
Ask HN: As a freelancer, what's the best app to track finances? - nunodonato
Hi everyone!<p><pre><code>  I&#x27;ve been working as a freelancer practically my whole life. Although I&#x27;m not a very finances-oriented person, I do like to keep track of my spending and income, do some basic forecasting, budgeting, to also plan my time and activities.

  One thing I&#x27;ve noticed is that most apps are really not oriented for people who, like me, dont have very fixed&#x2F;stable sources of income. One month I&#x27;m doing something, next month I have very little work, next month I may be working on 3 different projects, with different wages.

  I miss a simple way to track this, and to somehow allow me to plan my future, minimizing working hours and maximizing life (4hr work week anyone? ;)) But so far I haven&#x27;t been able to find a finance management app that responds to the needs of freelancers like me.

  Being in IT and software dev, I&#x27;m begin to think I should probably scratch my own itch and develop something that really suits my needs. So I&#x27;d like to ask you two things
</code></pre>
1 - Is there any app I&#x27;m not aware of, that you guys might use and that suits these needs?<p>2 - If you are somehow like me, would you give 5min of your time so that I could get more feedback from other freelancers about what would be useful for them, and other tips and strategies you might use for yourself for your own finances?<p>thanks so much!
======
thibaut_barrere
I'm a freelance myself (since 2005). I ultimately scratched my own itch and
created an app specifically for this:

[https://www.wisecashhq.com](https://www.wisecashhq.com)

I built it pretty much for what you describe: to plan my future (it computes
your runway & "time wealth"), adjust working hours as needed, "make time" for
other topics, negotiate based on data etc.

The goal is not to "track all expenses", but rather to make a reasonable
forecast of your situation.

You will likely find those articles useful:

\- [https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/knowing-your-cash-runway-
a-k...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/knowing-your-cash-runway-a-killer-
tool)

\- [https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/case-study-how-to-
increase-f...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/case-study-how-to-increase-
freelancing-rates-as-a-beginner)

\- [https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/recurring-revenue-matters-
vi...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/blog/recurring-revenue-matters-visual-
explanation)

Hope this helps & let me know if you have further questions!

~~~
nunodonato
interesting! the features do sound similar to what I'm looking for,
unfortunately the monthly cost is too high for me :(

~~~
thibaut_barrere
I'm always looking for feedback, including on similar topics :-)

What would be a "good" price for you?

(asking because when I'll make a complete rewrite, I want to have various
price ranges, including a lower starting price).

~~~
have_faith
The idea sounds great but the landing page could be so much more informative.
Ignoring the testimonials and the looping video that's hard to discern
concrete information from you are left with very little in the way of
information to justify the expense. That's not to say the product isn't worth
what you charge, it most likely is, just that I believe it's doing itself a
disservice in convincing me to use the trial. If each one of your selling
points from that 3up column section where it's own section with more details
on how it works and how easy that particular feature is to use etc I think
would do a much better job at convincing people.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
It's useful feedback, thanks!

There is actually a lot more detail right under each of those sections (see
the "learn more" link).

For some reason it's not underlined, so I guess I have to fix this!

Example link:

[https://www.wisecashhq.com/help/setting-up-a-recurring-
trans...](https://www.wisecashhq.com/help/setting-up-a-recurring-transaction)

This is, by the way, and git-backed knowledge based & source is available
here:

[https://github.com/wisecash/wisecash-
support](https://github.com/wisecash/wisecash-support)

~~~
have_faith
I saw those pages, but they read like tutorials for people already sold into
the idea and just needed help implementing some of the features. What I
thought was really missing was selling the benefits of those features before
trying to explain to someone the steps needed to use them. I think that's
where the gap is on the landing page. As currently it goes from Short
Definition of Feature -> Tutorial on How to Use Feature. I think what
potential users really need to more content about why the feature is
beneficial to them and a very succinct overview on how it works.

Good luck!

------
dvno42
There's a slight learning curve but I've been very happy with GnuCash. It
supports multiple accounts and containers, has decent reporting, invoicing,
categorizing, etc. I also really like that it's offline.

