Squirrel Away Your Money With Nutcache

Many freelancers agree that invoicing is their least favorite part of the job. Managing your budget is extremely important for any type of business, but the process can get complicated as the number of your clients increases.

However, you can make the task less tedious by using the right tools. Today we'll review Nutcache, a cute invoicing and time management app that will surprise you with what it can do.

There are dozens of other invoicing apps, but few have as many features as Nutcache; in fact, most are single-purpose, focused only on invoices. Nutcache is a complete solution for your business, offering tools to manage invoicing, time tracking, estimates and reports. The best part of the story? It's completely free.

The quirky Nutcache website is designed with all the latest trends in mind, and it goes to great lengths to convince you that the app is, indeed, absolutely free. (Sadly, at the time of writing this article, the word “absolutely” is misspelled on the website - something that, as a copyeditor, I just couldn't help but notice.)

The developers also decided to send a very nice and noble message to anyone willing to donate. Instead of just taking your money, they advise you to help a local animal shelter or a charity, and all you have to do in return for their great service is spread the word about Nutcache. I wish other projects would learn from this gesture.

Your Nutcache start page will look like this.

The app looks reasonably uncluttered, with all the options neatly tucked away in menus. When you first log in and access your Nutcache home page, a friendly welcome screen will guide you through setting up your company profile. If you ever need help with Nutcache, the official forums are the place to look for answers.

Nutcache Menus

The power of Nutcache lies in its versatility – you can use it to manage virtually all financial aspects of your company, regardless of whether it's a one-man freelance business, a startup or an operation with many employees.

The “Sales” menu is where you'll find the invoicing options; here you can also create estimates which can later be converted to invoices automatically. Invoices can be sent to your clients from Nutcache, so you don't have to do it manually. You can also export invoices to several different formats, including PDF, and receive notifications when your clients open their invoices.

Preview and manage invoices

Time tracking is very well-integrated with other features of Nutcache. You can track time by project or even by each employee and create invoices by using data from time sheets. For detailed analysis of your company's efficiency, you can generate reports about sales, expenses and invested time.

Create detailed reports with Nutcache

Overall, I would say that Nutcache emphasizes and promotes the ideas of organization and clarity. Though it might take a while to get used to jumping between menus, soon you will realize that it all makes sense. Your products and services can be clearly defined and priced, an overview is provided for each of your projects, and you can add all the important information about your contacts and clients.

Organize your products and services

And that's not all – you can manage multiple companies from one account, as well as add more than one admin for each company, meaning that your employees can help you manage your company's finances if you so decide.

Nutcache promises complete security and strong encryption when it comes to transactions and keeping your data safe. This is important, since it's possible to enable online payments directly through Nutcache.

Be a diligent squirrel!

For time tracking while you're AFK, you can use Nutcache's Time Logger mobile app, which is available for both Android and iOS. Of course, it's completely integrated with the web app, so you don't have to worry about losing a second (or a penny, for that matter).

The only thing I didn't like about Nutcache is that the invoices are not very customizable, so when exported to PDF, they don't look particularly professional. I've also experienced some sluggish behavior of the whole web app interface a couple of times, but it didn't affect my data in any serious degree.

Luckily, here are some good news: during the summer, Nutcache is planning a huge redesign, so I'm sure they will address these shortcomings, as well as introduce new and exciting features. The app has immense potential, which I hope more people will recognize and choose Nutcache over its costly competitors.

Ivana Isadora Devcic is a freelance writer, copyeditor and translator fluent in English, Swedish, Croatian and Norwegian. She's a Linux user and KDE fan interested in web design, productivity and personal branding. Ivana tweets about the world around her as @skadinna.