A crucial element to the success of freelancers is the ability to remain organized. This can often be difficult, especially when a freelancer has very little business acumen, but it is something he must acquire or be willing to get better at, if he wants to become truly successful.
One of the first things you should look at as a freelancer is your workspace. You need to designate a main area to work in with room for storing all your paperwork and important files. Choose an area of your home where you will be doing work. This needs to be a quiet area, one where you can get away from the family to work in private. In most homes, a spare bedroom makes the perfect office, but when not available designating a certain area within the kitchen works just as well.
Once you have set up your desk, computer and all other business accessories, you need to start thinking about keeping your receipts, business expenses and sales organized. The best way to do this is by using good internet accounting software made especially for freelancers or the small business entrepreneur. The internet is your number one resource should you want some basic knowledge on accounting. AccountingCoach.com for example does a great job in giving a nice overview of some of the most important aspects of accounting.
You also need to think of the right phone setup. Should you use your home phone or your cell phone? What do you do about long distance calling? Obviously, if you are a freelancer, you are probably going to get customers from other states, maybe even from other countries, and at some point you will need to talk with them over the phone. If this is your situation, you may want to consider some type of a business Internet phone system. This is a VoIP type of system that gives you much lower long distance rates. In most cases, Internet telephony calls only cost a few cents, whereas traditional international phone calls can cost you as much as $1 a minute.
If you plan on opening some type of e-business or store, then another important tool may be a quoting tool or an online payment gateway, which allows you to take secure online payments. This tool is available as an application, and is easily installed on most websites. In most circumstances, you can, in fact, install it yourself by following the instructions given by the application software vendor you choose.
If you do sell to small or large businesses then you may need a vendor quote application, much like that offered by Socketapp.com.
The point is that staying organized, and using certain helpful tools or applications can save you time and energy. They can make your business run smoother and keep you from running around in circles like a typical roadrunner. Doing things right the first time just takes a little extra effort.
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