7 Freelancer Administration Templates for Outsourcing Something

Nearly each enterprise I’ve began has concerned hiring freelancers. They’re extra inexpensive and versatile, plus it’s simpler to scale up or down as wanted. One or two is simple, however issues can get messy while 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 strong and versatile freelancer administration template

Trusted by over 225,000+ companies, monday.com is among the hottest project management platforms on the market. It’s good in the event you want an organized and versatile strategy to handle work on your in-house workforce, freelancers, businesses, and even different departments.

monday.com has a free plan for as much as two customers. It’s restricted, however it is an efficient place to start out if you wish to attempt it out earlier than paying.

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

To start out, you’ll want so as to add your entire sources, together with freelancers and in-house workforce members in the event you’re managing their work right here too. From there, you possibly can invite as many visitor customers as it is advisable at no additional price.

As soon as they’re onboarded, you can begin assigning duties. They are going to have the ability to observe their time, monitor deadlines, add information, depart feedback, and extra.

The very best half about this template is the way it brings your entire outsourced duties collectively. You’ll simply have the ability to hold observe of the whole lot taking place exterior the corporate in a single place. Every activity can have its personal standing, allotted period of time, due date, proprietor, and assignee.

It’s easy, but efficient. It’s also possible to add further columns if it is advisable.

monday.com makes it simple to regulate access and modifying 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 need a whole venture administration answer.

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

You’ll have the ability to invite as many free customers as you’d like, simply remember that you received’t have granular entry controls except you improve.

Extra on ClickUp: ClickUp Review | 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 possible received’t must be taught a brand new system or surprise the way it works.

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

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

It takes just some minutes to configure the whole lot in the event you’re utilizing this template as is. In any other case, it might take as much as an hour to customise it to match your wants. You’ll be able to alter the columns, fields that present on every card, what it seems to be like while you open a card, and nearly each different component.

You’ll be able to even flip off options you aren’t going to make use of. This ensures no one makes use of them by chance.

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

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

There’s no free plan, however there’s a 14-day free trial if you wish to attempt it earlier than you make investments. Plans begin at $59 per 30 days.

It’s a bit dear, however it’s price it in the event you want the extent of customization it supplies.

This template is nice in the event you 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 authorized record of contractors or a big pool of freelancers you possibly can decide from at any time.

It’s additionally invaluable in the event you do quite a lot of recruiting or biking by means of.

You’ll have the ability to categorize your listing primarily based on their expertise, expertise stage, sort of settlement, or every other customized attribute you’d like. This makes it simple to seek out precisely what you want while you want it.

Contractors will have the ability to ship invoices and even add a portfolio of their work immediately 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 possible must do a little bit of customizing, coaching, and tweaking earlier than you begin utilizing it. Building a customized no-code app is all the time more difficult than you assume it’ll be.

Nevertheless it positively pays off in the event you want it.

Airtable: A complete freelancer administration database

As a robust relational database builder, Airtable makes it simple for non-developers to construct methods, together with a freelancer administration database. On prime of that, you possibly can make the most of automations to streamline notifications, activity assignments, and extra.

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

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

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

For every contractor, you possibly can add their space of experience, occupation, portfolio, work hyperlink, contact, secondary specializations, approval standing, and speak to data.

Out of the field, it covers the whole lot it is advisable find out about every freelancer. It even has a selected view for monitoring them by means of your recruitment pipeline.

As soon as on board, you possibly can affiliate contractors with their assignments, set due dates, clarify venture scope, connect your contact, and every other particulars you might want.

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

With every project, the supervisor will have the ability to add suggestions. Over time, you should utilize this to find out if you wish to hold working with particular freelancers.

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

Asana: A less complicated freelancer administration template for small to mid-sized groups

To this point, we’ve coated extremely versatile and highly effective venture administration choices. Asana isn’t as versatile, however is way 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 also be the most effective, permitting for limitless duties, initiatives, and storage for as much as ten customers.

