Freelance business management software

We love Trello at Treehouse and use it for quite a few different things.

Rick, sounds like http://www.powerlancer.com has been built for you. It is the most integrated, all-in-one solution created for freelancers.

• It works on a project/client basis
• It knows recurring tasks & recurring income
• You can archive your completed projects Also: you can easily track time, keep track of your tasks, create custom invoices and have a clear overview of your projected income. Pure awesomeness. Hope this helps :)

We tried freshbooks but it is fairly limited and as you grow the costs do not scale well.

My team and I use Podio for tracking assignments and Blinksale for invoicing. Both serve our needs well but if you are looking for a tight integration and are comfortable with Freshbooks and Podio that may be the best route.

I appreciate the feedback. I used Podio for a while but something was not clicking with the workflow. However, that could have been my problem, not Podio's. I will revisit it. I did like being able to attach emails to projects/tasks.

Marsha and Mark, I have looked into Freshbooks, and it looks good for my needs as far as invoicing and time-tracking. It seems very sImilar to Harvest which I liked and will probably go back to.

Ryan, I'd be curious to know a little more about how your using Trello.

Jake, that is more than I'm looking to pay right now. The Billings app is a $60 one-time fee. It also offers the ability to track non-billable time. I believe Let's Freckle offered the same.

My current workflow for keeping track of my clients is the following:
I generally track on a client/project basis. Some clients have recurring projects such as monthly marketing needs or website updates. I have other clients that the projects change each time. I like being able to archive those jobs that are completed, such as print projects. But he recurring ones I keep around.

Right now, I'm using a series of nested folders that is working fairly well. Inside each clients folder I have an email folder, resources folder, and files folder where I keep everything associated with the particular project of that client.

I may be over-thinking my workflow/project management. I just want to be as efficient as possible so that I can focus on what I really enjoy, coding.

As a thought exercise I wonder if we could leverage the Treehouse community to develop a set of tools for the community? There have been some dabbling in this direction but I wonder if we could take it to the next level?

All the cool kids are using Freshbooks ;)

I can't give you a personal review - but check them out on the site:

http://www.freshbooks.com/

I love http://chrometa.com but it's a bit pricy. I love how you can track your specific time and not charge for time when you are not actually working on it.

I'm testing 17hats.com at the moment and seems amazing. - would love it if you could add more users but it seems to have everything you need from CMS to billing to forms etc...and it is a really really simple interface. I'll report back at the end of the trial.

Would you be interested in something custom built for you?