[https://www.gnucash.org/](https://www.gnucash.org/)

~~~
jen729w
Yes to GnuCash, but for none of the reasons OP wants.

GnuCash is, let’s be honest, crap. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, it’s
totally free, but it’s crap.

 _However_ , it forces you to learn how to do proper double-entry bookkeeping.
You’ll get it wrong a bunch of times before you get it right. You’ll Google
stuff and be frustrated that you can’t find an answer. You’ll just learn,
somehow. But then...

...one day something clicks. And that day, you realise why this system has
been the way that accountants do things for literally half a millennium [0].
It’s extraordinary. It’s _impossible_ to lose track of money. The benefits are
far too many to explain here, but just trust me when I say that when you ‘get
it’, it’s like a transcendental moment.

So how do I plan my future? I put in speculative transactions. I forward-plot
my income based on work done, invoice payment dates, and known tax office
obligations. I play with the future, what-if this, what-if that. This is all
really manual, in this software that will undoubtedly frustrate you, but the
_control_ you have is unmatched by any smart online Web 2.0 software. It’s
like being in the Matrix of your money.

So yeah. GnuCash. Shite, but amazing.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-
entry_bookkeeping_syste...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-
entry_bookkeeping_system#History)

~~~
ferdek
Looks like you might posses valuable knowledge that some are Googling in vain,
just as you said. And you have quite pleasant writing style. I would strongly
encourage you to document at least some of the endeavours you had with
GnuCash, in your free time, for future generations.

Not that I'm using GnuCash or even consider it, heck, I'm not even
freelancing. However, people like you, sharing knowledge, are what keeps the
Internet alive ;).

~~~
jen729w
Kind words, which mean a lot. Thank you.

------
dig1
I'm running a company on ledger-cli [1], emacs and org-mode [2]. Sure, there
are some additional scripts that will pull banking logs or do repetitive
tasks, but these are basic building blocks.

Tried GnuCash few times - first time I failed because I didn't know how to
work with double-entry accounting [3]. Second time failed because GnuCash
isn't flexible with currencies (maybe things got better now).

All these tools has steep learning curve, but things pays back with extreme
flexibility and longevity over time. Everything is a text, which means I can
access it from everywhere (scripts, editors, phone). I'm keeping everything on
git (invoices, payment details, project status, todo list), so every change is
recorded and, most important, I'm not dependent on external company's product
that can go bankrupt tomorrow.

As I'm doing business with customers from different parts of world, I'm trying
to be flexible by accepting currencies whatever is suitable for them. This is
nightmare for ordinary accounting tools and AFAIK only ledger-cli and
derivatives are able to handle it properly (eg. cryptocurrency payments and
transactions). Hell, I'm even using ledger-cli to track my car fuel
consumption and expenses which shows level of flexibility (try that with
GnuCash).

Emacs/org-mode is for everything else ;) Invoices, project planning, drawing
charts, coding, calculating and preparing tax reports, forecasting (you'd be
surprised how powerful Emacs calc [4] is).

[1] [https://www.ledger-cli.org/](https://www.ledger-cli.org/)

[2] [https://orgmode.org/](https://orgmode.org/)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-
entry_bookkeeping_syste...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-
entry_bookkeeping_system)

[4]
[https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/calc.htm...](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/calc.html)

~~~
nunodonato
hi! i'm using org-mode for my projects, tasks and general info & planning.
Didnt occur to me to use it for finances as well. Will take a look :)

~~~
mftrhu
I recently moved my ledger entries to an org-mode file - attaching metadata
and things like file links are much easier inside org - chunking them by date
and using org-babel to tangle them out.

It pretty much works as expected, except for the fact that (at least on my
emacs) tangling ledger blocks is much slower than other languages (18+ seconds
for 151 blocks, vs <1 s for a comparable amount of elisp).

------
sam1r
I can relate to you in verbatim, except never had the courage to ask publicly.
I ended up going with excel and then ended up hating any tool in the browser.

Updates with startups take too long and your nit-picky features to increase
your productivity probably do not directly correlate with these payment
software companies business goals. I prefer full control / or the possible
option for extensibility. Most importantly, looking at the data, no matter [or
my several failed experiments/finance tool investments past year] ... I would
eventually go back to excel. You just don't get the mental massaging that you
are the shit in the UI.

Anyways, if this sounds interesting, I hope it saves you some time. I spent
way too much time wasting my determination to find the perfect tool that
actually never existed in the first place.

~~~
mitul_45
If you are using Excel, I made a frontend wrapper on top of it to add
expenses/incomes easily. For analysis you can use whatever methods you are
already using.

