Poll: Do you use a Translation Management System (TMS) to manage your work and clients? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Do you use a Translation Management System (TMS) to manage your work and clients?".
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I understand that the use of translation management systems is a must for certain translation agencies dealing with rather complex projects but personally, considering the projects I have worked on in the past and I want to work in the future, I’m looking to make my life easier not the other way around…
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... if Excel combined with a paper diary doesn't count as one. I'm too small to need a CMS.
[Edited at 2023-05-25 08:35 GMT]
| | | | Kevin Fulton 
United States
Local time: 11:54
German to English
| A spreadsheet works for me | May 25, 2023 |
I've rarely had more than two projects active at any one time, so I don't need anything elaborate for job management/record-keeping. The spreadsheet has a few columns: date in, customer, project number, date due, word count (estimated time if job is on on an hourly basis), column for add-on services, date out, invoiced amount. The relevant information is transferred to my monthly invoice.
My US agencies send me 1099 forms indicating payments for the year. My bank statements show for... See more I've rarely had more than two projects active at any one time, so I don't need anything elaborate for job management/record-keeping. The spreadsheet has a few columns: date in, customer, project number, date due, word count (estimated time if job is on on an hourly basis), column for add-on services, date out, invoiced amount. The relevant information is transferred to my monthly invoice.
My US agencies send me 1099 forms indicating payments for the year. My bank statements show foreign payments which simplifies record-keeping for the tax authorities.
I use a worksheet to keep track of my expenses. If I were more efficient, I suppose I'd organize expenses according to specific tax deductions, but I'm at the end of my career and invest less money in my profession, so there's not much to report. ▲ Collapse
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About 20 years ago I decided I wanted to learn how to use Excel so I started making a work chart and have been adding to it ever since. It now gives me all the useful information I need (in what order should I work on the jobs I have on my desk right now? which bills need to be sent and which have not yet been paid, etc.? which clients earn me the least or most per hour, per year, per subject, etc.?) and it automatically compiles my invoices for me in Word, but it also gives me buckets of totall... See more About 20 years ago I decided I wanted to learn how to use Excel so I started making a work chart and have been adding to it ever since. It now gives me all the useful information I need (in what order should I work on the jobs I have on my desk right now? which bills need to be sent and which have not yet been paid, etc.? which clients earn me the least or most per hour, per year, per subject, etc.?) and it automatically compiles my invoices for me in Word, but it also gives me buckets of totally useless information (do I work more on Saturdays - or Tuesdays - than I did four or fourteen years ago? How many new clients did I get last year (or in 2006, or whenever), what percentage of my work this year (or any other) was in the art sector, advertising, public relations, direct clients/agencies etc.? Who were my best clients in any year? How much had I earned by today, 25 May, last year or in any other year? All shown in the form of graphs, where applicable. If something is missing, I simply write a formula.
As I say, it gives me everything I need, and a lot that just intrigues me but if anyone here is interested in learning how to use Excel, I'd suggest starting to create a "Translation Management System" (though I myself wouldn't call it anything so pompous). It will certainly teach you a lot. I use what I've learnt about Excel for all sorts of other things - expenses, exercise, heating, car, printer, etc.
Simon
PS: Unfortunately, I can't share my work chart as only I can understand how it works - I've never written any explanations and on one occasion, when I hadn't used a page for some years, I had to look at the formulas to see what it referred to. I had no idea  ▲ Collapse
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I answered "No" automatically, but on the other hand I do use a combination of Excel spreadsheets, my email archive, and a well-structured file system to manage my translation work, so I suppose you could call that a translation management system.
However, The Capital Letters (TCL) presumably are supposed to indicate that the question refers to Something Designed by Somebody Else (SDSE), that I would have to Spend My Money (SMM) in order to use. I certainly don't use anything like t... See more I answered "No" automatically, but on the other hand I do use a combination of Excel spreadsheets, my email archive, and a well-structured file system to manage my translation work, so I suppose you could call that a translation management system.
However, The Capital Letters (TCL) presumably are supposed to indicate that the question refers to Something Designed by Somebody Else (SDSE), that I would have to Spend My Money (SMM) in order to use. I certainly don't use anything like that. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 17:54
French to English
I have a spreadsheet to log all my work, specifying the client, wordcount or billable hours, deadline, amount to be billed and date of payment. It acts as my to-do list and then as a done list, to refer to for billing and check up on payment.
I do also have a more detailed to-do list where I also add in other obligations such as my volunteer work and anything with a deadline and appointments.
From what I have seen of TMS, they are cumbersome, unwieldy and time-consuming even for ag... See more I have a spreadsheet to log all my work, specifying the client, wordcount or billable hours, deadline, amount to be billed and date of payment. It acts as my to-do list and then as a done list, to refer to for billing and check up on payment.
I do also have a more detailed to-do list where I also add in other obligations such as my volunteer work and anything with a deadline and appointments.
From what I have seen of TMS, they are cumbersome, unwieldy and time-consuming even for agencies. When I worked as an in-house translator, some PMs didn't bother logging me as the translator for jobs because I didn't have to bill them. This artificially bloated their overall profit margin, so they were in the boss's good books, while I was given grief for not being productive enough. Luckily I kept track of my work so I was able to prove that I was in fact translating almost twice as much as required, but that marked the beginning of the end for me there. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mr. Satan (X)
English to Indonesian
| Nothing Too Fancy | May 26, 2023 |
Just a color-coded spreadsheet created with LibreOffice Calc, emails that stay flagged until the payments are delivered, and directory names using the “date - client’s identity - title” format for each project.
And please, stop calling it Excel, people! It’s an offensive term to libre-software advocates.
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