In today’s digital age, self-employed individuals and freelancers face numerous challenges in managing their workload, finances, and organization. With the rise of mobile apps and digital tools, it has become easier for self-employed individuals to streamline their workflow, boost productivity, and achieve their goals.
These apps offer a range of functionalities, from project management and accounting software to communication and feedback-sharing, making it simpler to handle various aspects of running your own business. In this article, we’ll explore some of the best free apps for self-employed individuals and freelancers, covering project management, accounting software, communication, feedback-sharing, and more.
As a self-employed individual, managing your own business can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to tasks such as project management, expense tracking, and financial reporting. Apps can help you stay organized, focused, and productive, allowing you to concentrate on your core business activities. With the right apps, self-employed individuals can:
There’s a wealth of apps available to you, and a lot of them are free. While we can’t possibly feature every good free app here, we can highlight some of the most practical ones in this guide.
Keep in mind that a lot of these apps have both a free and paid version, so some of the features you can use on these apps may be limited to a certain number of users, a certain amount of data, or specific features. But the free versions are still valuable, and they can be a great way to test out which apps are worth a small investment.
From financial management apps to time management tools and everything in between, here are some of our favorite apps for freelancers.
Accounting and bookkeeping is one of those tasks that’s essential in any freelance business. But unfortunately, for many freelancers, it’s also one of the most unpleasant tasks. It’s easy to neglect it.
Thankfully, there are lots of financial management tools available to you. Here are some of our favorites.
Wave is a free accounting software that offers invoicing, expense tracking, and financial reporting features. It also offers receipt scanning and syncs with your business bank account. Wave is ideal for small businesses and freelancers looking to keep their finances in check without spending a dime.
QuickBooks is designed to help self-employed professionals who get income from several different sources. Intuit Gopayment makes it easy to charge customers’ credit cards for a convenient payment method. You can also streamline your accounting processes by filing your business receipts and exporting your tax deductions conveniently on your mobile phone.
This app is available on both Android and iPhone. There are both paid and free features, so you can pick the tools that fit your budget and goals.
Keeping track of your daily business expenses can be tedious, especially when your freelancing involves lots of traveling. MoneyPenny will help you to keep track of all your daily expenses. With it, you, as a consultant, will be able to track which client you worked for, expenses you can claim on your taxes or bill the client, and any other information that you might want to keep. For the self-employed, your time is your valuable inventory so managing it right is crucial to your bottom line profits.
Another perk: you can combine MoneyPenny with Brookson to easily request payments. You can even upgrade to the full Connect money management system which includes features such as email invoices, job estimates, expense and time tracking, and project management.
Taxes are never fun, but the Turbotax app is convenient and fast when it comes to filing simple tax returns. The average person can file their business tax returns in just a few minutes.
How it works: the app allows you to take pictures of your tax forms and upload them directly into the app. While it’s easiest for “typical” W-2 employees, freelancers and self-employed people can still benefit because the app allows you to access tax professionals for help if you’ve got questions about your tax filing.
Keep in mind that Turbotax does have different plans for different tax situations at different price points if you actually use it to submit your returns. These fees start at $39.99 for federal and state tax returns.
The FreshBooks app can be used in a wide range of ways. It will allow you to create client invoices, take pictures of your receipts, keep track of payments, and handle client information in a simple manner.
Moreover, it can print your monthly reports and review your financial expenditures, incomes, and other processes that are important to your business. The app also allows you to synchronize it with other popular apps and tools like PayPal, MileIQ, and Stripe. It can be used by all Android and iPhone users,, but you’ll need to set up a FreshBooks account.
Often self-employed and freelancers frequently transfer their money between personal bank accounts and business accounts to keep tabs on their financial progress.
The Money Dashboard app can offer a great way of keeping an eye on all your business and personal bank accounts while reviewing your overall financial state in one place.
Formerly known as Outright, the GoDaddy bookkeeping mobile app is ideal for most self-employed persons, small business entrepreneurs, and freelancers alike.
GoDaddy organizes all your financial records into one central place and links up any of your accounts from credit cards, PayPal, Amazon, bank accounts, and eBay among others. It also keeps track of your profits, expenses, and clients with charts and graphs.
The app keeps you up-to-date on your profit and loss information, routinely computes your quarterly tax returns and auto-fills your Schedule C tax form. With this mobile app, you will be able to work on important business undertakings like building client relationships while developing your business because your financial operations are well organized with this app.
Project management and time tracking are essential features for self-employed individuals and freelancers. Here are just a few of the different free tools you can use to track time and manage your projects easily.
Asana is a project management tool that helps users assign tasks, track progress, and set deadlines. Asana’s comprehensive project management features make it easy to stay on top of your work.
“Asana Personal” is the free version of the app, and it allows you to manage projects for up to 10 people, making it a good fit for freelancers and smaller businesses. If you need additional features, Asana offers several tiers at different price points, so it can grow with your business.
Harvest is a time tracking app that helps users track how much time they’ve spent on projects. It’s a great option for freelancers who need a streamlined way to track their billable hours and create invoices based on the hours worked.
You get a free 30-day trial of the full Harvest app when you sign up, but the free version is available afterwards if you don’t want to pay a subscription. The free plan allows just one person on the app and two active projects, so it’s best for small freelancers with limited client lists. If you want more robust features like several projects and integration with tax software, you’ll need to upgrade to their paid plan.
