freelance financial transparency

This piece in the New York Times yesterday about writers getting asked to work for free reminded me about the ongoing struggle freelancers have to get paid.

I’m a big believer in fiscal transparency — to the point where I’ve been known to ask people questions about money that I later realized were super awkward. But for real: If freelancers don’t talk about money, we’re all less equipped to negotiate for ourselves and value our own work properly. (Margo blogged about this last month in a post on financial habits.)

Creative freelancers, I know you deal in images and words and concepts, not math. For everyone who doesn’t feel adept at crunching numbers, I am here for you. Though I haven’t taken a math class since high school, that last one I took was honors calculus. I was a straight-up mathlete, y’all. The business side of creative enterprise is endlessly fascinating to me, and spreadsheets are like my catnip.

Without further ado, here is my freelance budget spreadsheet template for your fiscal enjoyment. Feel free to download it to your Google Drive or desktop, and tweak it and make it your own. It includes three tabs: The first is a year-at-a-glance budget projection sheet. The second is an invoice tracker that lets you see what invoices are unpaid and how much you’re bringing in per month. And the third tab is a time tracker that you can duplicate for every one of your clients to keep track of time and invoicing.

I developed these spreadsheets in my first year of freelance life, and I’m sharing them with you because every freelancer should be the captain of their own finances. I hope it helps you get ready to make 2014 your most successful year of freelancing ever!

BONUS! Here are some of my favorite freelance business books:

• The Boss of You
• Creative, Inc.
• My So-Called Freelance Life
• The Freelancer’s Bible