FlowLance User Guide
Welcome to FlowLance — the all-in-one platform for freelancers to manage clients, invoices, cashflow, proposals, time tracking, opportunities, and contracts.
Table of Contents
Getting Started
- Getting Started — Sign up, onboarding wizard, and your first steps
Core Features
- Dashboard — Your business at a glance
- Clients — Managing your client relationships
- Contacts — Tracking individual people across your clients
- Projects — Tracking project work and profitability
- Invoices — Creating, sending, and tracking invoices
- Proposals — AI-powered proposal generation and tracking
- Time Tracking — Logging time, templates, timers, and goals
- Cashflow — Forecasting, bank sync, tax estimates, and insights
- Opportunities — Discovering and scoring new work
- Contracts — Templates, dual-party signing, and amendments
Configuration
- Profile — Building your professional profile for AI-powered proposals
- Settings — Business details, tax, banking, invoices, and preferences
Help
- FAQ — Frequently asked questions
Quick Start
- Sign up at flowlance.io — 28-day free trial, no credit card required
- Complete onboarding — 5-step wizard to configure your business basics
- Add your first client — From the Clients page or the dashboard quick actions
- Create a project — Link it to your client with budget and dates
- Log time — Track billable hours against your projects
- Send an invoice — Generate from unbilled time or create manually
- Check your cashflow — See your 12-month financial forecast
Platform Overview
FlowLance is designed for UK freelancers — sole traders and limited company directors — who want a single platform to run their business. Everything connects together:
- Opportunities you discover can become Proposals with AI-generated content
- Won proposals automatically create Projects with the right budget and dates
- Projects track tasks, documents, budgets, and profitability
- Contracts with dual-party digital signing and amendments link to projects
- Time logged against projects feeds into Invoices as billable line items
- Sent invoices appear in your Cashflow forecast as expected income
- Bank transactions sync automatically via Open Banking to track what's actually been paid
- Expenses are categorised and factored into your cashflow forecast
- Tax estimates are calculated from your forecast so you know what to set aside
All of this is visible from your Dashboard — a single page showing revenue, pipeline, pending payments, opportunities, and time logged today.
Features at a Glance
| Feature | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Business overview with stats, recent proposals, top opportunities, and quick actions |
| Clients | Manage client relationships — contact details, linked projects, and invoice history |
| Projects | Track work with budgets, dates, tasks, documents, and profitability analysis |
| Invoices | Create, send, and track invoices — import unbilled time as line items, share payment links |
| Proposals | AI-powered proposal generation using your professional profile and evidence |
| Contracts | Templates, dual-party digital signing, amendments, and PDF export |
| Time Tracking | Timer, quick log, day templates with guided sessions, weekly/monthly analytics |
| Tasks | Task management linked to projects with time tracking integration |
| Cashflow | 12-month forecast, bank sync, recurring pattern detection, AI-generated insights |
| Expenses | Track and categorise business expenses |
| Opportunities | Discover work from personal crawl targets, Slack channels, and curated feed sources — AI fit scoring |
| Profile | Professional profile builder — expertise, values, voice, case studies, testimonials, credentials |
| Tax | Automated estimates for income tax, NI, corporation tax, and VAT based on your entity type |
| Banking | Open Banking integration (Yapily, Plaid, TrueLayer) for automatic transaction sync |
| Calendar | Google Calendar sync for time entry suggestions |
| Slack | Monitor Slack channels for freelance opportunities |
| Contacts | Manage individual people across your clients — warmth tracking, client linking, CSV import |
| Import / Export | CSV import for clients, projects, invoices, contacts, and bank transactions; full ZIP export of all your data |
| Referrals | Earn 25% off by referring 2 paying customers |