Yesterday was my blog-versary. The second post I ever wrote was called Putting a Value on Your Work, and talked about how to price your work.
A key aspect of putting a value on your work, whether it be a painting, a song, or a dance piece, is know how much time went into the creation of that piece. For me, when I first started my business, I charged an hourly rate, but after a bit of time, I switched to a flat rate, because I hated tracking the time for every little email or phone call I made. I wish I had one of these programs to help me… Still, even when I went to a flat-rate system, I had to have some kind of idea of how long it would take me to do a job. Otherwise, I’d be ripping off either myself, or the client.
Some time-tracking software does more than just track your time. There are some available that help you with your accounting, to keep track of your contacts, and all of it is available to download as Excel spreadsheets. It’s pretty cool stuff. 
The one I’d recommend is Freshbooks. This Canadian company offers not just the ability to track your time, but you can also invoice, keep track of employee’s hours, track your expenses and create estimates. They have a free, lite version called “Moped”, and packages starting at around $20/month after that.
For a list of all of the current time-tracking software, click here.
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Great points made. I am actually in the process of switching over from hourly to flat myself and have never had a good solution for acurately tracking time on projects.
Heard of freshbooks, but I guess I need to just try it out myself.
Happy Blogiversary
Maybe one way would be to track your time for a few projects just to find out how much time on the average you spend. That way you have a better idea what to quote for your flat rate. Bill4Time is another time tracking and billing software out there. There’s a free version and free trial.
Thanks for posting this. I found it on Twitter (when google came up with nothing). I was using Cashboard but was finding it too complicated. Freshbooks is GREAT. I set up a new account and got my billing handled. THANKS!
So happy to help! Makes me happy! Happy billing!