10 Must-have Tools for Freelancers

10 Must-have Tools for Freelancers

The freelance industry is global. With the advancement of technology, you can work and earn from wherever you are without having to physically mark your presence in workplaces. But, despite all the perks associated with the growing freelance industry, there is a rising need to keep oneself equipped with all necessary tools to ensure nothing bad goes happens.

Whether you are a client or freelancer in the freelance industry, you need to keep yourself informed of every detail, maintain a flexible but workable time schedule, and keep deception off your plate. If you miss out on any such details, you might end up getting duped or getting less than what you deserve.

The purpose of this article is—and as you must have guessed it by now—to inform you of a few but really important tools that must be close to you if you want to get the best out of your freelance career.

Each tool mentioned here serves a particular purpose and is arguably the best in that area. These tools will certainly arm you with enough power to enable performance at your best level without compromising with anything.

So, without further ado, here we begin with ten such freelancer tools which are must have:

1. Hours 2.0

It is one application that will make you enjoy time management like never before. Hours 2.0 is a simply crafted time management tool that solves all your time-related issues by giving you simple but very useful solutions.

Time is fundamental in the lives of freelancers, and this app does its job quite smoothly. You can conveniently sync this app across several Apple devices and pretty easily switch between projects without spending away much of your precious time.

An amazing feature this app offers is the ability to retroactively record time for any assignment you might have forgotten to keep a track on.

With Hours 2.0, you will come to find time management a piece of cake and eventually, you will not be able to do without organization.

2. ZipBooks

Accounting and everything else may get on your nerves at times. With so many numbers and estimates to be made, you sometimes find it highly annoying to handle such tasks. Well, all your worries will be put to rest with ZipBooks.

ZipBooks is there to make accounting work super easy for freelancers out there. Its objective is to simplify the entire bookkeeping process and allow you to get cash into your accounts whenever you need it.

Whenever you submit an invoice through ZipBooks, your account will get credited to your account within 24 hours regardless whether the client takes many days to pay. The fees for all of this is low and with accountability.

With the help of this application, you can do many other things such as create invoices, do estimates, classify expenses, send late payment reminders and track time. This tool comes handy if there is no specific payment schedule in your freelance career.

Life is easier with ZipBooks!

3. Coworking In Town

Co-working is considered to be an excellent way for expanding one’s professional network. It is often suggested that freelancers should engage in co-working to expand their reputation and find better work.

However, co-working spaces must offer a meaningful and learning experience—which, at times, might be a little difficult to find.

Coworking in Town is relatively new but does miracles for those who love co-working. Its reach is limited for the time, and its services are presently limited to European cities. But, we know, with all the potential it has, it will become a global phenomenon eventually. So, you better bookmark it.

Use the application to find out best co-working spaces in the city and make wise decisions by going through user reviews about the spaces.

If in case you wish to know an alternative to this site, you can check out Work Hard Anywhere that lists all laptop-friendly workplaces nearby. This site is especially useful to those who are usual travelers but look forward to working in productive environments wherever they are.

Whether you use Coworking in Town or Work Hard Anywhere, make sure you carefully review the workspaces before actually going to them.

4. Painless1099

As the name suggests, Painless 1099 will do away with much of your pain.

Painless 1099 provides assistance to independent contractors to do savings in advance for the tax season. With the help of a smart bank account, the tool offers an automatic withholding of taxes on the basis of the user information you input. It, then, deposits the amount you can conveniently spend into your checking account.

The site helps you in safely opening up a savings account under your name, segregate your taxes, and do direct depositing to the IRS whenever the tax season knocks at your door.

In case you are one of those who is always fidgety about tax liabilities, this site will do wonders for you.

5. Freelance Rate Explorer

Freelance rate Explorer is an absolutely free tool which helps in the visualization of freelance software developer and designer rates by experience, skill level, role, and location.

It is one such tool that is extremely important as it enables an easy search of freelancers suited to your budget and time. This site is specially designed to get you the right amount from the clients and clients to find the kind of freelancers that will do what is to be done.

The data released shows that the users have been found to earn more than non-users. Well, it is pretty amazing if it gives you opportunities to exploit your skill the best possible way.

Now, with data backing this site, you should definitely give it a try.

6. Zoe

If you run a freelance business and in need of a highly talented and experienced designer or developer, you should use this tool. Zoe offers qualitative solutions to all your recruitment problems.

Zoe is an amazing tool that gives you a decent place to start looking. It promises to find the right kind of candidate for you within the span of a week.

You will be provided access to a network of about 100 freelancers. And, in case you are a freelancer, well, you know where to go and have yourself marketed.

Zoe is a brilliant platform to start or develop your career. The participants on this site are authentic and offer you services on par with what you deserve.

7. The Freelance Stack

Well, you can call this site a paradise for freelancers. The Freelance Stack is basically a massive directory that features a very long list of tools that will allow you to search for exactly what you need for good community building, accounting, expenses tracking, legal payments, design, time tracking, design and so much more.

In the list of so many things, you are sure to find some or the other thing highly useful to you. The tools offered will do great things to you provided you use them judiciously and smartly.

8. 99 Deductions

There is one word to define this tool—amazing!

99 Deductions find an honorable place on our list for what it does. It helps you to figure out what deductions that you might be able to take considering the type of independent contract work you undertake.

It will give you an insight into deductions concerning advertising, business gifts, meals, legal fees, business travel, start-up costs, entertainment, payroll taxes and others.

When you click on each of the foregoing categories, you will be directed to a brief explanation of what exactly deduction is, what forms you will need for the purpose of deduction and other matters. It is a must-have for every freelancer for whom deductions can be annoying at times.

Get the benefits of this smartly-devised website that does exactly what you find most painful to do.

9. Proppy

Do you want interactive and beautiful proposals in an instant? Well, Proppy is the place where you should be.

Creating proposals is a painstaking task that takes a lot of time, but you must invest time in this because every client needs to be differently handled with and hence, the need for good customized proposals.

Well, with Proppy, a lot of your work is reduced. It designs really pretty and attractive proposals. It also allows you to do a number of other things such as collaboration with your team, embedding interactive content, adding automatic cost tables.

The site is regarded as the best when it comes to creating proposals. You, too, should not miss out on its benefits.

10. Quarterly Tax Collector

One of the worst nightmares for independent contractors is calculation and payment of taxes every quarter. It gets complicated since the flow of income is not regular—you need to beat your brains to figure out how much you should save so that tax season does not shock you.

Well, Quarterly Tax Calculator is a go-to tool for all these matters. It helps in the calculation of tax you are supposed to pay every three months. It takes into account your average earnings and does necessary calculations.

More Resources:

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