Nearly each enterprise I’ve began has concerned hiring freelancers. They’re extra reasonably priced and versatile, plus it’s simpler to scale up or down as wanted. One or two is simple, however issues can get messy once you’re coping with any greater than that.

I’ve since constructed my very own customized freelancer administration system, I began with freelancer administration templates. Right here’s a curated record of my favorites.

monday.com: A robust and versatile freelancer administration template

Trusted by over 225,000+ companies, monday.com is among the hottest mission administration platforms on the market. It’s excellent for those who want an organized and versatile strategy to handle work to your in-house group, freelancers, companies, and even different departments.

monday.com has a free plan for as much as two customers. It’s restricted, however it’s a good place to begin if you wish to strive it out earlier than paying.

Extra on monday.com: monday.com Assessment | monday.com vs Jira | monday.com vs. Notion.

To begin, you’ll want so as to add all your sources, together with freelancers and in-house group members for those who’re managing their work right here too. From there, you’ll be able to invite as many visitor customers as you must at no additional value.

As soon as they’re onboarded, you can begin assigning duties. They’ll be capable to monitor their time, monitor deadlines, add recordsdata, depart feedback, and extra.

The most effective half about this template is the way it brings all your outsourced duties collectively. You’ll simply be capable to hold monitor of every thing taking place exterior the corporate in a single place. Every process can have its personal standing, allotted period of time, due date, proprietor, and assignee.

It’s easy, but efficient. You too can add extra columns if you must.

monday.com makes it straightforward to regulate entry and enhancing capabilities so that you don’t have to fret about freelancers having the ability to see belongings you don’t need them to.

ClickUp: A Kanban-style freelancer administration template

ClickUp is one other highly effective possibility if you would like a whole mission administration resolution.

Its beneficiant free plan consists of collaborative doc sharing, whiteboard options, dash administration, calendar views, and Kanban boards. It’s greater than sufficient to get began and plenty of smaller companies can keep on the free plan for fairly a while.

You’ll be capable to invite as many free customers as you’d like, simply needless to say you received’t have granular entry controls until you improve.

Extra on ClickUp: ClickUp Assessment | ClickUp vs Asana | ClickUp vs. Notion.

Kanban boards are easy, acquainted, and extremely visible — they’re nice for managing initiatives and duties, particularly these you’re outsourcing to a contractor. They doubtless received’t need to be taught a brand new system or marvel the way it works.

All you need to do is create a backlog of duties, assign them, set due dates, and invite them to collaborate with you on ClickUp.

They’ll be capable to handle their work, mark duties as full, depart feedback, ask questions, collaborate on paperwork, chat with you, and extra.

It takes only a few minutes to configure every thing for those who’re utilizing this template as is. In any other case, it could take as much as an hour to customise it to match your wants. You may alter the columns, fields that present on every card, what it seems like once you open a card, and nearly each different ingredient.

You may even flip off options you aren’t going to make use of. This ensures no person makes use of them by chance.

Knack: Handle initiatives, resumes, and invoices in a single place

Knack is a no-code growth platform that’s nice for firms who wish to create their very own customized apps. You should utilize it to construct net portals, databases, mission trackers, and even a listing to handle all your freelancers.

There’s no free plan, however there’s a 14-day free trial if you wish to strive it earlier than you make investments. Plans begin at $59 per thirty days.

It’s a bit expensive, nevertheless it’s price it for those who want the extent of customization it offers.

This template is nice for those who want a full system to handle freelancer initiatives and duties, invoices, service agreements, and resumes.

It means that you can create a whole listing of each freelancer you’ve ever labored with. This may be helpful if you wish to have an accredited record of contractors or a big pool of freelancers you’ll be able to choose from at any time.

It’s additionally invaluable for those who do quite a lot of recruiting or biking by.

You’ll be capable to categorize your listing based mostly on their abilities, expertise degree, kind of settlement, or every other customized attribute you’d like. This makes it straightforward to seek out precisely what you want once you want it.

