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

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

#61

Post by thibaut_barrere »

nunodonato wrote: post #58
thibaut_barrere wrote: post #40

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…

interesting! the features do sound similar to what I'm looking for, unfortunately the monthly cost is too high for me :(

I'm always looking for feedback, including on similar topics :-)

What would be a "good" price for you?

(asking because when I'll make a complete rewrite, I want to have various price ranges, including a lower starting price).

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

#62

Post by senseitit »

I second Paymo, which is basically designed around client work. You can create multiple projects with different billing methods and track time on them, which can then be pulled into an invoice for a client. This way you have a concrete idea of how you spend your time vs. how much you get paid for it.

The free plan should be enough for planning and tracking project progress. It's limited to 3 invoices though, so you might need to buy a paid plan for advanced accounting features.

https://www.paymoapp.com/

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

#63

Post by mitul_45 »

sam1r wrote: post #15

I can relate to you in verbatim, except never had the courage to ask publicly. I ended up going with excel and then ended up hating any tool in the browser. Updates with startups take too long and your nit-picky features to increase your productivity probably do not directly correlate with these payment software companies business goals. I prefer full control / or the possible option for extensibility. Most important…

If you are using Excel, I made a frontend wrapper on top of it to add expenses/incomes easily. For analysis you can use whatever methods you are already using.

Check it out: https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager

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

#64

Post by TomK32 »

jen729w wrote: post #51
dvno42 wrote: post #17

There's a slight learning curve but I've been very happy with GnuCash. It supports multiple accounts and containers, has decent reporting, invoicing, categorizing, etc. I also really like that it's offline. https://www.gnucash.org/

Yes to GnuCash, but for none of the reasons OP wants. GnuCash is, let’s be honest, crap. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, it’s totally free, but it’s crap. However , it forces you to learn how to do proper double-entry bookkeeping. You’ll get it wrong a bunch of times before you get it right. You’ll Google stuff and be frustrated that you can’t find an answer. You’ll just learn, somehow. But then... ...one day so…

I have problem with double entry, in fact the webapp I wrote is using it as well.

The reason why I disliked GnuCash was the lack of an undo together with a frickly date entry.

I recommend reading up on https://plaintextaccounting.org/ for those who like double entry but with text files

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

#65

Post by mitul_45 »

gexla wrote: post #47

The answer for this will be different for everyone. None of the answers will be sure to fix your problems. Dealing with your finances (or anything else you deal with more than once) is a process. Figure out what your process needs to be and then automate the most painful parts with the tools you can find. Rinse and repeat as you locate more pain points. You'll likely find that a general tool such as Excel is the best…

I was also having the same dilemma, although not a freelancer. I wanted to track my finances and tried lot of different tools but in the end decided to use plain excel.

But then adding expense on Excel from mobile is real pain, so I wrote a frontend client for it. I've been using it for about 1.5 years now, works like a charm.

I have expense history of almost every cent I spent in last 1.5 years :)

Check it out: https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager.

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

#66

Post by mitul_45 »

Not a freelancer, but I wanted to track my everyday finances since long. I tried lot of different tools but in the end ended up using simple Google sheet with some formulas.

The only issue with this approach is – adding expenses is pain. When I am shopping for something, opening Google Sheet (on phone) and adding an expense/income is too cumbersome. So I built a UI for it – https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager.

I have been using it since last couple of years and have an idea of my monthly/weekly expenses.

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

#67

Post by nunodonato »

Thanks everyone for the comments. I should have tried to explain a little bit better, I'm not searching for expenses trackers or time trackers. Its really more about forecasting and having bird's eye view on things, in order to plan work.

I'm really tending to scratch my own itch and do something different. Cushion app comes close to what I what, but still misses a few spots and its a bit more expensive than what I'd like to afford.

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

#68

Post by nunodonato »

martin-adams wrote: post #32

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.

Tried it, looks interesting for being different. One thing I didnt like is the inability to plan future months, it doesnt account for future income flows, although it lets you spend money. Obviously I get the red alert because I'm spending money I do not have (but I will, at that time of the month)...

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

#69

Post by snorberhuis »

jbverschoor wrote: post #59

Manager is free for desktop / paid for cloud https://manager.io It has all the things you need, and the interface is pretty good.

I have used Manager for three years now. It has everything I want, except for good automatic syncing of bank transactions. I can import them from my local bank using a custom converter I built. Afterward, I need to match the transactions with invoices. I wish that manager could do this automatically based upon invoice number.

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

#70

Post by kd5bjo »

I'm a big proponent of learning how to do this with old-fashioned ledger books. Paper is always more flexible than the electronic solutions, and going straight to electronic tracking risks locking in a poor process for the sake of efficiency -- never spend time optimizing until you know you'll actually use the result.
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