Free Organizational Apps for Freelancers

As my business has grown over the last three years (meaning more clients and work, ergo less free time in which to do more complicated admin), I’ve incorporated some productivity hacks/apps into my workflow that have been total lifesavers when it comes to staying on tops of things like assignments, billing, marketing, and business planning. For some things, like tracking agencies/clients I’ve marketed to, I still stick to a good, old Excel doc. But other elements have been replaced by software that does some of the work for me so I have more of my time back to focus on actually translating.

And as a bonus, all of these are free to use at the basic level. You may need to pay more for more features or storage, but I haven’t found that necessary yet. I have not been asked to promote any of these apps (I do not have the following to merit that) so these opinions are unbiased and freely given. If you have any other favorites, please leave a comment and let me know! Now let’s dive in.

1. Zoho for invoicing

When I first started out, I tracked all of my monthly work in an Excel sheet and then put it all into my MS Word invoice template at the end of the month before sending them off for payment. That meant that on the first of the month, I would generally spend up to a few hours rounding up all the POs I needed, inputting time spent or word counts, and tallying totals manually. I’m sure there’s a better way to do it with just Excel even, but I hadn’t gotten that far yet.

Eventually, however, I had enough clients with different payment methods that I knew I needed a more organized system, and I found that Zoho suits my needs really well. I mostly use it for templates and tracking. Here’s why I like it:

It’s highly customizable, and you can create different templates for different payment methods (i.e., check versus bank transfer).
You can add notes just for yourself. I use this feature to tell myself whether I need to add a VAT number or my own Vendor ID, as well as where to send the invoice, whether to a specific email address or by submitting through an online portal.
You can set the currency based on the client.
It tells you clearly when invoices are coming up or overdue (which was one thing I hated tracking manually).
You can mark when an invoice has been sent and when it’s been paid within the program.
You can download the invoice as a PDF to send out.
There’s also an app you can link to your phone, though I don’t personally use this feature often.
You can send invoices directly from the app itself and give your clients access to a payment portal, though I don’t use this feature.
You can use it to track total expenses and sales on a yearly basis.

I still have an Excel sheet where I track all my monthly work to double-check myself, but I now input tasks into Zoho as soon as I’ve completed them/received the PO, and it makes the end-of-the-month roundup a lot faster and easier.

2. Toggl for time tracking

Most business advice for any freelancer includes tracking your billable hours. It’s something I initially resisted for anything that wasn’t actually billed hourly, but I’ve recently embraced it as a way to set rates that reflect my desired income. Again, I used to just stick to MS’s built-in timer and would manually list the time I spent in my work-tracking Excel sheet, and I was sporadic about it at best. I finally switched over to Toggl, and I’m never going back. I now track all my billable time even if it’s not paid hourly. Here’s what’s good about it:

It allows you to time multiple tasks over the course of the day, switching between them easily and tracking total time for each one as well as your daily and weekly totals.
You can label tasks with the project and client they’re for to more easily analyze your data.
The website will compile analytics for you so you can see things like your average number of billable hours and how much time you’re spending on each client/project.
There’s a desktop application that you can download, which syncs automatically with the website.
Biggest bonus: it will periodically prompt you if you’re on your computer without the timer running, so it’s harder to forget to start the timer if you need it.

3. Todoist for a To-Do List

This is one that I primarily use on my phone, but it’s also available for desktop. It’s how I keep track of tasks that don’t have an email attached to them. So, for example, I have to-do items set up for things like invoicing, paying estimated taxes, and notifying clients if I’m going away on vacation. I also use it for personal to-do items like laundry and groceries, which doesn’t bother me, but if you prefer to demarcate, you can assign things to different projects. It’s great because:

you can set daily reminders to pop up at a set time so you don’t have to worry about checking it.
you can set things as a one-time task or to recur by simply typing in something like “the first of every month” or “every other Wednesday.” When Todoist knows what you mean, the time/date will be highlighted so you know you’re good to go!
you can view your task list for the day, all your upcoming tasks by date, or just a big list of everything with no dates attached.

4. Gmail’s Snooze Function for reminders

This is the one that really saves me time and energy. I already do most of my work communication via email, and I practice inbox zero, so my inbox itself sort of functions as a to-do list for that day. If it’s in my inbox, I know that’s something I have to address before I “clock out.” Anything that’s already been handled but isn’t yet ready to be deleted goes into a specific folder, and I have about 20 folders and subfolders for everything from work to taxes to crochet patterns I’ve saved.

But the real key here is snoozing emails that I’m not ready to address yet but that will be relevant in future. When you’re in an email, there’s a little clock icon at the top that you can click. It will give you some default options like “Later Today,” “This Weekend,” or “Next Week,” but you can also set a custom time. When that time comes, the email will drop back into your inbox to become part of that day’s to-dos. You can see all your snoozed emails in one place by clicking on “Snoozed” in the menu to the left of your inbox (at least that’s where it is for me). The out of sight, out of mind (until it’s relevant) method helps me keep my inbox anxiety in check and stay on top of all my correspondence/work.