Contractors will be capable to ship invoices and even add a portfolio of their work instantly throughout the platform. They’ve full entry to their profiles and may replace them any time.

The draw back of this template is how a lot upfront work is required. You’ll doubtless need to do a little bit of customizing, coaching, and tweaking earlier than you begin utilizing it. Constructing a customized no-code app is at all times more difficult than you assume it’ll be.

However it positively pays off for those who want it.

Airtable: A complete freelancer administration database

As a robust relational database builder, Airtable makes it straightforward for non-developers to construct techniques, together with a freelancer administration database. On high of that, you’ll be able to make the most of automations to streamline notifications, process assignments, and extra.

Airtable’s free plan helps as much as 1,000 information per base, which is greater than sufficient to begin.

Extra on Airtable: Airtable Assessment | Airtable vs Asana | Airtable vs Trello.

This template comes with prebuilt tables for contractors, assignments, initiatives, and your inside group. Though it’s technically for managing contractors and their work, you should use it to handle in-house initiatives and duties in the identical place with out making too many changes.

For every contractor, you’ll be able to add their space of experience, occupation, portfolio, work hyperlink, contact, secondary specializations, approval standing, and make contact with data.

Out of the field, it covers every thing you must learn about every freelancer. It even has a selected view for monitoring them by your recruitment pipeline.

As soon as on board, you’ll be able to affiliate contractors with their assignments, set due dates, clarify mission scope, connect your contact, and every other particulars chances are you’ll want.

Airtable’s flexibility means you’ll be able to add new fields, take away fields, or edit present fields to make it be just right for you.

With every task, the supervisor will be capable to add suggestions. Over time, you should use this to find out if you wish to hold working with particular freelancers.

Total, it’s versatile and highly effective if you wish to do quite a lot of customizing.

Asana: An easier freelancer administration template for small to mid-sized groups

Up to now, we’ve lined extremely versatile and highly effective mission administration choices. Asana isn’t as versatile, however is far simpler to make use of. It has a inflexible hierarchy and eliminates the issue of there being dozens of various methods to perform the identical factor.

Out of the field, it’s able to go with out a lot reconfiguring. Its free plan can be top-of-the-line, permitting for limitless duties, initiatives, and storage for as much as ten customers.

Extra on Asana: Asana Assessment | Asana vs Basecamp | Asana vs Wrike.

After including this template to your account, you’ll begin with creating an inventory of your freelancers. You’ll be capable to save their contact data, charges, areas of experience, and previous initiatives. It is a nice useful resource as your contractor pool grows bigger.

From there, you’ll be able to assign work, share paperwork, set due dates, and collaborate instantly inside Asana.

Customers will be capable to kind and group duties nevertheless they’d like, and there are quite a few totally different views they will select from — Checklist, board, timeline, and calendar to call a number of.

However maybe one of the best a part of this template (and Asana normally) is that every mission has a devoted message board. This implies freelancers can message your group and anybody on the mission can reply.

Managers and supervisors may also recognize its in-built automation guidelines and customizable dashboards.

Excel, PDF, and Google Docs freelancer administration templates

In the event you’re working with a handful of contractors and don’t want a system for collaborative process monitoring, you should use a spreadsheet or doc to remain organized.

Even for those who resolve to make use of a extra complete platform for managing your freelancers, every of the templates under can nonetheless be a helpful useful resource.

Template 1: A freelancer invoicing template (PDF or Excel)

It could sound apparent, however requiring freelancers to make use of your invoicing template goes a good distance in making certain every bill consists of all the small print you want. I used to let freelancers bill nevertheless they’d like and it wasn’t till I introduced a controller on board that I noticed I wanted a extra standardized approach.

Except for standardization, your group will be capable to course of them sooner and keep away from frequent errors when issuing funds.

They’ll know spot issues early to make sure everybody nonetheless will get paid on time.

This free HubSpot template is on the market as a PDF or Excel file. All you need to do is present your e-mail tackle and some particulars about your online business.

