Freelancer Skills 201: Tracking Money In

As someone who’s run small businesses for a decade, I have a few crucial tricks. For income, it really comes down to one thing: TRACKING.

 

Freelancer success Tip #1

Set up systems to make tracking easy.

Pro Tip: Get a biz bank account and put all your income in there (including your paypal/venmo). This makes tracking WAY easier.

Then, decide on a tracking system. Finding the method that works for you might take a little trial and error, but it’s worth it.

Commonly picked options are Quickbooks, Freshbooks, or Mint.
I like to use a spreadsheet, here’s a sample of mine:

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I share this spreadsheet and an explanation of why I track all this stuff in class.

Freelancer success Tip #2

With your systems in place. track your income regularly (monthly). Why?

Because knowing what you are expecting to get in means being able to plan ahead for cash flow and follow up on missing payments.

Knowing what you’ve received means you can plan ahead to put money aside for your costs of doing business, retirement, and taxes. After that, you know what’s yours to blow on Laboutins [or rent].