Extra on Asana: Asana Review | 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 have the ability to save their contact data, charges, areas of experience, and previous initiatives. This can be a nice useful resource as your contractor pool grows bigger.

From there, you possibly can assign work, share paperwork, set due dates, and collaborate immediately inside Asana.

Customers will have the ability to kind and group duties nevertheless they’d like, and there are quite a few completely different views they will select from — Record, board, timeline, and calendar to call a couple of.

However maybe the very best a part of this template (and Asana on the whole) is that every venture has a devoted message board. This implies freelancers can message your workforce and anybody on the venture can reply.

Managers and supervisors can even respect its in-built automation guidelines and customizable dashboards.

Excel, PDF, and Google Docs freelancer administration templates

For those who’re working with a handful of contractors and don’t want a system for collaborative activity monitoring, you should utilize a spreadsheet or doc to remain organized.

Even in the event you determine to make use of a extra complete platform for managing your freelancers, every of the templates beneath can nonetheless be a helpful useful resource.

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

It might sound apparent, however requiring freelancers to make use of your invoicing template goes a great distance in making certain every bill contains all the main points 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 spotted I wanted a extra standardized approach.

Other than standardization, your workforce will have the ability to course of them quicker and keep away from widespread errors when issuing funds.

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

This free HubSpot template is offered as a PDF or Excel file. All it’s a must to do is present your electronic mail tackle and some particulars about your enterprise.

File in hand, you can begin by filling out your organization data, like your title, tackle, phone quantity, and electronic mail.

From there, you possibly can present a replica to every of your freelancers. They’ll have the ability 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 activity accomplished, and calculate complete quantity due primarily based on hours labored and their hourly charge. You’ll be able to simply replace this in the event you cost by venture or deliverable as a substitute.

On the backside, freelancers may also add a tax charge, low cost, or delivery and dealing with charges if wanted.

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

For those who’re in search of a easy, reusable template you should utilize to assign work to a freelancer, this free Google Docs template from TeamGantt is a superb 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 might not have the identical stage of context as your in-house workforce.

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

You’ll have the ability to add screenshots and pictures if wanted, which could 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 considered and don’t want from them. In lots of circumstances, realizing what’s out of scope is extra useful than understanding what you want.

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

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

How to decide on a freelancer administration template

Except your wants are extremely fundamental, I recommend reframing this query — as a substitute of selecting a template, take into consideration selecting a platform that can work nicely for what you want. From there, you possibly can obtain their freelancer administration template into your account and get began.

That mentioned, listed below are some components to remember as you make your choice.

Stage of element

How a lot data do it is advisable seize? Some templates cowl the fundamentals, like electronic mail, telephone quantity, and pay charge. Others are extremely subtle and canopy earlier work historical past, score methods, lively standing, and extra.

Some might even let freelancers arrange a profile, submit invoices, message your workforce, and extra.

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

You’ll possible have the ability to add, take away, and replace as wanted however core performance isn’t one thing you possibly can change.

Challenge 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 venture administration model you wish to use and which kinds of venture boards you’ll must facilitate this work.

Some venture administration methods double as freelancer databases, whereas others don’t have the very best database however shine on the subject of monitoring duties.

Scalability

Take into consideration the variety of freelancers you’re presently 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. Through the years, I’ve discovered so much 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 follow it.
• Get as particular and clear as you possibly can about your expectations.
• When doubtful, over talk along with your contractors.
• Discuss by means of miscommunications on the telephone in the event you can.
• Keep away from micromanagement. You employed them for a motive — 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 possibly can.
• Maintain an ongoing record of freelancers you’re snug hiring once more.
• Often filter out these you have been lower than glad with.
• You get what you pay for.

Working with freelancers could be extremely efficient, particularly in the event you handle them nicely. Staying organized, protecting observe of labor, and paying them on time is essential to mutually useful partnerships you possibly can depend on for years to return.