Check it out: [https://github.com/mitul45/expense-
manager](https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager)

------
justusthane
It doesn't really have forecasting capability and isn't targeted at business,
but just for personal budgeting and finance tracking, I love YNAB, and it
works fine for variable income. It has actually changed my life (coming from
no budgeting ;)

There's a public API too, so you could probably build forecasting and more
detailed reporting on top of it.

~~~
LikeAnElephant
Can't second this enough. YNAB was really difficult to "get" at first, but it
has removed nearly all the stress I used to feel about money.

~~~
rexpop
How many hours a week do you spend in YNAB?

~~~
adamfeldman
Reviewing cleared transactions that automatically download into YNAB takes me
under 3 min/day (they’re auto-categorized based on past inputs). I usually do
this on desktop but it can all be done on iOS (and Android?) as well.

Initial setup of budget categories took me about an hour of reading docs and
playing with the app. Historical transactions mostly aren’t available for
import, so over the first 1-2 months of use you’ll fiddle with things as you
get more data.

From there I found myself just reviewing the reports every so often as needed.

------
nickjj
I like GnuCash and wrote about it at: [https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/using-
gnucash-as-a-freelancer...](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/using-gnucash-as-a-
freelancer-to-track-finances-and-prepare-taxes)

It was also discussed here last year at:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16857884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16857884)

Been using it for a few years now to track finances as a freelancer and I
don't see a reason to switch. It works really well.

But I wrote my own Bash script to calculate invoice amounts. I run 1 command
per month and it spits out the number of hours I worked for each client and
then shows how much I should invoice them for.

------
martin-adams
I use You Need A Budget to track my personal finances and budget for the
future. I also use it my my company to know exactly how much profit I have.
It’s the only app I’ve found that lets me prepare for the future and allow me
to make proper decisions.

Whenever I spend money, I record the transaction in the app and import my bank
statements to reconcile once a month.

~~~
nunodonato
Tried it, looks interesting for being different. One thing I didnt like is the
inability to plan future months, it doesnt account for future income flows,
although it lets you spend money. Obviously I get the red alert because I'm
spending money I do not have (but I will, at that time of the month)...

~~~
martin-adams
Yeah, it is very strict that you budget the month's spending on the money you
have right now. It took me a while to get into that mindset and I now prefer
it. It means that if your income fluctuates you always budget on the money you
have, not the money you don't have.

Not ideal for everyone, but works great for me. Aside from that, I like the
ability to set goals for yearly expenses and making sure you are putting
enough away. This is great for insurance, tax, etc. I use Xero for my official
business accounts, and being able to look to the future is the single biggest
thing missing.

------
akegalj
ledger: [https://www.ledger-cli.org/](https://www.ledger-cli.org/)

and its haskell clone hledger:
[https://hledger.org/index.html](https://hledger.org/index.html)

I use hledger - but I bellieve both would work.

~~~
noufalibrahim
+1 to that. I wrote about my use of the tool here when I was freelancing
[http://nibrahim.net.in/2015/11/07/ledger_and_personal_financ...](http://nibrahim.net.in/2015/11/07/ledger_and_personal_finance.html)

------
kd5bjo
I'm a big proponent of learning how to do this with old-fashioned ledger
books. Paper is always more flexible than the electronic solutions, and going
straight to electronic tracking risks locking in a poor process for the sake
of efficiency -- never spend time optimizing until you know you'll actually
use the result.

------
jongpieter
Since I started working as a freelancer, I'm using PaymoApp [1], it's great
for managing projects and tracking time for these projects. You can easily
invoice these hours to your clients, with based on the projects you have
defined. The best part for me is the ability to easily track time for my
projects, as I'm working on different projects.

For accounting, PaymoApp doesn't offer full accounting services. I just
started using Snelstart [2] a by and for Dutch market developed accounting
platform. The best part of this application, is the integration with my
accountant, he can monitor my administration 24/7 and this saves me time and
money.

[1] [https://www.paymoapp.com/](https://www.paymoapp.com/) [2]
[https://www.snelstart.nl/](https://www.snelstart.nl/)

------
neilv
I don't know what's the best, but, on the desktop, among other things I tried,
I used GnuCash.

In addition to tracking personal/business finances in GnuCash, I used the
invoicing feature to track billable hours and notes for each chunk of time. I
had a custom invoice format that generated PDFs without the notes, and then I
used the notes as reminders of what to put in periodic work reports.