File in hand, you can begin by filling out your organization data, like your identify, tackle, cellphone quantity, and e-mail.

From there, you’ll be able to present a duplicate to every of your freelancers. They’ll be capable to duplicate it and fill in their very own data earlier than submitting it to you for fee.

There’s an space to explain the scope of labor, record every process accomplished, and calculate whole quantity due based mostly on hours labored and their hourly price. You may simply replace this for those who cost by mission or deliverable as an alternative.

On the backside, freelancers may add a tax price, low cost, or transport and dealing with charges if wanted.

Template 2: A one-page mission temporary template (Google Docs)

In the event you’re searching for a easy, reusable template you should use to assign work to a freelancer, this free Google Docs template from TeamGantt is a good possibility.

It’s simple and extremely easy, however outlining priorities, expectations, and necessities up entrance usually results in higher outcomes. That is very true when working with freelancers who could not have the identical degree of context as your in-house group.

This template means that you can summarize your targets and supply the context contractors want to satisfy your expectations. From there, you’ll be able to break it down additional into duties and deliverables you want from them.

You’ll be capable to add screenshots and pictures if wanted, which will be useful for demonstrating what you’re after or offering directions if wanted.

There’s additionally an space to outline what’s out of scope. This may be extremely useful from the freelancer’s perspective — it lets them know what you’ve thought of and don’t want from them. In lots of instances, understanding what’s out of scope is extra useful than understanding what you want.

Within the sidebar, you’ll be able to add contact data for key stakeholders and others concerned within the mission. This lets them know who to speak to if they’ve questions.

You may obtain this template in panorama or portrait orientation, relying in your preferences. You’ll additionally be capable to copy it as many occasions as wanted.

How to decide on a freelancer administration template

Until your wants are extremely primary, I counsel reframing this query — as an alternative of selecting a template, take into consideration selecting a platform that can work properly for what you want. From there, you’ll be able to obtain their freelancer administration template into your account and get began.

That stated, listed below are some components to bear in mind as you make your choice.

Degree of element

How a lot data do you must seize? Some templates cowl the fundamentals, like e-mail, cellphone quantity, and pay price. Others are extremely subtle and canopy earlier work historical past, score techniques, lively standing, and extra.

Some could even let freelancers arrange a profile, submit invoices, message your group, and extra.

As I discussed, every template’s capabilities are closely influenced by the platform fairly than the template itself.

You’ll doubtless be capable to add, take away, and replace as wanted however core performance isn’t one thing you’ll be able to change.

Mission administration capabilities

If you wish to streamline the way you assign work to your freelancers, you’ll want greater than only a database of their contact data. Take into consideration the mission administration type you wish to use and which kinds of mission boards you’ll must facilitate this work.

Some mission administration techniques double as freelancer databases, whereas others don’t have one of the best database however shine in terms of monitoring duties.

Scalability

Take into consideration the variety of freelancers you’re at present working with and what number of you’re planning to work with shifting ahead. Some templates work finest for small groups whereas others can accommodate upwards of fifty+ freelancers.

Finest practices for managing freelancers

I’ve been working with freelancers for almost all of my profession. Over time, I’ve realized rather a lot about what works and what doesn’t.

Right here’s my finest recommendation in lower than 5 minutes:

• Stick with a easy onboarding course of.
• Set up a recruitment course of and stick with it.
• Get as particular and clear as you’ll be able to about your expectations.
• When unsure, over talk together with your contractors.
• Speak by miscommunications on the cellphone for those who can.
• Keep away from micromanagement. You employed them for a cause — allow them to do their job.
• Be ready to verify their work totally till you belief them.
• Set up long-term working relationships when you’ll be able to.
• Maintain an ongoing record of freelancers you’re snug hiring once more.
• Repeatedly filter out these you have been lower than happy with.
• You get what you pay for.

Working with freelancers will be extremely efficient, particularly for those who handle them properly. Staying organized, retaining monitor of labor, and paying them on time is essential to mutually useful partnerships you’ll be able to depend on for years to return.