Path Of The Freelancer Dashboard

Explore

Version # 1.02

ā€‹

Summary

This the freelancing dashboard I've leveraged to help me flourish as a freelancer. Since I joined Airtable in 2016, I've been updating and improving this dashboard and i_t's inspired by the concepts in the book I've written called Path Of The Freelancer: An Actionable Guide To Flourishing In Freelancing. http://www.pathofthefreelancer.com_

ā€‹

If you'd like to intentionally operate your freelancing work like a business, using the concepts of the book, this is the tool to help you take control and move forward.

ā€‹

  • The Projects tab includes maintenance items that direct on how to use this Base in more detail.
  • **For each column in each view in the template base, I've added a description to help guide you on the purpose for it so you can better understand how to use it. **
  • The following documentation provides a higher level insight on how and why the template was setup the way it was.

ā€‹

Base Documentation

Dashboard (Table) - Year In Reflection View

The dashboard view is designed to provide a in-progress snapshot of the most important numbers as the year progresses and ends. It also acts as a great view for comparing the progress and regress of multiple years.

ā€‹

Manual Actions (Yearly)

  • Create a new year in this view.
  • Create each month in the tracking view with the new year.
  • In this dashboard view attach all 12 new months you created to the new year you created.

ā€‹

All of the numbers in each column will automatically populate after doing this.

ā€‹

Tracking (Table)

The tracking table is where we log the numbers for each month. It allows to keep a pulse on our freelancing business, it populates the dashboard view numbers and it allows us to view the data in different ways so we can make wise decisions.

ā€‹

End Of Month (View)

At the end of every month, I'll jump in here and update all the numbers across the board. I could have someone do this for me, but I like doing it myself so I can be aware of the information as I input it in. It forces my awareness.

ā€‹

Manual Actions (Monthly)

  • Populate the information for the prior month across the board.
  • Mark any notes for the month such as breakdowns of unearned income, discrepancies, problems, etcā€¦
  • Send the row as an email to spouse or anyone who should be aware of the numbers.

ā€‹

Payroll (View)

The payroll view helps me to know how much to pay myself and how when I run payroll. All the numbers are automatically calculated except the amount in the bank, the amount we want to keep in the bank and the amount of expenses we personally need reimbursement for. As an S Corp, I take some of my income as a salary(55%) and some as a dividend (45%). You may have to adjust these percentages in the formula or remove one if you don't need it.

ā€‹

Manual Actions (Monthly)

  • Fill in the numbers for amount in bank, amount to keep in bank and personal expenses to reimburse.
  • Run payroll through your third party provider using the calculated numbers.

ā€‹

Activity (View)

This view helps track our paid hour activity and allows us to see our progress and regress. It also shows earned income, the water tower (cash flow) amount, and our surplus money so we can easily correlate our activity to dollars.

ā€‹

Manual Actions (Monthly)

  • Update the number of paid hours we logged for the month.

ā€‹

Projects (Table)

The projects table is designed for us to manage our freelancing operations actions. This is not intended to manage our clients projects. They would have a separate Airtable Base for their projects and tasks. What are the projects I've got going on to move my freelancing business forward? What are the tasks I need to sustain on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis?

ā€‹

Kanban (View)

This is the primary view for my internal projects and is built upon the IDEMA framework (see about IDEMA below). When I started my freelancing business, I had more projects in Ideate, Discover, and Execute. As I've established a more stable freelancing business, I now mostly have actions under Maintain.

ā€‹

Manual Actions (Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Annually)

  • Every day, I start by jumping into this view and knowing out my tasks. I'll start with the actions. I'll move the finished actions below the "Finished bar" when they've been completed.
  • Every day, I'll move the finished bar to the bottom at the end of each day/week/month/year, etc.

ā€‹

Grid (View)

The grid view provides more control for setting up the project data and allows me to create a specific order so I can easily reset the order of maintain actions when they get out of whack or I get behind on my tasks. If you prefer a grid view to Kanban, simply use it instead.

ā€‹

People (Table) - Highly Important

The people tab is our dashboard for our clients, their projects, our prospects and our contact database. It's setup in a way to make it as easy as possible to take care of our customer while also shaking the bushes for new work.