A drawback to GnuCash, though, is that you can spend a lot of time getting
your accounts and transaction splits just right, and tracking every little
transaction. One of the best things I did was to move to doing _less_
categorization and itemization in GnuCash (e.g., unless an expense was was
tax-relevant, it got moved to "Misc.", and paper-money expenses weren't even
tracked, but reconciled monthly).

------
kozziollek
I'm using Firefly III [1]. Mostly because it's open-source, self-hosted and
had nice import feature that I could use to upload CSV from my bank. It's a
webapp, so no need for mobile applications. Although few people created some I
think.

It has tags, bugdets, categories, multiple currencies, reports. Author is
regularly publishing new versions and is very responsive.

[1]: [https://firefly-iii.org/](https://firefly-iii.org/)

------
kaishiro
I've personally tried several different online services but ultimately landed
on Wave ([https://waveapps.com](https://waveapps.com) \- no affiliation). I
used it for personal consulting and lately have used it for somewhat more
formal (bit still fairly straightforward) corporate accounting. I'm a big fan
- just my two cents.

~~~
themattress
+1 for Wave. I started an LLC to do contract work and so far it's been great.

I do have one minor gripe: I have my Wave linked with my Azlo bank account,
and when I'm scanning and uploading a receipt Wave creates a separate
transaction, in addition to the one from my bank feed. You have to go in and
manually select both txns and click "Merge". Seems like a pretty big miss, but
still very usable. Especially on my small scale.

~~~
kaishiro
Completely agree - being able to just add rote attachments to a journal entry
is a huge miss. Hoping they rectify it soon.

------
kfriede
I've used Simple [https://www.simple.com/](https://www.simple.com/) as my
primary checking for years and love it. I create "Goals" as buffer money
pockets for things like "Savings", "Investment", and "Credit Card Buffer", and
then use their expenses feature to automatically deduct certain bill amounts
every payday. Their features are open enough to where you should be able to
flex it to your needs. For example the "Goals" also has an auto-fill, but I
just use them manually since I don't usually have a set amount I'm trying to
save, just a certain percent per payday.

------
mitul_45
Not a freelancer, but I wanted to track my everyday finances since long. I
tried lot of different tools but in the end ended up using simple Google sheet
with some formulas.

The only issue with this approach is – adding expenses is pain. When I am
shopping for something, opening Google Sheet (on phone) and adding an
expense/income is too cumbersome. So I built a UI for it –
[https://github.com/mitul45/expense-
manager](https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager).

I have been using it since last couple of years and have an idea of my
monthly/weekly expenses.

~~~
war1025
I use ledger myself, but the issue I always run into is my wife is much less
likely to keep track of what she buys and let me know so I can record it.
Where that gets especially tricky is when she goes someplace and leaves a tip.
Resolving tips is a real pain in the butt, especially since it comes through
in the checking account at the original price and is then later processed at
the tip-included price. Matching those up is a real bear.

~~~
mitul_45
I also had a similar issue, but then it became like a habit – every night I
would check my accounts and add day's expenses (it's difficult if you have a
lot of cash transactions). For the tip, wouldn't you round off to nearest full
digit? You can just add that as an expense.

~~~
war1025
I used to reconcile our purchases against our online checking account every
night, but the issue with tips happened when I would do that but then a few
weeks later I would go through and actually balance everything out and
suddenly I'd be off by a dollar and change and have to go on a deep dive to
find out where I went wrong.

------
senseitit
I second Paymo, which is basically designed around client work. You can create
multiple projects with different billing methods and track time on them, which
can then be pulled into an invoice for a client. This way you have a concrete
idea of how you spend your time vs. how much you get paid for it.

The free plan should be enough for planning and tracking project progress.
It's limited to 3 invoices though, so you might need to buy a paid plan for
advanced accounting features.

[https://www.paymoapp.com/](https://www.paymoapp.com/)

------
wishinghand
Just a note about your posting format- don't use the `pre` tag or backticks to
quote long lines of text. They'll overflow and it's essentially impossible to
read on mobile.

~~~
Dayshine
Why haven't ycombinator fixed this problem yet?

It's bizarre that a programmer focused discussion board doesn't support code
or quote formatting. And even worse, doesn't strip out formatting that
breaks!?

------
rushabh
Frappe Accounting is an electron based app exactly for this (GPL v3). We have
pushed an alpha version and would love to find collaborators. Out of the box
you can setup chart of accounts, make bills, payments, get basic accounting
reports.

