
Show HN: Freelancy – an easy way to track your time and earned money - nDmitry
http://getfreelancy.com/
======
bdunn
As someone who has a product in this space, some thoughts/ideas:

* Not everyone bills hourly. Include daily and weekly rates.

* It took me a while to figure out how to add a project when wanting to create a time log. Maybe have a "Quick Add" option in the projects dropdown?

* Include currency support. I've found that a lot more companies than I expected price in multiple currencies.

* The "Add Manual" time function could be a little more prominent. Not everyone will want to use a timer.

Best of luck!

~~~
nDmitry
Thank you, will think on each point.

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potomak
I need to track my work time to get a measure of how much should I bill my
clients and to get statistics about the work I do while "freelancing", but I
really don't like time trackers.

I tried to use Freckle but I always forgot to start the timer or to stop it.

So one day I had the idea to mix the concept of the Pomodoro Technique time
management with usual time trackers and Tomatoes[1] born.

Tomatoes is a open source web-based time tracker that helps you track your
time while optimizing your time and keeping you productive using the Pomodoro
Technique. It really helped me a lot.

[1] [http://tomato.es](http://tomato.es)

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brianbreslin
My gut feeling here is that you will have nearly zero price discrimination
between $5 and say $9 a month, and could make yourself 80% more money. If you
can show a justification for how this saves me money or helps me make more $
then $9 is worth it.

~~~
chrismeller
FWIW, every idiot pricing things at $9.99 has turned $9 into the same as $10
in my internal price-justification equation. At that level I've hit the point
where I need to be able to justify it to myself and it causes me to waver.

$5 is less than the coffee I bought (and <$100 a year) and easy for me to
immediately pull the trigger on.

Especially with the prolificity of well-established competitors I would keep
the price lower, at least until the product is more established.

~~~
latortuga
This advice is pure insanity. Never anchor your price against a latte - also
never let internet commenters influence you to anchor your price against a
latte. Someone discriminating between $5 and $10 for a time tracking
application that allows you to bill real customers for real money is
emphatically _not your target customer_.

$10 a month for almost any kind of freelance job is a drop in the bucket.
Raise your prices.

~~~
brianbreslin
agreed. though there is some price discrimination in this market.

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leepowers
Looks like a beautiful app. Unfortunately I wouldn't use it. The killer
feature for me is not just time tracking, but automatic invoice creation.
Being able to track time and then generate an invoice with the click of a
button. I use Cashboard, which has this feature, and costs about $9/month. I
see Freelancy has export to CSV - but it's simply isn't worth my time to write
a program to convert a CSV dump to a printable invoice to save $4/month.

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wingerlang
I do not know, from the webpage, how this works. This sentence:

> "Are you tired of counting the time you have actually worked? Let Freelancy
> do it for you."

Leads me to believe it is automatic tracking, is that the case? It does not
look like that.

I am currently using an fully automatic time tracker which I am extremely
happy with. I will note that the one I use does not include any form of money
etc. But it does give you an HH:MM breakdown of each days work, based on
project.

~~~
nDmitry
No, it's not automatic. You just start a task, work on it and stop it when
you're done. How an automatic solution that you use actually works? Does it
track usage time for all apps?

~~~
wingerlang
Alright. After reading it again I guess I see how I misunderstood that.

I use wakatime.com, it has got plugins for Sublime/Xcode/many-more/etc that
tracks time.

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Killah911
Some screenshots, workflow would be nice to have before I sign up. I sort of
get what it does, but not quite. I do however appreciate the brevity of the
site. Not much BS, straight and to the point.

I was tempted to try it out just to see what it was. I'm not sure if the lack
of product info will encourage more people to try your product. But ultimately
you'll have to figure out how it affects conversions

As my comment may already suggest, I did not try the product. I wasn't sure
about how much of a pain it would be to set up just to try it and then realize
it's not something I'm looking for. Hope the feedback helps!

~~~
nDmitry
Looks like I definitely should think about a screencast! :)

~~~
Killah911
That would definitely be very nice. Again, I can't emphasize how much I like
the minimalist approach to your page. A quick little screencast video would be
a clear call to action. Best of luck, looks like a well thought out product!

