Freelancers: Organize Project Finances With Job Book
At Knoed, we’ve been talking a lot lately about the value of sharing vs. hoarding information. We’ve learned so much from other people throughout our careers, that we want to start giving back and sharing what we’ve learned. So we’ve decided to share a business tool that we use on a daily basis. We call it our “Job Book” — a simple project management spreadsheet that provides a snapshot of our workload with basic financial data, so we never miss a paycheck.
Time to get organized
Some creative types thrive in messy, disorganized chaos. But if you’re like me, organization settles your mind and allows you to think clearly and work more efficiently. As a freelancer or small business owner, you won’t get very far if you’re not organized and able to keep all your projects organized.
Before starting Knoed, I worked at a small design firm, where part of my job was managing and billing multiple design projects. At first, it was difficult to keep track of which jobs were open, which jobs needed to be invoiced, which ones had been paid, etc.
As a company, we really needed something that was quick and organized – a snapshot of everything that was happening to make sure we didn’t drop the ball or accidentally forget to bill a client. So we created the Job Book.*
Not the next Harvest
The Job Book won’t replace Harvest or Quickbooks. It’s a simple Google Spreadsheet that’s designed to give you an overview of your company’s workload on a monthly basis. Whenever you get a new project, put it in the Job Book. You can track the statuses of all your jobs as well as basic financial information. You can also make notes about when to invoice a client and when payment is due.
As you enter more jobs throughout the year, it will also calculate things like:
- How much money you’ve signed-on for the year
- Your monthly average
- How much money you’ve received
- How much money is out in receivables
- How much money is still open work
We couldn’t run our business without our Job Book, and if we love it so much, we figured someone else might love it too. So go ahead. Take it. Use it. This is really, truly, genuinely, honestly, a good old-fashioned, no-strings-attached, no-fine-print, no-donations, no-pay-with-a-tweet freebie.
Download a free version for yourself
Save a copy to your Google Drive or download a copy to use in Excel. Then get back to work!
*To give credit where credit is due, today’s version of the Job Book is really the evolution of 10+ years of work, which began as a collaboration with one of my old partners, Brett Burwell of Static Interactive. Hat tip to Brett for making the Job Book what it is today.
Written by Kyle Eertmoed, Designer + Founding Partner at Knoed Creative in Chicago.
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