The holidays can be a busy time of year for freelancers.

The last couple months of the year are filled with wrapping up projects, sending final payments to collaborators, and securing new clients for the year ahead. 

During the holiday rush, it helps to have a reliable tool that saves you time, reduces stress, and makes your end-of-year processes even easier. Here’s how freelancers can navigate the holiday rush using Wethos.

Team up with other freelancers

If you’re taking time off for the holidays but still want to take on client work, enlist the help of your network. Teaming up with fellow freelancers allows you to split up the workload so you can still bring in new business and earn money without having to squeeze in all of the work yourself. 

To scale your team, tap into your current network or join a community of freelancers to find and collaborate with freelancers with the skills and expertise you need for the project.

Make sure your scope of work is clear

We’ve all been there: you begin work on a new client project and they start asking you to do work that’s outside of the scope you initially agreed on, whether that’s attending extra meetings, conducting another round of revisions, or adding another design to the campaign. Scope creep can happen easily if there’s isn’t a clear scope of work and contract in place. 

And during one of the busiest times of the year, you don’t have time to deal with scope creep. Before you work on projects during the holiday rush, make sure your client has reviewed and agreed to a detailed and clear scope of work so everyone is clear on what the project entails. 

Need a template to get started? Check out our free scope of work templates ranging from branding to social media to website development.

Implement a seamless payment process

The last thing you want to happen during the busy holiday season is a payment not going through. Not only does this create added stress during an already busy time, but it can also delay your end-of-year accounting. Plus, you want to end the year celebrating — not chasing down payments. 

Ensure you close out the year with clean and on-time accounting by implementing a seamless payment process. Make it easy for your clients to pay by creating clear payment terms and offering them multiple ways to pay their invoices.

Secure work for the new year

When you run a freelance business, you’re always thinking about what’s next. And the holiday season is no different! As you wrap up projects for the year, it’s time to start thinking about business for the new year. 

Send proposals to prospective clients so you can kick off new projects at the beginning of 2023. Or, you can check in with clients you worked with throughout the year to see if there’s anything they want to work on together for the year ahead. Preparing your business now means you won’t find yourself scrambling for work come January — and you’ll thank your past self for securing the work during the holiday rush.