A lot of remote workers nurture the misconception that because of their talents, they’d rise to glory as a freelancer. This notion is wrong; freelancing encompasses a larger workflow than the tasks to be handled for clients. Becoming a freelancer means becoming your own administrator, ensuring client satisfaction, getting new clients, retaining existing clients, and so on.

However, the creation of several tools have lessened the amount of work handled by freelancers. These tools would aid you in expediting the administrative and sales work. Before using any of these tools, you would need to download a VPN for network protection. This way, you get to avoid issues such as problems from clients due to data exposure or a breach of your finances.

Below, you’ll find the top five classes of tools that should be used by a freelancer.

Tools Needed by a Freelancer

1. Finance Management Tools

A lot of freelancers find that they have lots of troubles when trying to manage taxes, invoices, and accounting. Many freelancers might be able to get by with their wit, and perhaps a tax calculator. However, for those that need a little more help, there are tools such as Coconut, Xero, and FreeAgent that can be used when trying to avoid the expensive fees associated with hiring an accountant.

Another accounting model is SaaS accounting or Software as a service. This is the fastest-growing software sales model, but the accounting complexity can prove challenging so many using this system look to professional saas accounting services for assistance. 

In fact, some of these tools can manage your finances for free. The premium tools on this list come at very affordable costs, which when compared with accountants, get you value for your money. When you launch these finance management tools, you’d be able to see all of your financial data at once.

Forthcoming cash flow issues would be solved and tax would be made easy. These finance tools can even handle the task of invoicing for you. For instance, Coconut allows you to send an invoice to your client from your phone.

2. Proposal Tools

One of the most important aspects of freelancing is getting new clients. Clients provide an avenue for you to make money while also getting to showcase your talents.

Having to respond to job invitations while you’re handling tasks for clients could be quite tasking. Each proposal needs careful crafting tailored to the client’s needs. There are apps such as Qwilr or Proposify that can help you with proposal creation.

These tools make provision for different templates to make your proposal stand out. They allow you to save certain copies that can be used for another proposal. A tool like Proposify changes the name of the client once you copy a proposal.

These tools have features such as showing you the time a client viewed your proposal and what parts of your proposal were highly brooded upon. They also make provision for clients to agree to the proposal legally.

3. Security Tools

The most prominent security tool for a freelancer is a VPN. A Virtual Private Network protects your privacy by encrypting the packets of data sent from your device to the internet. In essence, it acts as a barrier protecting you from cybercriminals who attempt to spy on your work.

Most freelancers typically like to complete tasks from different locations. In the course of doing this, a freelancer could connect to a public Wi-Fi network hijacked by a cybercriminal. If your client shares sensitive data such as login information, the hacker would be able to copy the details and breach the client’s account.

This could seriously harm your reputation. A VPN prevents this by tunneling your traffic and rerouting it through its own servers. Any hijacker looking to spy on your internet activity would see a series of symbols, letters, and numbers, rendering your data useless to him/her.

VPNs also offer added benefits to freelancers such as allowing a freelancer access geo-restricted websites and getting cheap international flights. When you connect to certain regions on your VPN, flight tickets would show up to be cheaper.

Be aware when choosing a VPN service that some operate differently and have different features, as shown in this example hola VPN review. For freelance security, you would want to choose a VPN that is built for security purposes, rather than one designed for accessing geo-restricted websites and content.

4. Project Collaboration Tools

The ability to arrange your projects would be a factor in determining your success as a freelancer. There are tools like Basecamp, Trello, and Podio that can help you manage your projects. With these tools, your clients can monitor your status on certain tasks in real-time and assign tasks to you.

If your client already uses trusted project management software, you’d have to adapt to his/her own tool. Asking clients to use tools you think are better could sometimes cause friction between both parties.

5. Document Management Tools

The more clients you have, the messier your documentation is bound to be. You need your documents and files arranged so you can make instant searches for them. You can use a service such as Bear, Notion, or Evernote.

A tool like Evernote integrates paper-based documents with digital documents efficiently. In fact, you would be able to search for paper-based documents with the application.

Conclusion

Working freelance tasks while combining them with gaining clients and administrative work could prove difficult for most remote workers. It’s for this reason certain tools were created to ease up the work of a freelancer.

You can use financial management tools, security tools, document management tools, and project management tools to ensure your business keeps growing while you’re completing tasks for clients.