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

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

#31

Post by bayindirh » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:19 AM UTC

I'm using defter.net (ios name should be defter). It's actually an iOS app with a web companion. It can handle from personal licenses to middle-sized businesses.

- It can do double-entry accounting and inter-account transfers.

- It can generate reports about your accounts and money flow, hence allows you to see trends and plan your finances.

It's very straightforward, hence very powerful, and allows me to track my finances very accurately and see my situation clearly.

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

#32

Post by martin-adams » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:34 AM UTC

I use You Need A Budget to track my personal finances and budget for the future. I also use it my my company to know exactly how much profit I have. It’s the only app I’ve found that lets me prepare for the future and allow me to make proper decisions.

Whenever I spend money, I record the transaction in the app and import my bank statements to reconcile once a month.

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

#33

Post by mmsimanga » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:37 AM UTC

kaishiro wrote: post #16

I've personally tried several different online services but ultimately landed on Wave ( https://waveapps.com - no affiliation). I used it for personal consulting and lately have used it for somewhat more formal (bit still fairly straightforward) corporate accounting. I'm a big fan - just my two cents.

+1 for Wave. I only ever do part time work but Wave works really well for me. I use the free tier because at most per year I send out 10-20 invoices.

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

#34

Post by dirtylowprofile » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:40 AM UTC

I’m a freelancer and I keep track of my finance by using iOS Numbers default app. I switched to Airtable but it is too slow on the iOS and their offline caching sucks.

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

#35

Post by lintiwen » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:45 AM UTC

kaishiro wrote: post #16

I've personally tried several different online services but ultimately landed on Wave ( https://waveapps.com - no affiliation). I used it for personal consulting and lately have used it for somewhat more formal (bit still fairly straightforward) corporate accounting. I'm a big fan - just my two cents.

+1 for Wave too. It's good enough for bookkeeping and they also provide payroll tax filing. I contacted their support many times and it's generally responsive and helpful.

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

#36

Post by lyricat » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:48 AM UTC

beancount.

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

#37

Post by nubela » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 6:59 AM UTC

I built a Telegram Chatbot for this, mostly to keep receipts backed up, but it also tracks your month to month finances. Check it out: https://accountgram.com

Use Accountgram if: 1. You do not want to install yet-another-app (other than Telegram) 2. Your workflow revolves around backing up receipts

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

#38

Post by te_chris » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

PocketSmith for personal but can also work for biz. Or just the budget tools in Xero

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

#39

Post by vbsteven » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 7:15 AM UTC

I am on Harvest on which I track small freelance gigs, longer consulting engagements and time spent on side projects.

I like the way I can split up projects into multiple roles and track/bill differently for dev time vs admin work.

I also generate all my invoices through Harvest but I don’t use their builtin online payments.

There is a desktop tracker for MacOS and Windows and some open source Linux clients but I prefer to use a pinned tab in Firefox.

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

#40

Post by thibaut_barrere » Fri, Mar 22, 2019, 7:19 AM UTC

I'm a freelance myself (since 2005). I ultimately scratched my own itch and created an app specifically for this:

https://www.wisecashhq.com

I built it pretty much for what you describe: to plan my future (it computes your runway & "time wealth"), adjust working hours as needed, "make time" for other topics, negotiate based on data etc.

The goal is not to "track all expenses", but rather to make a reasonable forecast of your situation.

You will likely find those articles useful:

- https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/knowing-your-cash-runway-a-k...

- https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/case-study-how-to-increase-f...

- https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/recurring-revenue-matters-vi...

Hope this helps & let me know if you have further questions!