Archive for the 'Person to Person Outsourcing' Category

Five Popular Online Billing and Invoicing Tools for Freelancers

Once you have completed the project or achieved a milestone, the first thing that comes to your mind is sending invoice or a bill to the buyer for your services. Sending an accurate and a timely invoice means fast encashment of your payment.

On the basis of popularity, we have listed five Web-based invoicing tools, which are easy to use, cost effective and require no downloading.  You can simply access them from anywhere across the world, track and manage invoices instantly.

The list under includes five popular web based resources to create, send and manage invoices. Some of them are free while some others charge nominal fee. Along with this, they also offer additional services like time tracking, saving as PDF, project management and available 24X7 from anywhere on any computer.

We have listed these tools over their pricing:

1. Billing Manager- A product of Intuit, billing manager offers hassle-free billing so that freelancers can focus on other core functions.

billing manager

Special features
• It is a free-of-cost invoicing tool
• You can create multiple  customized,  professional  invoices
• Send them by email
• Track payment history and status

Reviews- “I found Intuit Billing Manager a strong invoicer for the very small business. Getting started takes very little time, and it shows you the info you need when you need it.” Rafe Needleman, CNET news

2. SimplyBill: This tool offers simple invoice management to all. No spreadsheet, no complex accounting required, helps sending attractive invoices in minutes.

simplybill

Special features
• Easily create attractive invoices
• Send them to your clients through email
• Create quotations and conveniently convert them to invoices
• Use your images on email messages

Pricing – Free trial -30 day, plans from $5 (25 invoices / month, upto 10 clients) to $25 (unlimited invoices and clients).

Reviews- “The interface is attractive and easy to use, with plenty of ajax goodness. Prices range from free to $25 per month. A nice little app.”Pete Cashmore, Web 2.0 strategy consultant and entrepreneur, Mashable.com/weblist

3. Blinksale- Winner of webware best 100 apps 2007, Blinksale is one of the coolest looking invoicing resources.

blinksale

Special features
• Design your invoices using CSS (Cascading styling sheet)
• Importing your clients contacts from basecamp.
• Send automated repeating invoices through recurring templates.

Pricing – First 3 invoices free, plans starting from $12 (for 50 invoices monthly) to $49 (for 1500 invoices per month). Unlimited clients.

Reviews- “Blinksale tackles a simple need in a straightforward way” Michael Arrington, TechCrunch.

4. Cashboard- It is one of the essential tools for freelancers and small medium businesses for increasing productivity. The intuitive to use interface and advance features makes it significant web application.

cashboard

Special features
• Track your working hours then create invoices
• Send PDF invoices
• Helps view performance estimates and receipts
• Accept payments online
• Track billable and non-billable hours for yourself, your employees, and contractors

Pricing –  30-day free trial with 2 active projects, plans starting from $6 (3 active projects) to $140 (with 10,000 active projects) per month.

Reviews- There are lots of little touches here that make it obvious that Cashboard is being built by web workers for web workers”. Mike Gunderloy, Web worker daily

5. Freshbooks- This tool has been facilitating its clients with easy to create invoices since 2004.  Their online invoicing application is helping small businesses better manage their finances.

freshbooks

Special features
• Snail mail invoices
• Time tracking feature
• Secure tool to save your data
• Professional designing of the documents/ invoices with your company logo, color etc.

Pricing – Starts with 3 clients with unlimited invoices. Plans starting from $14 per month for 25 clients upto $149 per month for 5000 clients.

Reviews- “focus on growing your business rather than worry about getting paid” Fox Business

Hope these invoicing tools help you get your payments faster than before. Experience them and invest your valuable time more in your business to make your freelancing career a great success.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

In news again…providing creative ways to earn money online!

The renowned media group news website IBNLive.com has covered LimeExchange as an effective platform, which provides creative ways to earn money online. The post talks about how one can make his hobby a full time profession in the prevailing financial crisis by using online services marketplaces.

IBNLIVE

Some of the users have also shared their experiences of getting instant freelance jobs and executing them efficiently while making good money at LimeExchange.com.

