Invoicing & Accounting software for Production Freelancer

M

Marshallarts

Well-known member
I've been keeping track of my personal finances for years now through Quicken and have grown very conscience of my personal spending habits. But for income, ever since I've become a freelancer who invoices out, you can only see when you make deposits, not when I invoice them (so I can't see when I'm actually working).

I would LOVE to find a reliable method of tracking my freelance invoices and employment in much the same way as I track my spending. Quicken doesn't integrade invoicing so it's not reliable in that way for keeping track of my jobs and creating reports to reflect my business pursuits.

For production freelancers out there (i.e. DPs, sound, ACs, .ect.) what accounting software do you use to invoice and keep track of your business or production employment records? I've been drafting up invoices on excel and emailing them out, then *hoping* I'm not forgetting one as I eventually get checks in mail months later.


I've tried:

Quicken
Quickbooks
iBiz
MacFreelance
&
Billings

From what I've played with there are things I like and dislike about them all. But I don't have time to give them all an honest try. So I would like to know what works for you.

Quicken - I discribe the problems already.
Quickbooks - isnt' Mac friendly and though I used it on PCs in the past I can't figure it out now. Seems complicated and may do more than I need.
iBiz seems waaayyy too basic.
MacFreelance and Billings I've tried also but not sure if I should commit to one.

What do you use? I sincerely hope someone helps me out here, this has been killing me!
 
Also, what do you do when you have jobs that make you go through PayRoll (using a timecard)?

Since you're not invoicing how do you enter them as a job? How do you track the payments? How do you record it with tax taken out already?

(In quicken I break down the taxes when i receive the paycheck but this still doesn't seem to be the best way to properly track my business).
 
I just use word to type up grinvoices.
I dont have a payroll. I just pay freelancers as I need em.
I have no payments to track.
I pay taxes anually (but otta pay quarterly)
 
I have an excel template for invoices and I just email PDF's out. Each one is numbered consecutively. I then have another excel document that I use to track each one. Each invoice gets its own row with the invoice number, date I invoiced, client name, project name, job number, amount I invoiced for, amount received and date received. I enter this info as I send out an invoice and as checks come in. I can then just scan down the amount or date received columns to figure out who hasn't paid me.

It may be a bit of a crude system, but it works for me.
 
grinner said:
I just use word to type up grinvoices.
I dont have a payroll. I just pay freelancers as I need em.
I have no payments to track.
I pay taxes anually (but otta pay quarterly)
Click to expand...

Ha - grinvoices.
:)

Same here -

I just use word for my invoices.
I pay freelancers as I need them.
I use quicken to keep track of all my expenditures, and run reports at the end of the year for the CPA who does my taxes.

I also pay taxes annually instead of quarterly.


As far as keeping track of my outstanding invoices - you're right that there is no nice and clean way to do this in Quicken.
You're probably going to laugh at this - but this is the incredibly lo-fi way I keep track.

I print out each invoice I send out.
I keep a copy in a folder on my filing cabinet labeled "Outstanding Invoices"

As checks come in from jobs, I copy them, staple the copy to the invoice, and file it in the appropriate place.

I realize that isn't exactly high tech - but not everything needs a high tech solution.
At any time I can open that folder and see which invoices I still don't have checks for.

I suppose it depends on the volume of work you're doing - but that basic method has worked for me for years now.
 
On the Mac, we use MYOB Account Edge. It's pretty amazing software. I was always a creative type and never thought of myself as an Accountant, but man, once you know how the software works, it really pays for itself. There are so many reports you can run it's crazy. Maybe you can find an old version on eBay for cheap, but I'd recommend it over QuickBooks on the Mac.
 
I have only used Quickbooks. I have a degree in accounting and I love Quickbooks! I have it on my PC so I don't know how it runs on a mac, although I want to get it for my mac. Quickbooks will allow you to track all outstanding invoices as well as giving you alerts on what invoices are outstanding. You can email invoices directly from quickbooks. You can pull all kinds of reports from cash flows to detailed customer income staements that give you an accurate picture of the health of your company. It can do pretty much everything you need/want. One drawback, like you mentioned, is that it can pretty complicated but once you are more familiar with it, it will revolutionize your business.
 
It takes a bit to get used to, but GNUCash is similar to Quicken, and is very much geared towards making job-based invoices (as opposed to selling inventory items).
 
I use Quickbooks as well. I do all my accounting on the PC platform but my work on a Mac. The only complaint I have about QB is the ridiculous upgrade price. I still use 2007 and it does everything I could ever need. I also use their Merchant Services. It's so handy being able to fire off an invoice in either or both snail mail/email with the touch of a button and have funds show up in the bank account when they pay online. The reports are super handy for itemizing at taxtime. My wife spends days going over her paperwork while I just fire off a report and hand it to my tax guy. Good product. There's always bootcamp!
 
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