• no more messing around with CSV files if you work with Excel. You can now export any report directly into the Microsoft Office Excel format
• for all Google Apps users we’ve enabled direct exports for reports & invoices to Google Docs in PDF format
• you can now add internal notes to your invoices and all your invoice payments
• we’ve expanded the backup functionality to include task comments, discussions and invoices
• invoicing now supports Quebec tax rates

If you have any questions about the new features please let us know!

This offer is available to all Paymo users. Whether you have recently signed up for Paymo or you are a long time user, you can get the discount for 123ContactForm by signing up with the promo code below:

The Paymo Android app allows you to easily track your time while on the go. It can be used during client meetings or while you’re mobile. Whether your team members have iPhones or Android phones, everyone will be able to track time while on the go.

Paymo Android Time Tracking features:

• time entries are kept with start and end times
• add your time using a stopwatch or manually enter time
• edit and review your existing time sheets
• works offline and syncs to your online account when a connection becomes available

You can download the Paymo Android App here!

We’d like to apologize to all our Android users for the repeated delays in launching the app. We didn’t have in-house skills to build the app and had a couple of bad experiences with 3rd party developers, however the guys at Mobiversal did a good job and managed to get it done. We hope you’ll enjoy the app!

One of the greatest problems people encounter when they try and get into time tracking is the need to stop and start the timer to switch between projects. Some people find it adds too much work to their day, and others just don’t remember to maintain the timer between tasks. With PaymoPlus, we’re introducing new technology that changes that.

PaymoPlus tracks your time for you automatically. At the end of the day, you can see exactly how much time you spent doing what at a glance. PaymoPlus accomplishes this by recording not just which application you’re using, but the file or browser tab as well, ensuring detailed, incredibly granular information is recorded so that you don’t miss out on getting paid for a single minute of client time.

At the end of the day, you can simply drag and drop your tracked time into the right project baskets. Or you can automate the process even further by using the fantastic PaymoPlus rule filtering system, which allows you to tell the app which files or apps to associate with which projects. If you’re spending big chunks of time in a specific Photoshop file for that big redesign, you don’t have to worry about constantly sorting your time, for example.

Just as with our widgets, PaymoPlus allows you to use Paymo’s time tracking technology whether you’re online or offline. As long as PaymoPlus is open and recording it will save time even if you’re offline. Next time you go online you will be able to sync everything up.

We work hard to give users an option for every scenario. PaymoPlus joins a line of tools that make time tracking easy in any situation, including desktop widgets for Windows and Mac OS X, browser add-ons for Firefox, and Safari, and mobile applications. Paymo also features integration with Google Apps, Basecamp, KashFlow, Xero and QuickBooks.

PaymoPlus will work for both free and premium Paymo users, and can be downloaded here.

That’s why we’re announcing the launch of QuickBooks integration in Paymo. Starting now, you can import and export information between Paymo and QuickBooks. For many of you who use QuickBooks already, this will be insanely useful — no more manually moving data back and forth. For many businesses, this is the perfect opportunity to fire up a free account, start tracking time, and get it all into QuickBooks where your accounts already are.

“We’re here to help all QuickBooks customers who are disappointed by Intuit’s decision to drop support for their time tracking apps. Since time tracking is at the core of many businesses, we understand the necessity of a fast and smooth transition to a new system. That’s why we created a simple solution that will get you back to work in no time,” said Jan Lukacs, Paymo’s CEO.

Here’s what you can do with Paymo’s QuickBooks integration:

• Export clients, projects, task lists, tasks, users and time entries from Paymo to QuickBooks.
• Import clients, projects, task lists, tasks and invoices from QuickBooks to Paymo.

QuickBooks Time Tracking integration is available to all users, on all plans including the free tier, right now. To turn the feature on, simply log in to your control panel, go to Company Settings, and then to the Integrations section. QuickBooks integration currently has a Beta label on it and as such we encourage users to provide feedback and let us know about any problems you may encounter.

3 am – 4 am CDT (US) or
11 am – 12 am CET (Europe).

This work will require a system reboot during which your Paymo account will not function. Anyone using the Paymo widget or PaymoPlus will be able to track time, the entries will be saved locally and they will be synced online once the system is up and running.

For any questions don’t hesitate to contact us!

1. Search for Postings

Often, potential clients will post an ad looking to fill their needs online, through job boards and similar sites. These aren’t ideal once you’re established, as you have more negotiating power when the client comes to you. However, they’re great for building some momentum in the beginning, and you can always return to trawling postings when business is getting slow.

2. Word of Mouth

Word of mouth is the best form of marketing. Word of mouth marketing generally takes place from one party who has used your services to another who is need of your services, in a setting where the seeker already trusts the recommender. This means you don’t need to work as hard to prove that you can handle the job because the recommendation has already created credibility. Word of mouth marketing is best achieved by doing a great job for every client — no matter how you’re feeling.

3. Advertising

If you’ve got some capital, you can try advertising your services. Pay per click is the most frequently used form of advertising because of its low cost of entry, using networks such as Google AdSense. If your products or services have consumer appeal then you can try advertising on Facebook. Banner ad networks like BuySellAds can help you place your ads on specifically targeted websites, and traditional media such as radio can be worth a shot if you want to target local prospects.