Toggl is a time tracking app that offers features such as project tracking, reporting, and team management. Toggl’s simple interface and powerful tracking capabilities make it a favorite among freelancers.
Toggl Free allows you to host a team of up to five users. You can sync your account across multiple devices, too. Paid plans that include billable rates, project templates, and more start at $9 per team member per month.
Trello is a project management app that helps users organize tasks and projects into boards, lists, and cards. Trello’s user-friendly interface makes it easy to visualize and manage your workload.
Trello Free is available on both iOS and Android, and it’s available for teams of up to ten people. It also includes up to ten project boards for your workspace and unlimited file storage. Standard plans for larger teams start at $5 per month.
Effective communication and feedback-sharing are crucial for self-employed individuals and freelancers. Here are some of the best apps for communication and feedback-sharing that you can use on your phone and computer alike.
Slack is a full-service communication app that offers a variety of features like messaging, file sharing, and video conferencing. Slack’s versatile communication tools make it easy to stay connected with clients and team members.
There is a free version with more limited features, such as 1:1 “huddles” (the app’s video conferencing feature) and only storing 90 days’ worth of messages. Upgrading to the paid plans gives you more robust options.
Skype has been one of the more popular video call apps for general use for years now. But it’s still a viable business tool, too. You can use this video conferencing apps to hold virtual meetings and communicate with clients and team members alike.
Skype is a free download, and it’s available on Android and iPhone.
Google Drive actually offers you a suite of different tools, including Google Forms, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Photos, Google Meet, and more. You can use Forms to make surveys to get feedback from your customers. Meet lets you hold video calls. Sheets and Docs both allow you to collaborate on different projects with your team simultaneously.
Google drive is free to use, but there’s a cap on how much you can save in their cloud storage (it’s a pretty generous amount, though). If you need it, you can upgrade to have additional storage.
SurveyMonkey is a tested tool for entrepreneurs who need to collect survey data. Whether you just need to get feedback from a small group of employees or you want to ask a large number of customers what they think about your latest product launch, this app can be a helpful tool for any freelancer.
SurveyMonkey offers advanced survey tools and analytics, making it a powerful tool for collecting and analyzing feedback. SurveyMonkey is free to use with certain limited features. Upgrading allows you to solicit more responses, ask different types of questions, and customize the survey to fit your brand aesthetic.
Business is more than just time tracking and taxes. There’s design, notetaking, and so much more than goes into your business. Here are a few other helpful apps we love for freelancers.
Evernote is a note-taking app that allows users to organize their thoughts, ideas, and tasks into notebooks and tags. Evernote is perfect for capturing and organizing information on the go.
Beginning in 2024, Evernote changed some of the terms of their Free plan, so you’re limited to using Evernote on a single device at a time. You’ll have up to 50 notes available with a 200MB maximum size for each note. If you’d like to have access to more robust features like thousands of notes and unlimited connected devices, plans start at $129.99 per year.
If you don’t have a lot of graphic design experience but you need to create eye-catching graphics, logos, and social media posts for your freelance business, Canva is an essential tool for you. The app’s intuitive design tools make it easy for anyone to produce high-quality visuals.
Canva free gives you access to a huge library with thousands of design templates, images, backgrounds, and more. A subscription allows you to bring your team into your design portal, create a branding kit for consistency, resize designs, and access their near-comprehensive design library to create the designs of your dreams.
Imagine you have an image of a document you would like to edit. Normally, you would open MS Word, retype the text from the image and then edit it and save like that. What would you say if we told you that there is a better, faster way to accomplish that?
With Image to Word Converter, you can take a picture of your invoice, contract or report and the app will do its magic and convert it to editable MS Word document. It’s as simple as that. You can also upload images from your phone, Gmail attachments, or supported cloud services (iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, and more).
Whether it is an important letter or a tax receipt, losing a paper record can be a nightmare in the life of an entrepreneur. Keeping an important business transaction document safe is essential because it allows you to keep track of your transactions and the overall growth of your business.
The Genius Scan app allows you to scan these documents into your mobile phone or tablet so that they can be stored in a safe online database in pdf format. After that, you can either keep your physical copies of your receipts or discard them; the app lets you print copies later on if needed. Download versions are available for both Android or Apple iOS.
With the highly advancing business world, business transactions are progressively becoming paperless each day. Besides the influx of paperless transactions, there’s a lot of added work if you have to constantly print out, sign, and then scan all your important business documents.
The HelloSign app allows you to sign all your paperwork electronically without stress. It also enables you to add watermarks to your signature so that you can just add it to the next business transaction automatically.
Running a successful freelance business requires more than just talent — it takes organization, financial management, effective communication, and efficient time tracking. The right apps can make all the difference, helping self-employed professionals streamline their daily operations and stay focused on growing their businesses. Whether you’re looking for accounting software to manage your finances, task management tools to stay on top of deadlines, or communication platforms to collaborate with clients, there’s a free app that can help.
By taking advantage of these tools, freelancers can save time, reduce stress, and create a more structured workflow, ultimately setting themselves up for long-term success. The key is to find the apps that fit your needs and incorporate them into your routine. With the right digital resources, you can focus on what you do best — delivering quality work and building a thriving freelance career.
Disclaimer: The content on this page is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or accounting advice. If you have specific questions about any of these topics, seek the counsel of a licensed professional.
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