One thing you need to keep in mind when using this tracker is that you should not let the tracker decide the pricing for you but you should decide the pricing yourself, for the tracker to work. The tracker is only a tool that will help you make that decision. You will understand this well when you understand the table.
The first step is to calculate the number of working days available in a month. Let’s assume say out of 30 days in a month you are able to work for 20 days. The remaining 10 days will cover any unexpected trips, spending time with family, etc.
So let us put this into a table:
| Total Working days | Allotted Working days | Available Working days | Target per month (Rs) | Target Per day (Rs) | Project Costing (Rs) |
| 20 | 0 | 20 | | | |
Set a target for yourself. Imagine if you were working a fulltime salaried job, you can let your previous salary be a target or a realistic amount that you believe you could have earned.
| Total Working days | Allotted Working days | Available Working days | Target per month (Rs) | Target Per day (Rs) | Project Costing (Rs) |
| 20 | 0 | 20 | 20,000 | | |
So now you have 20 working days to make Rs 20,000/- that means you have to make Rs. 1000/day
| Total Working days | Allotted Working days | Available Working days | Target per month (Rs) | Target Per day (Rs) | Project Costing (Rs) |
| 20 | 0 | 20 | 20,000 | 1000 | |
Let us assume you get a project on the 1st day of the month. You determine that the project will need 5 days to deliver.
| Total Working days | Allotted Working days | Available Working days | Target per month (Rs) | Target Per day (Rs) | Project Costing (Rs) |
| 20 | 5 | 15 | 20,000 | 1000 | |
So now you have allotted 5 days from your available 20 days. So in order for you to achieve your monthly target @ of Rs. 1000/day the project cost will be Rs. 5000/-
| Total Working days | Allotted Working days | Available Working days | Target per month (Rs) | Target Per day (Rs) | Project Costing (Rs) |
| 20 | 5 | 15 | 20,000 | 1000 | 5000 |
This means the targets will also be revised:
| Total Working days | Allotted Working days | Available Working days | Target per month (Rs) | Target Per day (Rs) | Project Costing (Rs) |
| 20 | 5 | 15 | 20,000 | 1000 | 5000 |
| 15 | 0 | 15 | 15,000 | 1000 | |
As you can see the tracker is giving you a systematic target based approach to project pricing. You can clearly see what you have made and how much are you falling short of your target. This will help you not only in pricing future projects but also the number of projects you can execute, since you know the number of days you have in hand. This is very crucial especially if you regularly bid online for projects since it can get much unorganized after sometime.
Though we started this table on the 1st of the month but you can start this middle of the month too. Just make sure you are revising the target according to the available working days. As mentioned earlier, keep realistic targets. If you already are working on a project then you can add that too so that it will help you in calculations for the rest of the month.
There is more to this since now you have to factor in other costs that are not visible right now. These costs will revise your targets. How do you deal with these fluctuations and yet to overachieve your targets? I have explained this in the following article.
Source
http://www.instigatorblog.com/price-freelance-projects/2007/10/29/
Another template for Activity tracking: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC012217011033.aspx?CategoryID=CT101436151033
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