4. Events

Hit conferences, the local chamber of commerce and other business events to get your name out there and tell people how you can help them. Even if you’re catering to clients around the globe, it makes sense to take advantage of events in your local area to get local clients — every avenue unexplored means fewer sales. Get a set of business cards before you head out but also remember that you need to tell the people you meet how you can solve their problems — not just slap a piece of cardboard in their hand.

5. Cold Calling

Everyone hates it, but its a tried and true approach: pick up the phone and start dialling. Don’t give up after your first ten rejections, either. Cold calling takes persistence. Lots of persistence. However, hone your approach and test different scripts and voices as you go; if you don’t improve your game you won’t improve your conversion rate. Cold emailing works similarly.

Customer service is number one.

You might be a one-person operation, not a corporation with a call center, but customer service is still your number one priority. Most freelancers operate as though a great deliverable is their number one priority, and while it’s certainly important that everything you hand over is high quality, the way you treat a client as a result of the mindset that customer service is key will improve your business for the better.

Know what they know about your field.

It helps to communicate with your client about what you’re producing if you know exactly what their level of knowledge is. A client who is a programmer will more readily understand what you’re doing with your code than a client whose came up an accounting career path. Sometimes, a client who has some but not much experience with your field is a dangerous thing — they send you in inadvisable directions and can be hard to talk off the cliff, and you’ll need to learn how to handle this situation.

Communicate clearly.

Far too much communication between client and contractor comes from unclear communication. Nine out of ten emails or calls end up clarifying what was meant to have been established in previous communications. Always be clear and thorough, but not long-winded. Staying concise helps make the message comprehensible, as long as you don’t sacrifice thoroughness for conciseness, and strong clarity is preferred to polite, flowery wording.

Get to know the company and market.

If you know the company, its history, its management team and its products or services, it’s much easier to make good decisions whether you’re a copywriter, designer, developer, or project manager. If you know the market and the industry even better, you can provide services that give your client the most competitive edge — a trait that’ll have you brought back to the table for the next project instead of your competition.

Ask the right questions.

Freelancers often bemoan the inability of clients to paint a clear picture of what they want, but often that’s why they’re hiring you: they don’t know enough to paint that picture. Despite the inexplicable complaining amongst freelancers, it is their role to discuss the project, draw out the details the client may think unrelated and put together a plan for approval. Know what questions you need to ask to draw out all the details you need before you can start making decisions, and play a role in educating the client where possible. It’ll be easier to work with them next time.

Of course, allowable tax deductions vary wildly from country to country. For those in the Western world, these should remain fairly consistent between countries with differences in the details, so consider this a jumping off point for further country-specific research.

Home office expenses

There are so many expenses incurred in running a home office and for many freelancers, this is unfortunately where the entirety of their deduction focus lies. As you’re about to see, it’s just the start — but certainly not to be ignored, because it can take a massive chunk off of that tax bill.

Internet, phone lines, mobile phones, office furniture, computers, utilities, stationery — there’s a laundry list of stuff that falls in this category. Make sure you check out the rules for each individual item in this category — you’ll often have to figure out the percentage of a net or phone connection that you use for business purposes as opposed to home purposes, or depreciate office equipment like computers over a few years and claim accordingly.

Research and publications

Need to buy a book for research, or you subscribe to a magazine that’s related to your field? You’re in luck — these are deductible expenses. As always, don’t jump the shark as you’ll need to be able to defend these deductions in case of an audit. No, that scuba diving magazine won’t fly if you’re a web designer who specializes in sites for politicians.

Education

On a related note, education that relates to your field is deductible. You can’t take classes in order to get into a new field and deduct them, but if you’re advancing your knowledge of the field you are already in you’re in luck.

Though this largely hearkens back to research and publications, textbooks and other expenses required by the class but on top of the class fee itself are generally deductible.

Meals, entertainment & other client meeting expenses

Some clients sure like to be wined and dined. I’ve heard of clients who will play hard to get just to try and get a business diner out of a service provider’s inner salesman. Fortunately, these pricey adventures — and their more common cousins, the coffee shop meeting — are deductible.

Beware your country’s laws, though — in some, such as the United States, you’ll only be able to claim 50% of the cost, not the entire bill.

PayPal fees

Many modern freelancers conduct business across and even within borders using PayPal. Despite its astronomical fees, this service is used out of convenience more than anything else — but if you go for that convenience you’ll feel it when the money gets to your bank account.

While it doesn’t quite make up for the loss of large chunks of your fees, you can deduct those fees from your taxable income. Small blessings.

Subcontractors

As you scale your sole proprietorship into a small business, or if you simply need to palm off some work when things get busy from time to time, you’ll find yourself using subcontractors more and more as time goes on. Fortunately, these expenses are deductible. Since they can be huge expenses — especially when they are ongoing — you’d find yourself unable to pay your tax bill without these deductions, so be sure to apply them.

