Freelance
Online Invoicing Pimps – The First One (Or Three) Is Free
Regardless of the size of your company, sending invoices & tracking expenses is an obvious part of doing business. Online-invoicing services enable you to send invoices and estimates, web-based time tracking (which is good if you want to monitor how much time you spend on each project or task within a project), and expenses that your business picks up along the way.
If your business has grown to a size that you have several clients and/or employees then the choice of keeping records of invoice & expense is no longer an option. Whether you are a current online-invoicing user or will soon be, then be certain to check out the services that offer tax/expense tracking.
FreshBooks seems to offer many additional accounting-type integrated services for the small business invoice application user. Many of these invoicing services rivaled traditional bookkeeping software like QuickBooks. While other invoicing services like Paymo offer services such as a downloadable client-side time clock to track time against an allocated project or task.
No one disputes that online invoicing has made doing business more organized for independent/freelance businesses, but at what price? Most online invoicing services offer a spectrum of services, but only the basic services (invoicing/expenses) seem to be the common core. Investigating the specialized services (e.g. expense tracking for taxes [that is compatible with your tax software]) is key when trying to differentiate between the herd of invoicing like-services out there.
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Freelance Web Design – Top Sites
If you are a freelance web designer, developer, graphic artist, or outsourcing service provider, there are a wide range of sites available on the web to connect with other people to build new business. We take a look at some of the best of these that should be on your short list, and review some of the pros and cons of each. Freelancers should make one site that they feel most comfortable with their base of operations, building accounts and feedback on the site for core business, while keeping aware of the new posts and new projects being offered on others to catch the ones that are most relevant to their area of specialization. The competition on freelance websites is strong among service providers, and the rates can be quite low when set in an international context. Developers may find it valuable to build a support team through these sites as well when the work load becomes too heavy. The sites vary as to whether they require a paid membership and what commission they take from service providers and buyers. Smart management and attention to details will help you reduce your costs, but as always – caveat emptor. Make sure you test providers by giving a small project to complete before diving into a large project. You’ll want to confirm the working relationship, communication, and production quality before making any large commitments or site changes.
Freelance Web Development – Site List:
1. odesk.com
Without a doubt the best freelance site on the web today. From the number of jobs listed and the quality of development projects, to the innovative billing, collaboration, and work monitoring options, oDesk is recommended for developers and service buyers for any project.
GAF, or getafreelancer.com, has one of the most active user communities for freelance project development. The quality of projects isn’t always great here, but the volume of bidding and the prices are low. Recently opened a Euro branch of the site, so may split business between the two, weakening overall brand and community.
3. elance.com
eLance is owned by eBay and as such attracts a fair number of high quality project listings, and a lot of freelancers are doing really well here. However, their subscription fees for connects have you basically paying for every bid you make on site, and extra fees for extra categories, etc. Worth it if you take the time to build a presence on site and manage it like your eBay store.
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