[https://github.com/frappe/accounting](https://github.com/frappe/accounting)

[https://frappe.io/accounting](https://frappe.io/accounting)

Anyone willing to collaborate, please drop me a mail.

------
jbverschoor
Manager is free for desktop / paid for cloud
[https://manager.io](https://manager.io)

It has all the things you need, and the interface is pretty good.

~~~
ValentineC
I'm a huge fan of Manager too. It does the manual task of balancing the books
_very well_ , and exports everything as TSV so it's easy to port out if it no
longer fulfills one's needs.

I'm a bit concerned that it stores attachments (receipts, invoices, etc) as
blobs in its SQLite database, but users on its forum [1] seem to keep large
databases without any problem.

Since it's one SQLite file per business, it's also easy to automate file
backups on my end.

[1] [https://forum.manager.io/](https://forum.manager.io/)

------
brudgers
Over the years, I've tried Quicken, Quickbooks, and other 'mass market'
finance tools for my freelancing. I gave up the search for a silver bullet.
Spreadsheets are excellent for these types of niche application with one-off
requirements. From a development perspective, spreadsheets excel for nailing
down the business logic without getting bogged down in frameworks and tooling
and UI design. Until the data flow is understood, hard coding may just get in
the way.

------
nunodonato
Thanks everyone for the comments. I should have tried to explain a little bit
better, I'm not searching for expenses trackers or time trackers. Its really
more about forecasting and having bird's eye view on things, in order to plan
work.

I'm really tending to scratch my own itch and do something different. Cushion
app comes close to what I what, but still misses a few spots and its a bit
more expensive than what I'd like to afford.

------
gexla
The answer for this will be different for everyone. None of the answers will
be sure to fix your problems.

Dealing with your finances (or anything else you deal with more than once) is
a process. Figure out what your process needs to be and then automate the most
painful parts with the tools you can find. Rinse and repeat as you locate more
pain points.

You'll likely find that a general tool such as Excel is the best way to start.
As you gain a further understanding of your problem, then you can trial other
tools. As I mentioned above, the best app for you will likely be the one which
best handles your greatest pain points.

Apps can still be helpful as a starting point for your processes. Apps have
workflows which you can steal for your own workflows. You'll then likely tweak
to the point where the tool is no longer a good fit.

The exception to the above is when your greatest pain point is some
combination of time and collaboration. It may be best to pick among the
leaders in the space and force yourself to adapt. I can track things in Excel,
but I may be forced to pick something else if I need other people to use it.

The above is from someone who goes through loads of apps and always ends up
going back to basic tools.

~~~
mitul_45
I was also having the same dilemma, although not a freelancer. I wanted to
track my finances and tried lot of different tools but in the end decided to
use plain excel.

But then adding expense on Excel from mobile is real pain, so I wrote a
frontend client for it. I've been using it for about 1.5 years now, works like
a charm.

I have expense history of almost every cent I spent in last 1.5 years :)

