Robbie's Inner Workings…

Greetings everybody. Last time we touched base I showed you a neat little application called Things that help you make lists and notes of your things to-do. This time around I’ll be showing you a neat little tool that can help you with all your finances.  As a freelancer you are your own everything. You are the designer, the writer, the manager, the artist, the janitor, the coffee maker and even the financial director of sorts. It’s a good idea to get an accountant for when it’s time to do that stuff that only an accountant could know how to do, but in between, how can you keep track of everything your accountant needs? Enter Billings by Marketcircle.

Billings can help you keep track or your financial going-ins and coming-outs and gives you more time to focus on your work and your clients. It has many features that can help you on your freelancing adventures, but I’ll mention just a few of my favourite to give you an idea of what it’s all about.

The first feature that I’d like to show you and which is by far my favourite, is the automatic timer that attaches itself to the mac menu-bar and counts the hours and minutes that you work. It makes tracking your freelanced hours so much easier as it take care of it for you. Even if you go idle or away from the computer for a set time, it will stop recording and ask where you got to! It not only helps you keep track of time, but you can use the time against a multiplication for your hourly rate, and it generates the amount automatically.

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It can then take that amount that was generated and put it into that client’s specific account (which you set up earlier) and create a invoice and statement. You can modify the current invoice templates or create your own inside the application. Once you’ve set up your business details and your templates and you’re happy with the preview provided, it becomes a one click invoicing tool, which opens up your mail with your client’s details in the email ready to go.

There is also an iPhone/iPod Touch application that you can use to keep track while you’re out and about, such as expenses or mileage tracking, as well as the timed feature like the Mac application. The app is free from iTunes, however, some key features, such as the all important sync from your device to your Mac require an in app purchase of $17.99. I believe this price to be a little steep, but only because I haven’t absolutely needed it yet.

This is just the beginning of a fantastic application that has so many features that I could only pick out a couple of my favourites to write about in this post. However, you can head to the application’s website to get more of an idea of it’s features. I highly recommend Billings for a small business of any kind, but I find it especially appealing because of the track time feature. A copy of Billings will currently set you back US$49.95 for 1 user. Pretty cheap considering the power of this application.