It’s been quite an adjustment for me going from a full-time job with my web business on the side to a full-time job that is my web business. Few of the tools I used could handle such a work load, and it was less than a week before it became clear to me just how behind I was. When you’ve been running a side business for several years you can get by with an excel-based invoice, a single computer, and a single place to keep the relatively small amount of files.

The lack of structure, organization, and separation essentially hit me over the head. I figured I would document what I’ve managed to figure out thus far, who knows, maybe it will be helpful to someone else.

Organization

Four weeks of doing this full-time has tripled the number of clients, projects, emails, and phone calls I need to work with everyday. Clearly it was too much information to remember alone, so I’ve enlisted the help of several tools to assist me.

• Gmail -I’ve been using it for a few years as my primary email, but I’m surprised at how easy email management is whether I have ten emails a day or a hundred. It’s spam filter works very well for me, and honestly Gmail is the most amazing email “client” I’ve ever used. I really enjoy the Google Maps feature – when clients send addresses to me I can simply click on a link to google maps, as Gmail scanned the email and found the address. However, I’ll soon need to begin downloading copies of everything, just in case.!
• Google Calendar – An excellent application that does what I need it to.
• Backpack – I’m still only using the free service, but I may soon need to upgrade. It really helps me keep a to-do list and notes, and having separate pages is nice. I currently don’t use the files feature as much as I like. Most of my files are emailed to me from clients, so Gmail has become the storage area for those (besides my local archives).
• RapidFax – My fax machine was destroyed a few years back when a heatwave melted the toner to the gears inside. I wanted to avoid paper piles and I didn’t need a second phone line, so I went with RapidFax. For $9.95 per month you can send faxes from tons of popular file formats, and receive faxes to your email in PDF format. Very cool!
• Wufoo – I’ve created a basic project evaluation for clients to fill out so that I can keep a close eye on my performance. As with backpack I’m still using the free service, but it works for now. In the future, I’ll write my own evaluation tool but I just don’t have time now.
• KeepPass – I’ve used this to securely store my passwords for about two years now, but it’s even more important because I get all kinds of ftp, mysql, ssh passwords on a daily basis. It’s a small application that’s excellent at storing the information securely.
• A plain old dry-erase board – I’m a kind of person who needs to write things out in a very temporary place. I use a 6×4′ dry-erase board to take meeting notes, draw lists of tasks remaining for the next day, etc. Writing a task down actually takes half the amount of work necessary to manage them in any online tool.

For some of you wondering – yes, I still do use my notepad generator.

In years past I simply managed my client work from Excel estimates and invoices, and I kept a basic record of everything in an embarrassingly ugly and poorly-written tool called Mango. I developed Mango as a very basic tool to help me keep track of clients, estimates, and invoices. Unfortunately, it’s still the only tool that handles what I want. My dream application would be one that handles:

• Lead contact info.
• Client contact info.
• Tracks estimates and produces estimate documents based on a template I can fully customize. Associates an estimate with a lead/client.
• Tracks projects and allows me to enter time spent and amount charged. It needs to be very flexible, not based on exact time-tracking or set-amounts.
• Tracks invoices, and produces invoice document based on a template.
• Tracks payment information, associates with project.
• Reports on earnings per year, project stats, lead stats, estimate stats, and client stats.

I’ve tried several applications so far but nothing seems capable of what I want. There are several applications that do one of the three major sections – contact management, project management, and billing. I’m already using three different methods, so I don’t think I should take the time to move over to three separate applications, although I may need to. If anyone knows of a tool I should try, please let me know. Eventually, I’ll end up writing my own (again).

Legal

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about the legal aspects of running your own business. I revamped my project contract to be a bit clearer than before – I had never really needed it before so it was never an issue until now. I did a lot of research and even wrote a blog post that’s been sitting in my draft folder for several months. Maybe I’ll finish it and post it soon, now that it’s fairly complete. It was really important for me to define project scope, timeframes, client requirements, payment terms, etc. Several of the resources I list at the end of his post were helpful in writing up a contract.

It’s also going to be necessary to be sure my business follows the laws of my state (Oregon) and is properly recognized as a business. While I still have some investigation work to do, I think it’s best for Botsko.net to become an LLC. To put it simply, that’s the best type for people in this position, and from my work with Wells Fargo I’ve realized it’s the best for where I am right now. Plus, many of the clients I work with are also LLCs.

To file here in Oregon it’s going to be around $350-400 depending on which law firm I go with (Oregon filing fees included).

Someday I’ll need to get an employer ID number from the IRS because there may come a time when I need to hire someone to handle the marketing/administration aspects, however that’s quite a a ways down the road so it is not a priority right now.

Accounting

For the rest of 2006 I’m just going to handle it myself, but after that I’m going to get an accountant. I’ve realized that a lot of the things I pay for will now be deductible – trade magazines, books, supplies, machines, services, even the hosting costs for Squibbles and botsko.net.

It’s even more important to be sure I have a way of keeping accurate records for tax purposes, whether I have an accountant or not.

Systems

Now that I have a lot more data to store and protect, I have had to reorganize my folder structures. I keep a separate drive on my main machine with a folder called “botskonet”. Inside I’ve broken things out a bit. The important folder inside botskonet is called “Clients”. The client folder hierarchy is:

/botskonet/Clients/Client_Name/[Optional_SubClient_Name]/Project_Name

This system will help keep things organized even when I have thousands of folders in there, it will still be easy to find things. I took the same idea and applied to a new CVS repository (I know, I know, subversion is better). So my CVS repository for client stuff is essentially the same thing:

cvsroot/Clients/Client_Name/[Optional_SubClient_Name]/Project_Name

I suppose I would also like an application that could link up with CVS/Subversion and the filesystem, but now I’m just dreaming! The files are protected from any outside access and they’re all password-protected.

I still use Bugzilla for both internal software projects and client work that has reached a fairly mature stage. I’ve outlined some basic guidelines for myself that I’m still doing well with.

Resources

Here are my favorite resources that I’ve come across in the last month of research. I hope you’ll find them as informative as I did.

I found myself at this article by ParticleTree almost everyday.

Here are some others:

http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2006/10/26/a_beginners_guid.php
http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/be-consultant.html
http://www.garrettdimon.com/archives/steps-to-becoming-a-freelance-web-developer
http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/000643.html
http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/small_biz_101_how_to_get_started.php
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/category/selling-web-design-services/ (the latest entry has little to do with the topic, but the others are interesting!)
http://www.sitepoint.com/print/fire-your-boss-home-freelance
http://megillustrations.typepad.com/beetlegrass/2006/08/anniversary.html

Thanks everyone for reading! I am really looking to hear from you all. Until I feel it necessary to enable comments again (darn spam!) please send an email to botsko@gmail.com.