Check it out: [https://github.com/mitul45/expense-
manager](https://github.com/mitul45/expense-manager).

~~~
gexla
I like it! Thanks for sharing.

The best thing is that you have been using it for 1.5 years. The hardest part
is making something stick. Even just entering stuff into a spreadsheet.

------
vbsteven
I am on Harvest on which I track small freelance gigs, longer consulting
engagements and time spent on side projects.

I like the way I can split up projects into multiple roles and track/bill
differently for dev time vs admin work.

I also generate all my invoices through Harvest but I don’t use their builtin
online payments.

There is a desktop tracker for MacOS and Windows and some open source Linux
clients but I prefer to use a pinned tab in Firefox.

------
danap
I have been tracking my expenses in one form or another for my entire life.
How long well before we had computers and I used columnar paper spreadsheets.
Its always been a pain, Excel, whatever when you need data at the end of the
year.

Now I use a database with my own application that handles table entries just
like a spread sheet, has analysis, and charting, import/export of data.

Need income tracking, project time tracking whatever add a table(s).

It will read whatever schema you define and works with MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite
and others. If you want something a little extra then it supports plugins.
Make your own. Videos, docs, and plugin tutorial see website. Its free open
source.

My Expenses:

[http://ajqvue.com](http://ajqvue.com)
[https://github.com/danap/ajqvue](https://github.com/danap/ajqvue)
[http://dandymadeproductions.com/temp/GeneralExpenses.html](http://dandymadeproductions.com/temp/GeneralExpenses.html)

------
y7
I use beancount [1] for double-entry bookkeeping. It's similar to
ledger/hledger, but it enforces correctness of your ledger a bit more, and
it's written in Python which suits me well. You keep a ledger in a plain text
file (easy to keep under source control), and then run various commands for
analysis. Fava [2] is a web interface that gives you some stats. There's also
a Vim plugin [3].

For analysis and filing taxes and stuff, I've written some custom analysis
scripts that take the ledger file as input. Pretty easy to write, since the
tool already gives you a large and reasonably well documented Python API.

[1] [http://furius.ca/beancount/](http://furius.ca/beancount/)

[2] [https://beancount.github.io/fava/](https://beancount.github.io/fava/)

[3] [https://github.com/nathangrigg/vim-
beancount](https://github.com/nathangrigg/vim-beancount)

------
spoiledtechie
Dave Ramsey, - Every Dollar App.

Dave Ramsey is probably the biggest expert in helping people get out of debt
and stay out of debt. While its a 8 step program, he requires you to sit down
and budget.

Just one more accolade. He is known in circles as the best program to get
people out of debt and fast.

Along with his program he offers an App called Every Dollar.

Its a must have if you know anything about budgeting personally.

------
bogmom
YES. Thank you for thinking of developing something to address this.

1\. Most banking apps segment spending, but they don't perform analysis in an
actionable way.

2\. Most banking apps allow you to automatically budget for goals, but they
don't help you _actually structure_ your budget; usually they relegate
customers to siphoning money automatically, at best.

Solution

1\. Create an app that not only performs both actions above, but also adds in
a platform that caps/limits spending by category in order to reach monthly
goals.

e.g. monthly rent is x. App suggests/limits spending on y + z.

e.g. planning for baby requires $x. App suggests/allocates n per week while
limiting spending on y + z.

e.g. finances are unstable. App performs analysis of income patterns to
determine safe threshold for discretionary spending or whether discretionary
spending is even feasible.

Probably an app like this would need to have some sort of AI that not only
leans on spending analysis algorithms but also can adapt to predictive
behavior and set boundaries for the user.

(Does anything like this exist??)

------
ryanSrich
Something like Cushion might help -
[https://cushionapp.com](https://cushionapp.com)

------
Shicholas
[https://waveapps.com](https://waveapps.com)

IMO you need to know the ins and outs of bookkeeping anyway and Wave has been
such a joy to work with. It has great apps for snapping photos => OCR receipts
and sending invoices (if you require all your clients to pay invoices via
Wave, accounting will be much easier).

------
inceptivecss
I personally use Harpoon: [https://harpoonapp.com/](https://harpoonapp.com/)

The tracking and forecasting it provides are absolutely excellent. It
absolutely lets you specify income, expenses, budgeting, existing and proposed
projects, and since it lets you add estimated income for the future, you can
get an excellent view of what your actual needs are in terms of future work
and income.

For example, with my most up-to-date data I know that I'm booked solid with
good income for the next two months, but for the rest of the year I need at
least 1 project a month to meet my financial goals. I'm abstracting a bit, but
it actually gives you hard numbers for where you're at and what you need in
the future.

Feel free to toss me an email if you'd like to discuss this further. My email
is in my profile.

------
keyle
For invoicing and tax, I do everything through Google sheets. Accessible
anywhere, link any cells/tab from any other one, complex formulas, it has all
you need.

For purchasing and receipt collection, I take a picture of the receipt with my
phone, always on me, and put it in a folder.

------
chrislck
I love Gnucash. I love it so much I've learned Scheme to be able to write my
own reports. I am now hacking Scheme, fixing bugs, and dragging this
application forward into the 21st century. There's a lot to love about it, and
the user community is superb.

------
dariusj18
Do any of the apps mentioned in this thread have Business scenario
planning/forcasting.

ex. I have my current and future expenses in the system, I want to see what
will happen to my cashflow given an extra $25 a month expenses for 6 months
but also between $20 and $50 a month in revenue. I'd like to see some sort of
best case/worst case report and maybe show the current "scenario" at the top
with a toggle button to switch between scenarios or current projection.

Cool factor would be to lock in a scenario and later report on projected
balances with and without scenario. ex. If I hadn't made that decision where
would I be at.

