Records
How to track applications, hours and payments
Three logs do the job. One for applications, so you can tell a slow process from a silent no. One for hours, split into paid and unpaid. One for payments, recorded the way the platform stated them. Start all three on your first day, because none of it is reconstructable later.
The templates are below, one per log. They are spreadsheets with real column headers, and they work the same way whether you are keeping records for a tax authority, for yourself, or for an accountant you have not hired yet.
General information, not tax or legal advice.
We read job boards and write up what platforms pay. We are not accountants or lawyers, anywhere. Nothing here is written for your country, and the rules change.
Why an application tracker matters here specifically
On a normal job application you get an answer. If a platform adds you to something instead — a pool, a pipeline, a shortlist for work that has not been sold yet — nothing tells you whether that is a no. Some of these platforms state a review window and then say plainly that a rejection may never be sent, and none of them publishes how long the wait runs between being accepted and being given paid work.
That silence is what the tracker is for. Without a dated row you cannot tell a slow process from a rejection nobody sent, you will re-apply to a listing you already applied to (the same roles repeat across boards), and the unpaid hours you spent getting through a screener in July will not be anywhere when you are working out in October whether the platform was worth it.
A stated review window is not an expected wait
First-hand sources
0
Sources on this site from someone who has done the work, across all 6 platforms we cover. The 96 attributed sources behind those reviews include review windows the platforms state for themselves, which is a different thing from how long people actually wait. So no expected wait is published here, and your own log is the only record of your side of it.
Platforms we cover
6
Each with its own dashboard, its own wording for a status, and nothing joining them up. A file of your own is the only place your applications sit side by side.
Log hours in two columns
Paid hours and unpaid hours, separately, from your first day. Unpaid is the column that does the work: the application, the screener, any qualification or calibration task, onboarding reading, time spent waiting for tasks to appear, and the bookkeeping itself.
Keep them apart and you can answer the only pay question that matters, which is what you kept divided by every hour the work cost you. Our pay calculator takes those two numbers. Every rate on the 937 open roles we mirror is what a platform advertises for a paid hour, and the boards do not publish the other column. You are the only person who can.
Log payments the way the platform stated them
Record the gross amount the platform says it paid, the currency it used, anything it says it deducted, and the amount that actually reached your account. Those are up to four different numbers and you will need more than one of them.
Keep the work date and the payment date in separate columns. They often fall in different months. When a platform's own statement disagrees with your log, do not overwrite your row to match it: note the difference, then ask. A contemporaneous record is what makes that a question rather than an argument you lose.
Keep more than the spreadsheet
- Receipts for anything you bought because of the work, with one line on why, written while you still remember.
- Every payment statement and tax document a platform issues, downloaded to your own storage. Account access is the platform's to withdraw.
- A copy of the agreement you accepted, and of the listing you applied to, including its pay text. Boards change: the roles on this site are dated for the same reason, and the listing you accepted may not be there in six months.
- The dates. Every row in all three files carries one, because a record without a date answers almost nothing.
The three templates
Excel workbooks, which Google Sheets, Excel, Numbers and LibreOffice all open as they are. Each one has a frozen header row, a filter on every column, and a second sheet called Read me that carries the instructions inside the file, where they stay after you have closed this page. No formulas in any of them, on purpose: a file with formulas in it imports differently in every app, and these have to work everywhere. Each has one example row marked EXAMPLE ROW — DELETE ME. Delete it. Use YYYY-MM-DD dates so the date columns sort.
Application tracker
One row per application, so you can tell a slow process from a silent no, and see what the applying itself cost you.
Sheet “Applications”, in column order
Date applied · Platform · Role or pool · Listing URL · Listed pay, as published · Specialty · Stage · Last contact · Who contacted whom · Unpaid hours so far · Next step · Notes
- Stage. Your own words for where it actually is: applied, screener, interview, in a pool, working, rejected, no reply. No reply is a real stage and worth being able to count.
- Last contact and who contacted whom. Together they tell you whether the silence is theirs or yours, which is the difference between following up and waiting.
- Unpaid hours so far. What applying cost you. Carry it into the hours log once you start working, so a platform is judged on its whole cost and not just on the hours it paid for.
- Listed pay, as published. Copy it verbatim, currency and wording included, rather than tidying it into a number. It is the platform's claim, and you want it in the platform's words if it later changes.
Hours and payments log
Paid and unpaid hours in separate columns, and every payout recorded as the platform stated it. This is the file that answers what an hour of your time actually earned.
Sheet “Hours and payments”, in column order
Date · Platform · Project or batch · Activity · Paid hours · Unpaid hours · Reason unpaid · Gross, as platform states · Currency · Deductions stated · Reached your account · Payment date · Reference · Notes
- Paid hours, unpaid hours, reason unpaid. The split is the whole point of the file. The reason column is what later tells you whether a platform's unpaid time was one-off onboarding or a standing tax on every task.
- Gross, as platform states, and reached your account. Two different numbers, with deductions stated and the currency between them. Record both and reconcile them by noting the gap, never by editing one to match the other.
- Date and payment date. The day you worked and the day you were paid, kept apart, because they land in different months and sometimes in different years.
- Reference. Whatever the platform calls the payout. It is what you quote when you have to ask where one went.
- On a day you only worked, leave the payment half blank and fill it in when the money lands.
Set-aside budget
A running ledger of what came in, what you moved into a separate account, and what you have set aside so far.
Sheet “Set-aside ledger”, in column order
Date · Row type · Platform or payee · Description · Amount in · Currency · Set-aside rate you chose · Moved to set-aside · Set-aside balance · Notes
- Row type. Whether the row is money arriving or a transfer you made out to the set-aside account, so the balance column stays meaningful.
- Set-aside rate you chose. Empty in the file on purpose. That figure depends on where you live and on your own circumstances, so it is not ours to fill in. Work it out once, then treat it as a standing rule.
- Set-aside balance. The balance after this row, carried by hand one row at a time, so you can see it in any app without a formula to break on import.