ā€‹

Main Dashboard (View)

This main dashboard is my primary place of operations for getting client work done and move prospects forward. The contacts are grouped and ordered by status. This goes from Urgent active clients down to strangers.

ā€‹

All Contact Data (View)

This allows me to see all data for all contacts as some information is shielded in the main dashboard.

ā€‹

Active Clients (View)

This is a gallery view of active clients. It allows me to see their faces and have more of a personal touch with who I am working with.

ā€‹

Rainmakers (View)

In this gallery view, I can quickly see who the rainmakers (People who refer paid work our way) are as a way to help me followup and touch base with them regularly.

ā€‹

Expected Monthly Income (View)

This view taps into the services table to calculate how much passive income we'll earn monthly and how much income we'll earn from ongoing client work.

ā€‹

Sweet Spot Client (View)

This view allows us to see and grade our active clients according to the Sweet Spot definition in Path Of The Freelancer. Ultimately we only want to work with Sweet Spot clients.

ā€‹

Invite To Mailchimp (View)

This view is used for Zapier and by checking the field box, it will send a private email from me using a template I've defined inviting the contact to be a part of my list. If they respond yes, I'll check the box to add them to Mailchimp.

ā€‹

Added To Mailchimp (View)

This view is tied to Zapier so we can, with a click of a checkbox field, add them to our Mailchimp list.

ā€‹

Services (Table) - Main View

The services table allows us to log our historic and currently active service offerings. It also allows us to track our pricing and is used in the people table for calculating some of the income numbers. This view also allows us at a glance to see what clients are using each of the different services.

ā€‹

Companies (Table) - Main View

The companies tab allows us to track the different companies we're involved with and which people are associated with them.

ā€‹

About The Book (Path Of The Freelancer)

**Freelancing Is Difficult. Are You Ready For This Rewarding Challenge? **After the shut down of [his marketing firm](http://www.noodleheadmarketing.com/ "Marketing Company Story"), [Jason Montoya](http://www.pathofthefreelancer.com/author "Jason Montoya") unexpectedly had numerous business owners and non-profit leaders requesting his help to solve their organization's communication problems. Facing numerous challenges as a new freelancer, he quickly integrated his business insights to move through the many familiar obstacles he faced. He then began sharing with other freelancers a framework of **eight vital achievements **that took him to a state of personal and vocational flourishing. Behind the cover of Path Of The Freelancer, he dives into these mile markers, unveils a blueprint and shares personal stories to help guide and equip other freelancers in their difficult but rewarding journey.

ā€‹

Buy the book on Amazon at

https://www.amazon.com/Path-Freelancer-Actionable-Flourish-Freelancing/dp/1540735419/

ā€‹

Or, learn more at

http://www.pathofthefreelancer.com/

ā€‹

Get Help Or Ask Questions

_Do you have questions or want help setting up this template base up for your freelancing business? http://www.pathofthefreelancer.com/contact_

ā€‹

IDEMA

IDEMA is a Framework For Capturing & Sustaining Ideas.

ā€‹

Every idea has a place. Where does belong now?

  1. Ideate. Capture Our Idea.
  2. Discover. Establish Intentions & Plan to Sustain.
  3. Execute. Start, Finish & Prepare to Maintain.
  4. Maintain. Sustain Our Idea.
  5. Audit. Determine Our Assessed Ideaā€™s Fate.

ā€‹

Challenge & Commit To Our Idea Before Moving From One Stage To The Next.

ā€‹

Learn more about IDEMA on Medium.

https://medium.com/@IDEMA/idema-a-framework-for-capturing-sustaining-ideas-91cc811d917

ā€‹

About The Author (Jason Scott Montoya)

_You can get to know me and follow my personal blog at http://www.jasonscottmontoya.com_

Explore
Updated March 13, 2017 at 12:16 PM
Copied 1,371 times

Jason Scott Montoya

Full-time freelancer and author of Path Of The Freelancer, Jason Montoya is a communication specialist working with business owners to help them solve marketing and internal communication problems.
Explore the base
Year In Reflection
End Of Month View
Payroll View
Activity View
Kanban View
Grid View
Main Dashboard
All Contact Data
Active Clients
Rainmakers
Expected Monthly Income
Sweet Spot Client View
Invited To Mailchimp Email List (Via Zapier)
Added To Mailchimp (Via Zapier)
Main View
Main View