~~~
nunodonato
exactly! this is the kind of thing I'm looking for. Years ago I did an app for
the blackberry playbook that played with this idea. You dont micromanage
stuff, just insert the averages, and then play with estimates, future
scenarios, and see how the charts change.

this is more or less what I'd like to have, but with a little bit more of
micro-management to be able to track income and plan work accordingly

------
markhalonen
I've found a net worth tracker to be awesome, and wish I'd started using it
earlier. Every month I actually look forward to logging my new net worth that
takes into account all my assets and liabilities. I view myself as a business,
and net worth is a KPI. This is the app I use
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wealthplus-net-
worth/id93353...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wealthplus-net-
worth/id933534901?mt=8)

For invoices, time-tracking etc., I use Freshbooks Cloud which is great.

------
duiker101
I am not sure about freelance, but I am obsessed with keeping track of my
finances. I tried many many apps and I have certain requirements that are
sometimes hard to meet.

For me it's important that:

\- There's a website

\- Multiple wallets in multiple currencies and conversion on as much as
possible.

\- Export/Import Data

The only one I found that I am satisfied with is Spendee[1]. It's not perfect,
actually far from it. But It's got what I need, it's flexible enough and it
seems to be getting enough updates.

[1] [https://spendee.com](https://spendee.com)

~~~
Max_Mustermann
I've been using the free version of Toshl for a couple of years and it ticks
all your marks. Great UX too.

[https://toshl.com](https://toshl.com)

~~~
duiker101
Interesting! I'll give it a try! Thanks for the suggestion!

------
markessien
There is an app my wife made that I use: it's for expense ticketing. It's
available here: [https://spendtrim.com](https://spendtrim.com)

------
slovette
I found these guys during my last stint of consulting/freelancing before
building another startup:

17hats.com

I really liked it and my wife uses still today for high end cakes and stuff
she does. I’ve also gotten quite of few of my buddies that do trade jobs on
the side (plumbing, electrical, low voltage, etc) to use it and they love it
as well.

Probably more than what your asking, but it’s a great AIO platform. I
particularly like the built in contract and digital signing abilities.

------
bayindirh
I'm using defter.net (ios name should be defter). It's actually an iOS app
with a web companion. It can handle from personal licenses to middle-sized
businesses.

\- It can do double-entry accounting and inter-account transfers.

\- It can generate reports about your accounts and money flow, hence allows
you to see trends and plan your finances.

It's very straightforward, hence very powerful, and allows me to track my
finances very accurately and see my situation clearly.

------
therealmarv
QuickBooks online from Intuit is big in European countries. Works also good in
Android and iOS. If you go really big use Xero (but not cheap).

If I would live in the US I would use Freshbooks (not so good for Europe if
you need to handle VAT taxes in my opinion).

It's also good to speak with your accountant what to use (if you have an
accountant).

Personally I use Google Spreadsheets but only because I only write invoices
1-2 times a month and I don't have ton of expenses.

------
vekker
I don't use finance tracking apps anymore. Using Tim Ferriss's advice "how can
I throw money at this problem to solve it?", I pay my accountant 200 to 300
euros every month and as part of their job they handle my financial tracking.
I just upload my invoices & expenses to their online tool or forward it via
email, they process it and hand me quarterly and yearly reports with
suggestions for optimisations.

~~~
nunodonato
I guess that works fine when you have money to throw at :) My current status
is to know the money you have at any point in time (or estimates), to know
more or less what is throwable and what is not ;)

------
majc2
For the UK, I’d really recommend Freeagent. Not sure how rest of world
coverage is, but Freeagent will cover most things you need to do (invoicing,
taxes etc)

------
slavoingilizov
This will depend a lot on where you are.

In the UK, many FinTech startups have started launching current accounts
targeted to freelancers and small businesses. Some examples:

[https://getcoconut.com](https://getcoconut.com)
[https://www.tide.co/](https://www.tide.co/)

Obviously if you're in the US this won't work, but you haven't mentioned
explicitly.

------
nubela
I built a Telegram Chatbot for this, mostly to keep receipts backed up, but it
also tracks your month to month finances. Check it out:
[https://accountgram.com](https://accountgram.com)

Use Accountgram if: 1\. You do not want to install yet-another-app (other than
Telegram) 2\. Your workflow revolves around backing up receipts

------
owenwil
I highly endorse Cushion for this purpose - it helps you estimate revenue, and
understand how you're tracking so far. It's the only good solution I've found
that helped avoid 'freelance anxiety' leading to bad business decisions
[https://cushionapp.com](https://cushionapp.com)

------
juandazapata
[https://www.youneedabudget.com/](https://www.youneedabudget.com/)

------
hnruss
I've been using the Everlance iOS app for a few months now, which tracks miles
driven, revenue, expenses, and receipts. It supports having various types of
work that need to be tracked separately. I also like that it stores receipts
in the cloud. For me, tracking expenses is easier when it is right on my
phone.

------
cammil
I've experimented with quite a few, and personally I think there is only one
right answer: ledger-cli

------
andrelaszlo
In Sweden, Bokio is pretty good ([https://bokio.se](https://bokio.se)). It
calculates VAT reports and templates for filing taxes pretty well. I haven't
tried any of they alternatives but I'm pretty happy with it. (No affiliation)

------
twodayslate
I personally use Prism
[https://www.prismmoney.com/](https://www.prismmoney.com/) Helps me make sure
I have enough money for bills without me having to input anything (after
initial setup).

------
zallarak
Try: [https://www.gotruffle.com](https://www.gotruffle.com)

Edit: although the app is marketed as finding deductions, we show spending
breakdown by category and are in the process of adding automatic revenue
tracking.

------
Blackstone4
I used Google Sheets to create my accounts. It means I can create different
views easily and I am in full control of my accounts without having to pay
anything.

I can use Google Finance to pull in FX rates and I save my receipts to folders
on the cloud.

------
flashfabrixx
I can recommend Cushion ([https://cushionapp.com](https://cushionapp.com)).
For me it's a great suite of tools in one intuitive and easy to use platform.

------
smohnot
Http://Albert.com is best for tracking your finances (also gives advice and
saves money etc)

[http://track.tax](http://track.tax) for managing freelancer taxes

------
baby
Get a bank like Monzo or Revolut. The rest follows pretty easily I found.

------
akulbe
youneedabudget.com

------
dirtylowprofile
I’m a freelancer and I keep track of my finance by using iOS Numbers default
app. I switched to Airtable but it is too slow on the iOS and their offline
caching sucks.

------
colinloretz
[https://Catch.co](https://Catch.co)

For tracking and putting aside money for freelance withholding, retirement and
planned time-off.

------
sbisson
I have a bunch of Excel spreadsheets that I use to handle invoicing and
expenses; they're easy enough to feed into tax software at the end of the
year.

------
edude03
As a freelancer, I used fresh books, and it did everything I needed for the
most part. When I incorporated, I switched to Xero and Receipt Bank.

------
m3kw9
Numbers for iOS, or just a spread sheet App. The reason is because you know
what you want to track instead of having a specific App tell you

------
davedx
Excel (well, Google Sheets actually). I manage most of my freelance business
in spreadsheets, also timesheets and invoicing.

------
bengale
I use FreeAgent, and it's always worked great. My accountant can deal with it
from her side which makes tax easier.

------
b4rtaz
I use [https://payzzer.com/](https://payzzer.com/)

------
te_chris
PocketSmith for personal but can also work for biz. Or just the budget tools
in Xero

------
Ryan_Goosling
[https://mint.com](https://mint.com)

~~~
enobrev
I used a hybrid approach with mint and spreadsheets.

Not a huge fan of mint, but I have about a decade of history in there. The UI
is awful but every transaction continues to show up. So I export all to a
spreadsheet every so often and manage everything in that sheet.

I've tried plenty of tools. Quicken, QuickBooks (online and offline), msn
money when that was a thing, a few online services, etc. None of them got it
right as far as I'm concerned.

Mint doesn't get it right either. And my spreadsheet isn't very good. But it
gets the job done with very little hassle.

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
Excel ala Martin Shkreli.

I’m not trying to stir the pot, but excel will do everything and more.

------
neillyons
Freeagent is good.

------
z3
My wife is the best financy tracking “app” indeed. When I buy something, she
is screeming like alarm :)

------
moltar
Xero

------
grayed-down
Excel? LibreOffice Calc?

------
feeboo
Emacs all the way. With orgmode, org-tables.

It will take a while, especially if you start out with emacs, but it is very
rewarding. Some day I'll try ledger-mode and maybe up my level even further.

TLDR: Try Emacs/Orgmode with dynamic tables

------
idlewords
Those little paper sleeves you put coins in.

------
ilmiont
GnuCash.

------
lyricat
beancount.

