A Freelancer’s Journey to Finding a Workable Billing Software Solution :
What started out as a side income for Mandy about three years ago, eventually became a full-time career. This career consisted of her writing as a freelance writer. She wrote at times as a ghostwriter and sometimes under her own name, but after awhile her lack of business and accounting skills became a roadblock to her success. This is Mandy’s journey to finding a workable billing software solution for her new freelance career.
Freelance Writer Doesn’t Equal Business and Tech Savvy
In the beginning, Mandy worked through broker sites creating content for clients, which was easier for her because the billing and accounting part was already taken care of. After some success there, she began to branch out to freelance job boards and forums. This is where she found a few personal clients who liked her writing on certain topics. At first, billing was easy enough to manage through PayPal, but when work picked up she began to get overwhelmed with the holistic business aspects of her budding career.
See, just because Mandy was a great writer and could satisfy her clients in that department, she really wasn’t business or tech savvy. After six months of branching out on her own and gaining a few of her own personal clients, she began to understand her freelance writing work resembled a business.
In fact, she realized her freelancing writing efforts had become a full-time business. Yet, Mandy was becoming disorganized with billing, invoicing, time-tracking, deadlines, expenses, and overall organization. She was beginning to think she would have to scale down, or simply go back to a broker site.
Mandy Found a Solution
Although Mandy wasn’t the most tech savvy or business minded person, she put forth the effort to find a workable billing, invoicing, and time-tracking solution. After sifting through complicated solutions, which were basically overkill for her situation, she found CloudBooks.
CloudBooks was a comprehensive billing, invoicing, and time-tracking SaaS solution. The simplicity and 30-day free trial offer attracted her to signing up and using it. Right away she realized this was the exact solution she needed to organize every aspect of her promising freelance career.
How CloudBooks Transformed Mandy’s Career
Mandy never thought she’d have a career as a freelance writer, and even with the success she was having for a few years: the business and tech aspect seemed out of her ability to manage. She thought she was simply going to be limited to a mere elementary type of business persona, rather than a fully functional business with a successful brand.
Finding CloudBooks began to change her mind-set around these thoughts of limitation. Her few personal customers responded very well to her professional estimates and invoices, and the time and expense tracking features of CloudBooks began to give her clarity around all aspects of her daily work. She began to become so organized that she was able to take on many more clients and make more money.
CloudBooks transformed Mandy’s mindset and business ability, and through the easy-to-use tools: she was able to organize and manage her freelance career in a professional and successful manner. She expanded her abilities to take payments, track expenses for taxes, track invoices and estimates, and meet deadlines. The best part is she had a central place to access all these tools, while before she was using her memory and sticky tabs!
A Bright Future Began for Mandy
Putting the puzzle pieces together for a successful career as a freelance writer was a slow process at first, but was accelerated when Mandy found CloudBooks. By not having to spend so much time and effort on keeping track of the business aspects of her career, she was able to create a portfolio and a website. After some time she built a successful brand, and was able to even hire a crew of 5 freelance writers to help satisfy her customers’ needs.
CloudBooks remained the solution she used, helping her to comprehensively organize her employees and customers with simplicity and clarity. Through the insightful expense and time-tracking reports, she was able to manage employee productivity and the business’s profitability. And through the organized billing, invoicing, and estimates, she was able to keep track of deadlines and payments due.
Summary
Mandy went from a part-time freelance writer working for content broker sites, to a freelance agency employing five writers and satisfying dozens of clients and hundreds of orders every month. A big part of her successful journey was finding CloudBooks, which gave her the tools, insights, and ability to turn her talents as a writer into a viable business.
CloudBooks is a great billing and invoicing solution for small businesses of all sorts. It’s designed in a way to take the complications out of the billing process, and to give businesses the tools they need to comprehensively manage the vital aspects of their businesses.
By using this innovative SaaS solution, freelancers like Mandy can find the efficient tools they need to upgrade their businesses, satisfy their customers, and use their time more productively. If interested in knowing more or to start your free trial, please contact us today.