When you’re freelancing, there’s so much to consider. You need to manage your invoices, understand your tax requirements, and keep on top of your bills and ongoing expenses. All this is on top of ensuring you deliver exceptional service to your clients, time and time again. Needless to say, expert freelancers use several tools to help them achieve their success, and we’re going to introduce you to ten of them here.

Payments: PayPal.

PayPal is often a freelancer’s best friend. The payment app enables you to send invoices, request and schedule regular payments, and receive currency from all over the world. Although their fees are perhaps a little on the high side, PayPal takes away so much administration and hassle. It’s super secure, too, so you don’t have to worry about your payments going missing.

Accounts: Quickbooks.

Any experienced freelancer will tell you that it’s so important to stay on top of your accounts. Why? Because if you don’t, when it comes to year-end, you will have to spend an eternity looking through emails, searching within folders, and scanning your bank account, trying to locate various payments. Software like Quickbooks ensures you’re on top of all of your accounts and expenses, and means you can submit your tax return at the end of the year efficiently, without having to worry about where everything is.

Project planning: Trello.

Trello is a free project planning app that enables you to map out all of your ongoing projects and keep on top of your deadlines. As many freelancers utilize various platforms to get their work, it’s necessary to have a centralized project management tool, so you don’t miss out on any deliverables. Trello boards allow you to move your tasks around and prioritize specific projects, depending on your upcoming deadlines. A great resource.

Graphic design: Canva.

Regardless of the nature of your work, freelancers often have to create graphics to share with clients via email and social media. Canva is an ideal platform on which to create stunning, bespoke graphics that you can utilize to stay connected with your clients, and also to promote your services. While many of the graphics are free, there are some paid options that you can purchase for $0.99, depending on what you need and why.

Communication: Grammarly.

If you’re a freelance writer, you have to use Grammarly. It picks up on all of your grammatical mistakes, improves your clarity, and ensures your work passes plagiarism software for your clients. Even if you aren’t a writer, Grammarly is still a worthwhile investment. Why? Well, it can help improve your email tone, the way your website is written and designed, and also the way you interact on social media. An essential tool for any serious freelancer.

Social media management: Hootsuite.

If you have more than one social media account, you should consider linking all of them on Hootsuite. The main benefit is that you can post on several account simultaneously, but you can also schedule posts in advance, which is ideal if you’re managing other people’s social media on their behalf. Hootsuite is compatible with a variety of platforms, so you can ensure you’re connecting with your clients across various outlets.

Time management: Clockify.

Allocating your time is one of the biggest challenges to life as a freelancer. With so many projects underway at the same time, it can be difficult to prioritize your work and dedicate enough time to each project to ensure it is done before the deadline. Clockify allows freelancers to improve their productivity by taking control of their time allocation. You can also export timesheets and note any collaborations where your time is billed by the hour.

Security: NORD VPN.

Many freelancers work in public places and therefore connect to public WIFI hotspots. As such, they are putting their personal data at risk of being hacked by cybercriminals. Downloading a virtual private network (VPN) onto your device encrypts all of your data and ensures hackers can’t access your personal information. A VPN also enables you to access geo-blocked content, which is helpful for freelancers who travel between different countries to do their work.

Scheduling calls and meetings: Calendar.

To keep your clients up to date with your progress on their work, you most likely have to check in with them regularly, via Skype or Zoom calls. To ensure you don’t forget to attend scheduled calls and meetings, you should download a calendar and sync it to your computer, smartphone, and any other device that you use to complete your work. Turning on notifications ensures you’re reminded of meetings in advance, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting.

Productivity: WIFI speed checker.

Freelancers are dependent on fast WIFI to get their work done. As many move from place to place to work, they need to know what the WIFI is like before they set up for the day. Using a site like Speed Test enables freelancers to test the speed of the WIFI where they are, and gives them an insight into what a specific place is like as a base. If the connection isn’t good, they are likely to find a different place to work from.

Closing thoughts.

As you can see, there’s so much for freelancers to consider when it comes to managing their workload. Hopefully, these ten tools will help you to schedule your projects, maintain your high standards, and enable you to deliver exceptional service to keep your customers coming back for more.