Advisors

In a similar category to subcontractors are advisors who you go to for help with the running of your business — accountants, lawyers, business planners and the like. For business purposes, these guys are all deductible. If you use the same lawyer for business purposes as you do for personal matters, though, you’ll need to deduct only those bills that pertain to the business.

Unpaid invoices

What happens when a bad client doesn’t pay an invoice? Obviously you’re not going to be liable for tax on the amount you’re invoicing for as you never received payment, but what few freelancers realize is that you can actually write off the amount of that invoice as a bad debt. You spent time working and didn’t get paid for it, so it makes sense that the tax office should help you mitigate how that affects your tax bill.

Payments to non-profits

In some countries such as the United States, charitable donations are not valid business expenses. If you’d like to use your business to support non-profits while getting a tax deduction, though, you can opt for a marginally different solution: payments to non-profits for products or services.

In some countries donating to registered charities may qualify you for a tax deduction, so be sure to check out your local laws.

Health insurance premiums

If you’re coming from a full-time job to freelancing, one of your big concerns may be the lack of benefits such as health insurance. Most governments make this easier on the self-employed by allowing the cost of health insurance to be deducted from taxable income.

There are some conditions in most areas that you’ll need to check. You have to be paying the premium yourself, and if your spouse has a health care plan that covers you, your own health insurance won’t be eligible for deduction.

Car usage

Unless you work exclusively from your home office, you’ll likely be putting in some miles in the car getting to client meetings, co-working locations and cafes with Wi-Fi. You can keep meticulous mileage records and deduct your actual expenses incurred, or you can use the standard mileage rate determined by your country’s tax authority.

If using the actual expense method, which requires you to calculate the percentage of driving you did in a year that was business-related and deduct only that percentage of the costs, be sure to include expenses other than gas alone. Car services, repairs, and other maintenance costs can be included in the calculation.

Travel

Expenses incurred in taking business trips are tax deductible. There are a bunch of conditions that tax authorities impose in order to ensure you can’t deduct for any old holiday. There must be a pre-determined business-related purpose for your trip, outside of your own city, and be overnight or longer.

Travel is a big audit flag, as with car usage, so keep your records meticulous and don’t try and push the limits of your claims (not that you should be doing this at all to begin with). That said, it’s a fair business deduction so don’t let that scare you off — just be careful.

Though these 12 items are the biggest deductions that most freelancers will be able to make, there are plenty more possibilities — often niche items that apply to specific professions. Let us know about the little-known legitimate deductions that make your tax season a bit easier in the comments.

It’s also far too easy to go down the rabbit hole and spend a bunch of your day distracted by an endless Wikipedia chain or refreshing currency exchange rates.

Unless you work for in an environment that requires constant connectivity say, at a tech news blog most of us can benefit from knowing when to fire up the browser and when to stay offline. It’s probably naive to suggest turning the Internet off altogether far too many apps and operations depend on it these days but staying out of apps like the browser, email client and messenger at certain times can certainly be advised.

Don’t Start Your Day Online

The natural instinct for most web workers is to check email and missed Skype messages as soon as we get into the office (or dining room, or whether the computer is). Many productivity experts suggest that we slow down a little and leave the communication overload until later in the day. Checking in with your task manager and selecting the tasks you’ll tackle that day, and more importantly right away, is a great alternative.

It’s good to choose the biggest tasks first, those that require the most concentration and take the most time, and get them out of the way earlier, as early as you can before your eyes get tired of looking at the screen in the afternoon. Then once you’ve got those big offline tasks out of the way your output session you can check in and handle email and the like.

Schedule Times to Check Your Email

Don’t stop at just avoiding email in the mornings. Once you check your email once later in the day you”ll be tempted to keep looking every five minutes. Everyone does it don’t even try and deny it! Unfortunately, it ruins a lot of potentially productive time.

To avoid this, try setting specific times to check and zero your inbox, like just after lunch and as the last thing you do before clocking off. Alternatively, if you feel you really should handle email in the morning, try clearing it first thing, closing it, and not coming back to it until 5PM.

What If I Need to Check Facts?

Many of us are constantly firing up a Google search to check facts or do some research on a topic. It’s better not to interrupt your train of thought or flow when you’re working on something, so you should just power on with the rest of the item until you’ve done all you can without getting the facts. Cory Doctorow suggests using the letters “TK” in a document to signify areas you need to check into further, he says these letters are very rarely combined in English, so shouldn’t fire too many false positives on a search through the document later.

Does This Context Require Connectivity?

If you are an adherent of the Getting Things Done productivity methodology, you have a tool in your kit to answer the question of “should I be online right now?” already. It’s called contexts. A context is used to describe the situation “tools, locations or people” that need to be available in order to complete the next action on a task list.

Fortunately, you can easily add contexts in your system that indicate your need to be online to complete them. Commonly used options include a simple “Online” context, or you can go further and divide them up by app “Online – Email” or “Online – Paymo” for example.

The good news is that steering clear of the Internet during your most productive hours doesn’t mean you can’t use Paymo. You can still track time without your browser open. Just make sure to download one of our desktop apps for Windows or Mac OS X, or our Dashboard widget. The widget can be downloaded by logging into your account, clicking on the Settings gear icon, and selecting Download Desktop App.