Read more, Creative ways of earning money online

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

How to Best use LimeExchange - For Individual Freelancers #1

Online Profile? Why do I need to have a profile on online services marketplace? Why is it important?  Tell me more…

Online Credibility, Online Profile, Profile completeness

Well…Your Profile is your online resume, it is your credibility online. The first thing which a buyer would look at is your profile and in this glance you need to generate interest in the Buyer’s mind, who is looking at outsourcing work. Buyer needs to know at a glance about you and develop trust online. Unless he feels comfortable with what he sees, he would not reach out and spend time for evaluating your proposal.

You might ask now, so what do I do?

Well…Your Profile should have

- Concise and precise details on Summary/About section, Education, Relevant Work Experience, which help establish your background.

- It should consist of your images, photographs, videos, which you can showcase as your online presence and help establish authenticity.

- It should contain a complete list of all your skill sets corresponding to  your expertise/specialized area of work (say Flash, Adobe in Graphic design; Joomla, Drupal, Perl PHP, Java in Web Development; dotNet, VB, VC++ in software development; Online Blogging, Ghost writing, English to Russian, Chinese in Writing & Translation and much more), which you possess.

- And against the common understanding of literal nomenclature of ‘General Information’, precise and valid information about your existence & authenticity.  Valid address, and details, which a buyer can search and find out easily and establish a verifiable online presence.

This and many such small things would go a long way in leaving a lasting impression on the Buyer’s mind and establish credibility and trust.

At LimeExchange, you get up to 10 MB of free space on your profile to upload as much as information as you feel would help provide the right testimonial to the buyer.

Read on to find information on ‘How to use the tools available @ LimeExchange for your profile‘?

So why feel shy in detailing your profile? Use it in the best possible manner! 

Do let us know your comments on this blog post and we will try and provide more and more information in days to follow.

P.S.  Yet again more resources to provide more information on this subject.  Interested …then Read on

- Some best practices to know about creating and maintaining your online profile

- Why is it important for earning online?

- An old yet informative List of 100 sites requiring a detailed online profile for getting jobs on the web.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!

LimeExchange partners with ExpertRating to offer Online Skill Tests

Online Skill Tests, Skill VerificationWant more business, earning opportunities from LimeExchange?

Want more credibility for your LimeExchange profile?

Want to establish your expertise for your skillset?

Want to award projects to certified experts?

ExpertRating SolutionsLimeExchange answers these questions, with the launch of Online Skill Tests, in association with ExpertRating. ExpertRating is a trusted name in pre-employment testing and training services and has long been a leader in Online Certification and Employment Testing, offering over 200 widely accepted online certifications.

LimeExchange in partnership with ExpertRating now brings an array of online skill tests for users; providing an affordable and efficient way to prove skill expertise online and to get a Certified LimeExchange profile from Expert Rating Solutions.

LimeExchange introduces an extensive range of technical skills and proficiency tests for providers in all categories ranging from technical skills, software programming, web programming, designing, technical writing, blogging to even accounting and language proficiency.

As part of our Online Skill Test Launch, LimeExchange is happy to offer the first test FREE to all users, in any of their chosen categoryThis offer is valid till end of December 2008.

Online Skill Tests, Skill VerificationWhy should you take skill test(s)?

•         To exhibit your skill proficiency to the world
•         To add credibility to your profile
•         To increase your ranking and rating on LimeExchange
All of this and more to get more and more business opportunities from LimeExchange.

Let’s get started …. Or how it works?

View categories and choose test syllabus - More than 100 tests available across various categories. You can select from variety of tests in a particular category, read the test syllabus and get prepared for the test.

Take a test – After going through the test syllabus, if you feel confident enough to take the test just go for it at your own convenience. All our LimeExchange users can take one Technical Test of their choice for free along with free LimeExchange English Proficiency Test.

Check score – After completing the test you can view your scores. On passing the test, your scores can be viewed on your profile. You can also retake the test after 24 hours, if needed.

Promote profile - Your Profile immediately reflects your scores obtained which gets a preference on search results for the tests you have taken and helps you increase your business. You also have an option to hide your test scores by marking them as Private.

We recommend all our users to take all the tests related to their area of expertise and prove your skills to the world.  Leave your feedback and comments for us to improve further.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed!