Maths Idiot X No Worries: Simple Accounting for a Freelancer

apparently as a person who

totally sucks at Mathematics

keeping a simple account is still a must

 

as a freelancer

you gonna manage everything

and that of course including your finance

 

1. Project Summary Sheets

which I updated whenever I obtained a task

the most basic yet important of all

 

to keep track of everything from

amount, date of project, payment status

basically everything is under control

 

I have one sheet for each and every major clients

since for the major clients

I have to send monthly invoice

therefore it’s better to split them 

and a sheet named OTHERS for the rest

which goes this way

Date	Project Description	P.O. No (if any)	Word Count	Amount	Invoice Status (Sent)	Payment (Received)

 

the table is updated from time to time

based on availability of information

eg: some clients send their purchase order

from their sides much later

after the project is confirmed

 

approaching the end of the month

when it comes to issuing an invoice

will refer to this sheet for keywords

and search it in my mailbox to

to reconfirm the details such as

date, P.O. number

before the invoice is sent out

 

this project summary sheet is

definitely so important as

some clients actually

do not issue a P.O. from their side

so it’s basically

all up to you to keep track

 

at times

whenever I need to refer to

previously completed project

this would be my guide too

just to track back

when was it completed

 

2. Sales Performance sheet

from the project summary

I generate a simple sales performance sheet

which I just did

 

to keep track of monthly sales

the performance trend etc

 

it goes this way

everything in [] is basically auto-generated

from the SUM function available in Excel

and the additional AVERAGE function at the bottom

	Client 01	Client 02	Client 03	Others	Total
Jan					[Monthly Total]
Feb					[Monthly Total]
Mar					[Monthly Total]
Apr					[Monthly Total]
Total	[Total/ Client]	[Total/ Client]	[Total/ Client]	[Total/ Client]	[Annual Total]
					[Avr/Month]

 

3. ……

still figuring out

probably a balance sheet of

income vs expenditure

 

credits:

thanks to my 6-month part-time job as

an admin with a noodle wholesaler

updating accounts for respective customers

were part and parcel of my daily routine

pay was definitely meager

 

but the skill picked up

stick for the rest of my life

PRICELESS*