Hurdlr review 2023 – Helping freelancers manage their books
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Updated: January 02, 2024
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We adhere to strict standards of editorial integrity to help you make decisions with confidence. Please be aware that some (or all) products and services linked in this article are from our sponsors.
What is Hurdlr?
Hurdlr is a web-based and mobile app designed to help solopreneurs, freelancers, and those with side hustles manage and integrate their business finances. Hurdlr helps you track and manage your business income and expenses. It can also track your mileage and help you figure out where you stand with your taxes.
You can use Hurdlr as a stand-alone app. Or you can use it to connect to other small business tools. This way, you can integrate some of the other apps you use and keep track of most of what you need from one dashboard. With the reports you receive, you can have an easier time organizing and filing your taxes.
Hurdlr features
- Income and expense tracking: Track your income and expenses by connecting your accounts to Hurdlr. With Hurdlr, this goes beyond your bank accounts and credit cards. You can also connect your Lyft, Square, PayPal and other accounts. This way, all of your income and expenses are included in one dashboard.
- Automated reports: Every month, you can ask Hurdlr to send you automatic reports detailing your income and expenses. These reports offer you business insights and can be delivered right to your email inbox.
- Mileage tracking: Download the Hurdlr app to your phone, and when you drive, the app automatically tracks your mileage. You will need to categorize it later, but it’s still a good way to keep track of the miles you travel for work without having to think about it.
- Tax estimator: One of the toughest things for freelancers, solopreneurs, and the self-employed to do is estimate what they owe in taxes each year. With the help of Hurdlr, you can estimate what you owe quarterly for state and federal taxes. While it’s an estimate and not full-proof, it can nevertheless give you a solid idea of where you stand.
How does Hurdlr work?
The idea behind Hurdlr is to help those with non-traditional income manage it in a way that’s simple and intuitive.
Pricing
You can access most of the features associated with Hurdlr without having to pay a cent. This includes the most important items, which are the tracking, mileage, and tax estimator, along with the reports.
However, you can upgrade to a premium subscription for $8 per month (or pay $60 annually for a discount). Paying the subscription allows you to:
- Set up tagging rules for your income and expenses,
- Automatically categorize your transactions, and
- Create mileage work hours (good for rideshare drivers) so your mileage is automatically categorized.
A pro subscription for $10 per month (billed annually) offers all the premium features plus annual tax filing, invoicing, the ability to add your accountant to the process, advanced reports and full double entry accounting.
However, for the most part, these additional features may not be worth the cost to some users. It doesn’t take much time to look over your information and categorize it, so paying for the privilege might not be worth it.
Signing up
The signup process is fairly straightforward. You’ll be asked to choose a type of business, such as:
- Freelancer
- Real estate agent
- Consultant
- Driver
- Host
If you can’t easily categorize your business, you can choose “Other.” Once you have your main type of business identified, you can narrow it down by the type of work you do. Under “Freelancer,” you can choose “Writing,” “Speaking,” “Photography,” and other designations. It’s also possible to add more than one business.
After you identify your work, just enter an email address and create a password. Then, you’re taken to your dashboard, where you begin connecting business accounts.
Security
You don’t have to worry about Hurdlr storing your information on its servers, because it uses tokenization for your credentials. The app also uses bank-level encryption.
Synchronization
Connect Hurdlr to a variety of accounts to have the information added to your dashboard. Not only can you connect traditional accounts, but you can also include your PayPal and Lyft accounts to more easily track that income as well.
However, you should focus mainly on your business accounts. One of the advantages of using Hurdlr is that you can keep your business and personal transactions separate and easier to manage come tax time.
Mobile support
Hurdlr offers a full-feature mobile app that allows you to stay on top of things right from the palm of your hand.
On top of that, when you have the app, your mileage is automatically tracked, with the app running in the background. Therefore, you don’t have to remember to turn it on each time you take a trip. However, the mileage is tracked no matter what type of trip you make, so you’ll have to categorize it later.
Customer service
Your main source of live help with Hurdlr is through chat on the website. There's no phone support. The searchable help center can answer a lot of common questions, and there are tutorial videos as well.
Hurdlr alternatives
| Highlights | Empower | YNAB |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 4.8/5 | 4.3/5 |
| Budgeting | ❌ | ✅ |
| Investment monitoring | ❌ | ✅ |
| Retirement planning | ✅ | ❌ |
| Bill payment | ❌ | ❌ |
| Manual entries | ❌ | ✅ |
| Bill management | ❌ | ❌ |
| Read reviews | Empower review | YNAB review |
| Sign up | Open account | Open account |
Who should use Hurdlr?
For cost-conscious freelancers, side hustlers and solopreneurs, Hurdlr can be a solid tool. You can keep up with business income and expenses, as well as mileage. And if you have trouble figuring out what to pay in quarterly taxes, Hurdlr can help you estimate your bill.
Pretty much anyone who wants a little extra help integrating various tools for running a business into a single dashboard can benefit from using Hurdlr.
Summary
Hurdlr may not offer as many features as some of its competitors, but then again, it's free.
For example, QuickBooks and FreshBooks both offer the ability to send invoices. QuickBooks offers a complete bookkeeping suite of tools, including mileage tracking. While FreshBooks isn't quite as complete, it can be connected to Hurdlr, so you can track your income from FreshBooks invoices. However, both QuickBooks and FreshBooks are more expensive than using Hurdlr.
Because Hurdlr connects with PayPal, FreshBooks, Wave and Xero, you can manage your business fairly well for fairly cheap. With a little extra leg work, you could increase your cost-efficiency by ditching QuickBooks and using Hurdlr in conjunction with other tools.
