Track, Manage, and Invoice with SideJobTrack
March 13th, 2007 (5:03am) Chris Gilmer 10 Comments
Whether you have a small business or side job that you do every once in a while, SideJobTrack can help you track projects and invoice your time and materials.
SideJobTrack is a free and simple online solution aimed at part-time independent contractors for tracking projects and managing workflows through a set of four project tools: Create Projects, Send Estimates, Track Services, and Invoice Clients.
Projects are started with a Project Name and summary with start and due dates assigned, and a date to be entered when the project has been completed. Each project is assigned to a client, and a list of project services and materials are associated to that project. When projects have been marked completed, invoices can be sent out via email, or saved and printed out for mailing. Reports can be generated at any time to get the run down on completed projects and how much money they have brought in, in process projects and even projects that have been put on hold.
[starting a Project]
The setup of projects can be time-consuming, as you must enter client information and set up material lists with billing charges. However, you could save time later when you’re generating invoices over and over again.
[overview of projects in the works]
Creative types can customize invoices beyond the SideJobTrack defaults. Advanced settings allows users to create and customize both printed and email invoices, as well as printed and emailed estimates.
[completed invoice ready for emailing or printing]
This simple online project tracking and invoicing application unfortunately has one drawback, contacts and project information cannot be uploaded to SideJobTrack. They can be downloaded as XML data, though. Since SideJobTrack is aimed at those with freelance jobs on the side, this isn’t a huge limitation for those in the target market. If you need to occasionally invoice someone, you may want to try it out.
10 Comments Post your own comment
Respiro, the logo design guy says: March 13th, 2007 7:31am
Yes, it seems to be a useful tool and there’s a quite comprehensive overview on http://www.sidejobtrack.com/about/tour.php
Andrew Flusche says: March 13th, 2007 8:58am
Great article!
I’ve been using Side Job Track for several months now, and I love it. I use it to track the money I earn through blogging. Very handy.
Here’s my own write-up of its capabilities: Track Your Non-Day Job With Side Job Track
greggles says: March 13th, 2007 1:44pm
Finally!
I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time. In my intial trial it seems perfect for my needs though a “preview invoice” feature would be handy.
Mary Deaton says: March 13th, 2007 1:50pm
I am going to take a look. For almost two years, I used Billing Orchard on a comp from the owner, a client of mine. When I got cut-off from that, I used Google Spreadsheets, but I found clients were reluctant to get Google accounts just to see the invoice. And I get tired of have to do all of the design work. My own concern is that is freebie nature means I am going to be bombarded with ads.
Tom says: March 14th, 2007 7:45am
My brother created a simple desktop app for Mac OSX that can track time…
I like sidejobtrack, but if you don’t want to do it online, you can try this…
http://www.freelancerhelp.com
Giovanna Maguina says: June 20th, 2007 6:29pm
It seems to be an easy tool for managing small business. What about investment vs. cost?
Iksanika Company says: July 17th, 2007 7:02am
hmmm… looks like a nice tool to me especially when you have to trace a bunch of invoices…. would be much help I guess
In addition take a look at this bookmark toolbar - this tool uses search semantics - It will be a nice addition to your tool!
Iksanika Company says: July 17th, 2007 7:03am
here is the url
http://www.iksanika.com/products/bookmark_toolbar.html
Asa says: August 1st, 2007 8:58am
I like using this other free online project tracker called CollabTRAK, here is the url
http://www.collabtrak.com
It’s free and it has paypal integrated. I’m a freelance web designer and it looks good and is easy for my customers to use. I have tried sidejobtrack too, but I like the fact I can have un limited projects with collabtrak. What do you guys think?
Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive Web Worker 101: Creating Your First Invoice « says: August 17th, 2007 11:00am
[...] such as QuickBooks, you can have it generate invoices for you. Alternatively, there are sites like SideJobTrack or BlinkSale that will help you build an invoice. But many web workers get by just fine with using [...]