BrokenDesign
Shared on Fri, 09/29/2006 - 16:26Last night I was up fairly late-ish working on a freelance project for my old job. Not any later than usual, mind you, but still. No one is ever a fan of rushing things because someone in the order of operations took their sweet time. I was pleased to get the project done in the window of time that I'd stated I would get it done in, it's always nice to be right. Even if you're barely right. Of the 1-2 hours prediction I'd made, I "clocked out" of the job at 1 hour, 54 minutes. Awesome. Doesn't look half bad either, I'm pleased. Now I just have to hope that the customer agrees, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. I guess you could say that I'm officially all grows up, doing some freelance work that's got cash money attached to it to the point where I need to generate invoices.
Which brings me to the application I am using for the time tracking and invoice creation, On The Job from Stunt Software. It's a fantastic Mac app that has a very clean, simple and easy to use UI and does everything that you (or at least I) could ever hope for. One very nice feature is the built-in readme file. When you load the application for the first time there is a bezel with an arrow pointing down to an arrow in the lower left of the window, instructing you to click it to begin. Upon clicking, it creates a general job/company listing that you are asked to name. Next, you click on another plus sign in the panel to the right of the first, where you add a specific job to the general one. From there, you just have to click on the large play button in the upper left and it begins tracking the time spent on the project.
Let's face it, sometimes we get distracted by things and aren't completely mindful of certain small but important details. The developers of On The Job realize this and have included a feature to prevent distractions from costing your clients any money. If you have gone idle for a user-defined amount of time, it will present a reminder to attract your attention and will give you the option to subtract the time that you have been idle when you return. Very nice. There's also the ability to control the starting and stopping of the clock from the Dock in OSX, another time-saving and handy feature. Additionally, the dock icon can be set to display the time you've been working, and if the clock is paused or not.
The aforementioned invoicing feature is very excellent. Simply enter values into some pre-determined fields, create custom fields, and with the touch of a button your invoice is automatically drawn up and can be output to different file formats such as PDF, text or XML. Just because I'm a designer doesn't mean I particularly want to spend a lot of time designing an invoice to charge people with. Not yet, anyway.
I was lucky enough to score a deal on On The Job through MacZot, a website that offers discounts on miscellaneous Mac apps, and since then have been dying to use it. Last night was my initial run with it and I couldn't be happier. The learning curve is very shallow indeed and I was running with it as though I was a seasoned veteran instead of a newbie. High props, On The Job gets an enthusiastic "BUY" rating.
Which brings me to the application I am using for the time tracking and invoice creation, On The Job from Stunt Software. It's a fantastic Mac app that has a very clean, simple and easy to use UI and does everything that you (or at least I) could ever hope for. One very nice feature is the built-in readme file. When you load the application for the first time there is a bezel with an arrow pointing down to an arrow in the lower left of the window, instructing you to click it to begin. Upon clicking, it creates a general job/company listing that you are asked to name. Next, you click on another plus sign in the panel to the right of the first, where you add a specific job to the general one. From there, you just have to click on the large play button in the upper left and it begins tracking the time spent on the project.
Let's face it, sometimes we get distracted by things and aren't completely mindful of certain small but important details. The developers of On The Job realize this and have included a feature to prevent distractions from costing your clients any money. If you have gone idle for a user-defined amount of time, it will present a reminder to attract your attention and will give you the option to subtract the time that you have been idle when you return. Very nice. There's also the ability to control the starting and stopping of the clock from the Dock in OSX, another time-saving and handy feature. Additionally, the dock icon can be set to display the time you've been working, and if the clock is paused or not.
The aforementioned invoicing feature is very excellent. Simply enter values into some pre-determined fields, create custom fields, and with the touch of a button your invoice is automatically drawn up and can be output to different file formats such as PDF, text or XML. Just because I'm a designer doesn't mean I particularly want to spend a lot of time designing an invoice to charge people with. Not yet, anyway.
I was lucky enough to score a deal on On The Job through MacZot, a website that offers discounts on miscellaneous Mac apps, and since then have been dying to use it. Last night was my initial run with it and I couldn't be happier. The learning curve is very shallow indeed and I was running with it as though I was a seasoned veteran instead of a newbie. High props, On The Job gets an enthusiastic "BUY" rating.
- BrokenDesign's blog
- Log in or register to post comments
Comments
Submitted by codemonkey on Fri, 09/29/2006 - 17:15