise
Track your leads, contacts and deals.
SugarCRM
The cloud is open.
SixCentral
Easily manage your proposals.
Salesforce
The right answer for right now.
Social Tools
Anyone who has spent some time as a remote web worker knows that paying attention to your social life is important. When you don’t go to an office and interact face to face with other adults every day, you are exposed to the dangers of isolation.
Now, the tools below are not going to replace the physical interaction we all require, but they can help fill in for the banter that you’d participate in at a more traditional workspace. Whether keeping in touch with coworkers and partners or general internet friends, the apps listed here can help you feel in touch with the outside world.
When Twitter first came on the scene, there sure seemed to be a lot of people saying they ‘didn’t get it’ or that it was a waste of time. A couple of years later and it seems that those people aren’t around anymore. Or they’re keeping quiet. Or they’re busy tweeting.
Twitter is the de facto standard for communicating online now.
life.io
Your life, your way.
Connect and share with your people.
Campfire
Team collaboration with real time chat.
Coop
Stay in tune with your co-workers.
Phone
Many web workers dislike using the phone, but there are going to be those times when email or IM just don’t cut it. Make sure you give your customers and/or teammates another avenue of getting your time and attention.
The following tools are aimed at mobility with flexibility.
Skype
People all over the world use Skype as their primary means of communicating. With instant messaging and voice services, including voicemail, huge long distance charges seem like a thing of the past century.
If the controversy and ownership of Skype’s technology ends well, this service will continue to be a mainstay in online business.
Jott
Three ways to make your mobile life easier.
Google Voice
One number to rule them all.
RingCentral
Your phone system, everywhere.
Resume/Portfolio
From many freelancers, in order to keep the work coming in, you need to be able to show potential customers who you are and what you’ve done. There are many web applications that now focus on this genre.
Here are two of our favourites.
Raveal
A newer entrant in this category, Raveal shows a lot of promise. It’s intended to mix both your portfolio and resume into one entity. It’s an interesting approach.
CeeVee
The smarter way to create and share your resume.
Miscellaneous Tools
Lastly, here are a few other tools that are somewhat in a category of their own, but may help you in running a successful business.
cotweet
If you are going to interact with your clients via Twitter, than cotweet is a service that may be of interest. It makes managing a business account a little easier with support for dual accounts, assignment of tweets, and robust notifications.
Screenr
Instant screencasts for Twitter.
Moobiz
Easy online small business software.
timebridge
Run great meetings.
That’s All for Now
There are plenty of other great web tools that could have been included here. Freelancers in this day and age certainly have no shortage of choices.
Take some time to consider your needs and then choose the tools that work for you.
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When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
When you make the decision to go out on your own, you are faced with many choices. Should you work from home or ...
I prefer to use Pivotal Tracker instead of all 37 Signals together (Basecamp, etc.)
Excellent list Chris, and thanks for including Moobiz…
For accounting, I can recommend Freeagent Central:
- http://www.freeagentcentral.com
I just signed up for invoicemachine… it looks quite promising, and I like the free option–I don’t have a need for more than 3 invoices a month anyway.
If you’re looking for a web app that does most of this in one – try openGoo, you need to host it yourself (LAMP/WAMP/XAMMP etc based). It’s got email, calendar, tasks, project managment, time tracking, invoicing, documents and coming soon is spreadsheets. Best of all being open source php/js/html/css if you don’t like the way a particular feature works, you just change it.
Awesome! As a person that only runs Linux and uses only open source applications, I appreciate you mentioning this.
sick list.
You guys totally forgot http://atomplan.com/ off of this…
Has anybody tried Pulse? It looks interesting but I can’t find any reviews of it.
Come back on Monday
what about Billings3: http://www.billingsapp.com/ ???
It’s not a web app. Billings3 has been covered over at Mac.AppStorm though: http://mac.appstorm.net/reviews/billings-time-tracking-invoicing/
sorry Chris,
my mistake
I missed WEB apps in the title.
great list Chris!
Great list… You missed out Freelance Total though which is the perfect app for freelancers
You missed out http://krop.com for Resume & portfolio?
I second this. Krop CDB is wonderful. There’s a few hosted portfolio services that lend themselves to certain styles of creatives. http://CargoCollective.com/ being an example.
Excellent post Chris! And thanks for mentioning Comindwork!
Great Post. Should give http://contentcube.com a look. Excellent online file storage and sharing for creative professionals.
Great list. Another essential web app for freelancers who bill hourly is Intervals. It lets you track your time against your freelance projects, so you can bill accurately.
Fabulous, thanks for this list, I’ll keep it for future reference.
Chris, great list, thanks! Might want to check out ClientSpot (http://www.myclientspot.com) for team project management and time tracking. Also really like Grasshopper/GotVMail for virtual phone systems.
Great list ! You may forgot http://yammer.com in the collaboration tools one.
Where’s Paymo (http://www.paymo.biz) ?:)
Check out 1time (http://1timetracking.com ) for time tracking
http://www.easytasker.com is great too, especially for timesheets, projects and invoices. Neat iPhone version too.
I have found http://worketc.com to be a one stop shop for crm, project management, billing, time tracking and has plenty of other features. I can’t believe that wasn’t on the list.
forgot to write some words for all the links? yeah, don’t worry – i’m clicking through all of them – i’m a freelancer i got plenty of time.
notice that all comments are linkdropping – wonder why? they’re also linkdroppers, that’s why.
Awesome list. I use http://outright.com/ for my accounting. It’s awesome + free
Accounting
http://xero.com
Social
http://friendfeed.com/
Resume/Portfolio
http://linkedin.com/
Yes, I can’t believe Linked in wasn’t mentioned.
Fantastic article, I’ve posted it on Twitter!
i cant believe toggl is not here
I’ve been using http://goplanapp.com/ and I’m happy with it
Hi,
This is a great list that seems to continue to grow. I have been looking for Creative project management options for a while and this is such a great help! Thanks so much for taking the time to pull all of these together!
I use pipelinedeals for CRM and project management, top notch customization and easy to use.
Time tracking, invoicing, expenses, rich desktop client, integration with Xero http://www.rypenow.com
Very helpful!
We’ve just launched http://www.cannybill.com. It’s an online invoicing and billing solution but has the added advantage that you can create web based order forms to sell your products and services.
This can be anything from selling a membership or subscription to a software download or web hosting, domain names and SSLs.
http://www.cannybill.com/tour_orderforms.html
http://www.cannybill.com/tour_plugins.html
If you’re in the UK then http://www.crunch.co.uk/ looks pretty awesome. Takes care of everything from bookkeeping to a having real, personal accountant.
http://www.ShareFile.com offers a large file transfer service geared towards businesses.
I personally love Basecamp and Freshbooks. They play well together too!
Google voice could make a pretty big play to taking down Skype, but i wonder how much money it will cost them?
What about the Zoho Suite ? http://www.zoho.com/
Where using Zoho Invoice and just switched to the newly updated Zoho Projects.
this is a real great list. There is also some features that I never hv though about ;o)
Great list i use a couple of these already but will checking into the others as well
Hoot Suite is another great free Twitter client – http://hootsuite.com.
http://www.transferum.com – an online file storage company.
suitable for both business and individual use to share files with friends or business partners or to regularly back-up your data.
1 GB FREE account that NEVER EXPIRES
Thank you very much for this great list of online resources.