Mint

Howdy Do It came from “how do you do It,” the question Ellie & Margot found themselves asking about their freelance lifestyles, and so Howdy Do It was born, a weekly column about the things we do to keep ourselves organized, inspired and on track. Margot will be here on Mint each Monday, and Ellie will be over on Margot’s blog Pitch Design Union at the same time. If you have any questions for Margot or Ellie, you can ask them on formspring.

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The past week or two, I’ve been switching back and forth between clients more than usual, up to several times a day. Which gets annoying having to remember to record it right all the time. Also, my usual M.O. for managing the details of a project is to keep an open Text Edit file for each one that is a running list of hours, to-dos and notes. Throw in more than one client and it’s pretty messy and hard to navigate sometimes. So I tweeted about suggestions for a time-tracking, billing, account managing software and I got way more responses than I expected. I don’t think I’d ever had so many people @reply to something I’ve posted before, which is pretty awesome. It gave me the idea that I should actually look into all the suggestions and come up with some reviews.

Specifically, this is I’m looking for:
- I need to know how to use the thing in less than 20 minutes.
- I’m not going to love it if it doesn’t look nice and work even better.
- Please… Can it be at least a little fun to use. No one wants to do boring admin tasks like invoicing, so the more fun it is the more likely I will use it.
- Pricing is a big issue (when is it NOT for a small-business??). I want either a flat-fee or very small monthly payment that doesn’t leave me hankering for the more expensive plans that my business can’t afford.
- Add-ons are huge plus. They’re what allow me to customize more to my taste. Plus, I’d prefer not to have to be tied to my browser entering in stuff all the time.
- Whether or not it will sync to my phone whether or not that adds additional fees.
- Needs to have some kind of timer function.

You guys suggested: FunctionFox, TimeNet, Freshbooks, Harvest, Billings, and Supernova as possible options. On first glance they all sound pretty much exactly the same, so I spent a few hours researching and downloading the trials just to get a sense of them. Here’s how they stacked up.

Overall, I want Supernova, followed very shortly by Harvest. They pretty much tie for the best bets as far as ease of use goes. But with Subernova, I like that the full program is available for a single decent monthly price, because then you never have to worry about upgrading. Also! You can schedule emails for the future, which I always want to do too. After that Harvest is a stand-out because I trust the name since so many people I know use it, and it does seem like a super solid program to boot. Honorable mention goes to Billings which I really wanted to like and go with, and I may still do it since I was so taken with it, but their pricing seems fishy. Everyone else has their pricing laid out easily and with Billings, I didn’t find it right away. AND there’s weirdness between the plans too. Dunno, maybe I’m dense but the all plans seem like the same thing, so it’s strange there are 2 different payment options. Also, minus points for such crappy reviews on iTunes for the app.

But the Oscar goes to (oh come on, they were just on last night, I couldn’t resist)…Freshbooks because it’s got the best free app. I just wish it was more fun to use and the mobile add-on had better reviews. I think I will start with there though just because I’m specifically looking to use their timer widget for now. It’s likely that I will revisit this decision whenever it is that I eventually outgrow the free version though.

Anyone care to chime in? I’m also wondering if I’m being cheap by choosing the free app first. Like maybe it’s time to pony up and spring for one that might actually be a real time saver. I mean really, $12-$14 per month isn’t all that much if it’s actually going to make a difference in my process. And it’s a write-off 100%…Tricky, tricky.

What would you do?

Click to read Ellie’s post on battling the freelance blues