Web Worker Daily

There are a large number of project management applications and service out there; we’ve looked at many of them in the past. Most of them are explicitly directed at coordinating a team working on projects for a client, and are a poor fit for a single freelancer working alone. That’s the market that Burden Butcher hopes to tap into, with a project management tool explicitly for freelancers.

After creating your account, you’ll be sitting at the Projects list. Creating a new project is streamlined: supply a name, a rate, a client, and optionally a deadline, and you’re ready to go. Choosing a project to work on is simple, as it should be. Each project contains four tabs in a web interface: Canvases, Milestones & Tasks, Time Tracking, and Invoice.

Canvases are similar to wiki pages or writeboard – a place where you can keep relatively unstructured information. You can insert notes, lists, pictures, files, or code snippets and move them around. Canvases can also be shared, either publicly or with a password – a good way to get some information where your clients can see it.

The Milestone & Tasks tab provides a simple checklist of what remains to be done, and ties into the Time Tracking tab by having timers for each task. You can also enter time directly. When you’re done, you can generate an invoice in PDF format with a single click (or customize it by adding additional line items).

Focusing explicitly on the single-user case lets Burden Butcher dispose of a lot of complexity; you won’t find user management here or security beyond password-protecting canvases. This should leave them free to concentrate on adding more features just for freelancers. So far, it’s a good start, and you can get a trial account (3 projects, 25MB storage) for free. Other accounts, adding more projects and storage, range from $12 to $48 per month.