Freelancers — Keep Good Records

Published in

Virtuali

6 min readMar 27, 2023

If you’re a creative freelancer — a writer, graphic designer, marketing consultant — record keeping is the last thing you want to think about. But organized records are an important aspect of running a business.

a desk with a notebook, pen, coffee cup and laptop — Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Welcome back to my series of essons learned as a freelancer. In this lesson, I’ll address something we creative types rarely consider: keeping good records.

Throughout my 15 years of working as a virtual and remote marketing expert and freelance writer at Seven Oaks Consulting, I have worked with clients I’ve never met. They find me through referrals and through my website or LinkedIn. Although we both conduct a certain amount of due diligence, there are times when the relationship sours, or we part ways. When this happens, having an accurate record of the promised work, the contract, the deliverables, and all correspondence and billing is essential to ensure the project is wrapped up smoothly.

Clear Client Communications Starts with a Good Contract

There’s an old saying that “good fences make good neighbors.” What this means is that a clear boundary between you and the other fellow brings clarity to the relationship and peace of mind.

A contract is like a fence or a boundary between you and the client. It ensures that both parties are clear on what is expected of them, what will be delivered and by when, and how much you will be paid for delivering the work. It also specifies how the work may be used, now and in the future, who owns the work, and other stipulations between the parties.

Many times, I ask freelancers if they have a standard contract they use with clients. They look at me as if I’m speaking Martian. The answer is usually no. If they do have a contract, they rely on the client to provide it. And they sign it without reading it.

The contract is your record of work. Yes, you can have a separate Scope of Work document, but for most freelancers, one document includes both. Without a contract, you have no recourse to requesting payment should the client default. It’s unclear who owns the work product, you or the end client. And it’s also unclear what happens should something unusual occur: the client gets sued due to your work, you get sued, one or both of you end up wanting to reuse the end work product, and a million other situations.

Always use a contract. Have both parties sign it. Electronic tools such as DocuSign make it simple and easy for virtual workers to ensure both parties see and sign the contract.

Keep both a virtual copy and a hard copy. Print it out. Save it in a folder. It’s old-fashioned, I know, and there are many so-called experts out there who will tell you that all you need is the electronic document. But I’ve lost two computers during our 15 years in business, one due to a ransomware attack and another, a malfunctioning cooling fan that caused the unit to overheat. Unless you’re backing up your files to the cloud every second, losing electronic documents is possible. Hard copies ensure you’ll always have a physical backup.

Save Your Email Correspondence

Another record to save is email correspondence. Although many freelancers prefer instant messenger tools like WhatsApp and Slack, most still use email to relay messages, instructions, and request feedback on interim deliverables.

Save those emails. If the project becomes delayed, or change requests start to sound familiar, pull up the record of emails. You may be surprised to see that the client is changing text back to the original (it’s happened to me on many occasions) or preferred the way something was worded in an earlier draft. If you keep the emails, you can refer to them.

What about after the project ends? Keep emails for as long as the contract terms are in effect. Many contracts state that the terms are effective for several years after the work is completed, and you may need those emails in case questions arise after you have turned in your deliverables.

Accounting and Billing Records

Another important area in which good record keeping is essential is accounting and billing. Freelancers have many options to track their finances. Small business accounting programs such as FreshBooks and QuickBooks make it easy to invoice clients and track payments. Even spreadsheets can be used for such tasks, although you must bill your clients manually.

Track client invoices and payments as well as business expenses. Save your receipts for all business-related purchases just in case there is a question about them at tax time. Reconcile your bank accounts and credit cards. Keep your checkbook balanced. Work with a professional accountant to prepare your business taxes or ensure your accounts are kept properly.

If you use an electronic system such as a small business accounting program or spreadsheets, back it up monthly.

Work Samples

Lastly, freelancers often overlook the importance of keeping samples of their work in an organized, easily accessible place.

As a freelancer, your sample portfolio is your best advertising. Some clients prefer that you do not share your work on a public-facing portfolio, such as on your website, but rarely do they object to sharing such work one on one with future clients.

Save every bit of freelance work you’ve completed, no matter how small the project. My best work sample, the one that helped me land more gigs than I can count, is a 250-word article I wrote about the SAT many years ago.

I organize my work on a Google Drive cloud folder by industry and type of work. When I need to share samples, I can make a public link to allow viewers to access just that document, and I can change the access at any time. For hard copy documents, such as magazine articles, I scan the article into a PDF. For web copy — articles, blogs written for clients, ecommerce copy, and so on — I save it as a PDF, then upload the PDF into the appropriate folder.

Create a naming convention for your samples that is both easy to use and remember. Consistent file naming ensures you can always find the right sample in a hurry when you’re pitching a gig.

Lastly, be sure to ask clients for permission to share samples if they may be considered confidential in any way. When in doubt, ask — it never hurts and can avoid some potentially uncomfortable situations.

Parting Thoughts

How you decide to keep your records — electronically, hard copy, or a mix of both — is less important than consistently maintaining those records.

Having been in business for over 15 years, I’ve seen it all: the client who insisted they asked us to build an ecommerce website (they didn’t), the client who was embroiled in a legal issue and requested our project records as part of the fact-finding process, the client who refused to pay for something clearly specified in the contract, you name it. It’s rare that we have misunderstandings these days, but when they do occur, our insistence upon keeping good records has saved the day more often than not.