Practical guide / Freelance Projects & Profitability Workbook 1.0
How do scope, effort, invoices and receipts compare for this project?
Connect fixed-fee agreements, approved scope changes, actual time cost, out-of-pocket costs, invoice references and partial payments. Keep proposals separate from approvals and receipts separate from revenue assumptions. The agreement is 1,200 plus a 200 approved change; a separate 100 proposal is excluded. Eight actual hours cost 240 internally. A 500 receipt less a 50 actual refund leaves 450 received; fee less costs so far is not a final profit forecast.
Your first useful result: Follow an approved extra into the agreement, then the cash. Follow the first task
Define the agreement
Create client and project IDs, the agreed fixed fee and an estimated time/cost basis. Proposals record an offer separately; accepting a proposal does not silently create or reprice a project.
Projects records a 1,200.00 fixed fee and 20 planned hours. Approved change CH-01 adds 200.00 and three hours. Proposed CH-02 adds nothing to the agreement yet.
Review: Open Changes and compare the linked reference with the records above.
Separate approval from an idea
Changes hold proposed, approved, rejected and cancelled scope adjustments. Only approved changes with a confirmed date through review contribute to the agreement and planned hours.
Work Log W-01 and W-02 record eight hours at historical cost 30.00 per hour, or 240.00. Add 60.00 actual costs. Agreement less recorded costs so far is 1,100.00; future work is still unknown.
Review: Open Project Review and compare the linked reference with the records above.
Record actual work and money
Work Log holds hours and the historical time-cost rate used for each entry. Costs holds actual out-of-pocket amounts. Invoices and Receipts have separate IDs and dates, with partial payments and explicit refunds.
INV-01 is 700.00. Receipts RC-01 and RC-02 record 500.00 received and 50.00 refunded: 450.00 net received, leaving 250.00 overdue at the review date.
Review: Open Invoices and compare the linked reference with the records above.
Read the result in context
Project Review shows agreement value, recorded time costs, out-of-pocket costs, outstanding invoices and cash received. Fee less recorded costs so far is not a final-profit forecast. Monthly shows money received/refunded and actual out-of-pocket spending by date.
INV-01 is 700.00. Receipts RC-01 and RC-02 record 500.00 received and 50.00 refunded: 450.00 net received, leaving 250.00 overdue at the review date.
Review: Open Invoices and compare the linked reference with the records above.
Check the assumptions.
- 60 clients; 100 projects; 100 proposals; 200 scope changes; 500 work entries; 200 costs; 200 invoices; 300 receipts/refunds.
- Fixed-fee project model in one currency. No time-based invoice creation, tax/VAT, accounting, legal contract, payment collection or bank connection.
- Time-cost rates are entered per historical work record. They are a valuation, not a cash payment. Current estimating rates never reprice past entries.
- Agreement less recorded costs omits future work/costs. No automatic revenue recognition or final profitability forecast.
- Cancelled projects retain actuals and their entered agreement value; update a revised agreement explicitly. Native Excel verification pending.
Keep a copy you can return to.
Keep the supplied clean and example files unchanged. Save your own working file with a useful name, such as freelance-projects-2027-home.xlsx, and keep a dated backup before a large edit. A purchased ZIP is the blank source, not a backup of your entries.
If an input or formula is replaced
Undo the edit while it is still available, or return to a known good backup. If you need a fresh clean file, transfer only your records into its marked input cells and follow the setup guide again. Do not paste whole sheets over the supplied formulas, validations or reference lists. Check IDs, units, dates and linked results against the example before relying on the copy.
When the supplied rows are full
100 projects · 200 invoices · 500 work entries. Calculation ranges and validations have fixed capacities. A new row below a table does not prove that every linked result includes it.
For a separate period, project or volume, preserve the old workbook and start a named clean copy. If records must carry forward, record exactly which inputs you transfer, preserve their references and compare the opening and closing figures. Avoid copying historical activity as both an opening amount and a new movement. There is no automatic migration between files.
Inspect the workbook before you choose.
View its real sheets and a fictional calculation example.
Explore Freelance Projects & Profitability WorkbookWritten for version 1.0. Examples describe the supplied workflow; they are not customer results.