SimpleWorklog's answer:
The story behind SimpleWorklog comes directly from my own experience working as a freelance web designer and layout artist for several years.
During that time, I worked closely with long-term clients who trusted me enough to assign projects without asking for a detailed cost estimate upfront. In most cases, they only saw the actual price once the invoice arrived. Because of the strong, long-standing relationships, this approach worked well and there were rarely any issues.
However, over time I felt that something important was missing: transparency during the process itself. I wanted my clients not just to trust the final invoice, but to actually see what was happening along the way—what work was being done, and what would likely be billed next, before the invoice was ever created.
At the same time, I found most existing bookkeeping and time-tracking tools to be overly complex. They were packed with features designed for much larger organizations, while my own freelance work only required a small, focused set of functions.
SimpleWorklog was born out of these two frustrations:
- the lack of real-time billing transparency for clients
- and the overload of unnecessary complexity in existing software
The result is a tool that keeps things deliberately simple, while introducing a key idea I always wanted in my own freelance work: Clients should not only receive invoices—they should understand them before they arrive.
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