Ask HN: As a freelancer, what's the best app to track finances?

Hi everyone!

  I've been working as a freelancer practically my whole life. Although I'm not a very finances-oriented person, I do like to keep track of my spending and income, do some basic forecasting, budgeting, to also plan my time and activities.

  One thing I've noticed is that most apps are really not oriented for people who, like me, dont have very fixed/stable sources of income. One month I'm doing something, next month I have very little work, next month I may be working on 3 different projects, with different wages.

  I miss a simple way to track this, and to somehow allow me to plan my future, minimizing working hours and maximizing life (4hr work week anyone? ;)) But so far I haven't been able to find a finance management app that responds to the needs of freelancers like me.

  Being in IT and software dev, I'm begin to think I should probably scratch my own itch and develop something that really suits my needs. So I'd like to ask you two things

1 - Is there any app I'm not aware of, that you guys might use and that suits these needs?

2 - If you are somehow like me, would you give 5min of your time so that I could get more feedback from other freelancers about what would be useful for them, and other tips and strategies you might use for yourself for your own finances?

thanks so much!

I've been using the free version of Toshl for a couple of years and it ticks all your marks. Great UX too.

https://toshl.com

Over the years, I've tried Quicken, Quickbooks, and other 'mass market' finance tools for my freelancing. I gave up the search for a silver bullet. Spreadsheets are excellent for these types of niche application with one-off requirements. From a development perspective, spreadsheets excel for nailing down the business logic without getting bogged down in frameworks and tooling and UI design. Until the data flow is understood, hard coding may just get in the way.

I found these guys during my last stint of consulting/freelancing before building another startup:

17hats.com

I really liked it and my wife uses still today for high end cakes and stuff she does. I’ve also gotten quite of few of my buddies that do trade jobs on the side (plumbing, electrical, low voltage, etc) to use it and they love it as well.

Probably more than what your asking, but it’s a great AIO platform. I particularly like the built in contract and digital signing abilities.

Honestly, what you're looking for is Monzo or Revolut.