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lnanek2
Would prefer if they had a comparison chart for why I should use them vs. the
dozen other solutions in this space. Currently using Harvest App, for example.

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SEMW
Looks nice, but I actually moved which time-tracker I use only a week ago, to
Toggl[1]. Might be missing something, but at a glance I can't see anything
obvious this does better to justify $5 a month (I'm on Toggl's free tier,
which afaics does everything I need). User interface looks almost identical.

[1] [https://www.toggl.com/tour/web](https://www.toggl.com/tour/web)

~~~
nDmitry
The difference is Freelancy has native versions for OS X, Windows and Linux.
Many people still prefer desktop apps to web services, because they give them
the feeling ‘it's my own’ and works in any internet conditions, also it could
be more convenient to work with a desktop app rather than with a tab in a
browser.

~~~
chrismorgan
Toggl has native desktop apps also.

~~~
nDmitry
Yes, it has, but they keep focus on a web version, so Freelancy can be an
option for someone. :)

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roryhughes
Not at all against paid software, but if I were the freelance programmer, I
would write one for myself :)

~~~
golergka
It's 5$ per month — how many years will it take to break even?

~~~
vojant
It's the same as CMS/Todos/PM/Crm software, most of small companies create
their own... and after wasted year on broken, non tested software they look
for something commercial. $5 is a good price for simple software.

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marknutter
Time tracking and invoicing has to be one of the most over-served application
spaces.

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benrmatthews
Nice implementation, quick to get up and running through the Chrome app store.

One thing I couldn't work how to do was add a new project. Kept showing "No
project" for me and I could see now way of adding new projects?

~~~
nDmitry
Thanks, there is a button ‘+ Add’ and hotkey Cmd/Ctrl + N for adding new
projects or clients. Also you can switch between sections (tracker, analytics,
projects, etc) by hotkeys Cmd/Ctrl + 1/2/3/4.

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deweller
Quick typo report:

Profile is misspelled in: "go to Profie > More Options"

~~~
nDmitry
Fixed. I would appreciate any feedback on texts, BTW)

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KhalPanda
Hey, since you asked, a couple of things that I noticed:

\- "Is trial fully functional?" -> "Is _the_ trial fully functional?"

\- "it's only $5/month with 14 days trial period." -> "it's only $5/month with
_a 14 day_ trial period."

\- "install the app on unlimited number of devices." -> "install the app on
_an_ unlimited number of devices."

Those are just a few minor ones - it may be worth proof-reading the rest of
your copy more thoroughly, given that I noticed those in <30 seconds.

Good luck!

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Fogest
Are there any free solutions out there for simple time tracking?

Even just good applications for logging worked hours. Currently I just use a
spreadsheet to log when I get to work, and when I leave.

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g4k
The UI is great.

Is there a way to export the data with all details?

Additionally, it would be great to have the option to store the data in your
own data store (e.g. remoteStorage).

~~~
nDmitry
Right now you can export only hours and money in CSV, though I'm planning to
add more detailed reports and exports.

I don't really get you on your own data store—the app syncs with remote
CouchDB, do you mean the ability to specify your own remote URL to sync?

~~~
g4k
Exporting the details likely seems to be required for many users as
customers/clients might want to see the details.

With regards to data storage: the idea is to connect a remote data store like
tent.io oder remotestorage.io

~~~
nDmitry
What details exactly do you mean?

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jamesmoss
What's with the choice of Paypal over something nicer for customers like
Stripe or Braintree?

~~~
nDmitry
As far as I know, PayPal is only solution for global payouts. Stripe makes
steps to internationalization, but country list is still small.

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spacesword
What is the OSX app built on? Is it the Node Webkit wrapper?

~~~
nDmitry
Yes, it is.

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timmyg
can you create and send invoices to clients through this?

~~~
nDmitry
Not yet. How would you like this invoices to look?

~~~
focusaurus
The invoices that [http://invoiceable.co](http://invoiceable.co) generates
work well for me. But that tool doesn't handle the actual time tracking, just
the invoices.

