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“Maya’s customer service is second to none. Her responses are timely and she willingly goes the extra distance to explain things and help you to use TEA.
Maya’s gentle, understanding and personal touch when explaining, customizing and teaching is a delight. I can’t recommend Maya and TEA too highly.” Janet MacMillan wordsmith | editor | proofreader | researcher |
The Editor's Affairs (TEA) FAQ Topics
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Tech Requirements and Knowledge
Investing in TEA
TEA for New Freelancers The Standard TEA Package |
Customizing Your TEA
Using TEA: General
Using TEA: Project and Income Data
Using TEA: Project Timesheet |
Tech Requirements and Knowledge
What are the system and software requirements for using TEA?
The Editor's Affairs runs on both MacOS and Windows PC desktop operating systems. TEA is designed to run in the latest version of Microsoft Excel included in the Microsoft 365 subscription. Some features and functionality may not be compatible with older versions of Excel. If you have questions about running TEA with your specific system and Excel version, please feel free to contact me.
Do I need to be an Excel expert to use TEA?
Not at all! TEA is designed for Excel novices and expert users alike. The TEA guidance documentation that accompanies your TEA package includes Excel basics and walks you through each detail that you have to fill in yourself and each data point that the spreadsheet formulas generate automatically.
Investing in TEA
How much time investment does TEA require?
Once you receive your TEA files, I suggest setting aside an afternoon to read through the TEA Guide and familiarize yourself with the various fields. In general, though, how you use TEA once you have purchased it is entirely up to you. Some people keep it open on their computers and enter project, client and expenses data each day as they go, while others set aside weekly or monthly TEAtime to update their TEA records and check in on their business health.
Are there ongoing costs for using TEA?
The TEA system of Excel spreadsheets is a one-time purchase for the templates that you can start populating with your business data out of the box. If you would like your spreadsheets customized at any time, the work for the customization would be priced at an hourly rate agreed in writing by both of us in advance.
Is there a trial period for using TEA?
Since TEA is not a subscription service, there is no trial period. Once you have purchased TEA, your spreadsheets are yours for life.
TEA for New Freelancers
I'm a new freelance editor and I don't know all of my business admin needs yet. How can TEA help me?
Welcome to freelance editing! With TEA, you can record every quote you make, track your CPD and business expenses throughout the year, and build a picture of your client landscape to keep you organized and informed about the health of your business from day one. Get in touch anytime to schedule a business data consultation about your specific requirements.
The Standard TEA Package
What income and project data can I record and analyze with the standard TEA package?
The Income & Expenses spreadsheet in the standard TEA package includes the following columns in the Income tab for each of your projects:
- Client Name
- Invoice Number
- Month [when payment is] Due
- Month Paid
- Month Worked
- Start Date
- Work Deadline
- Work Completed [Date]
- Payment Due Date on Invoice
- Date Paid
- Payment Status
- Job [Title] & Notes
- Source
- Total Word [or Page] Count
- Rate per 1000 Words [or per Page] (Estimated)
- Hours Worked (Estimated)
- Words [or Pages] per Hour (Estimated)
- Desired Rate per Hour
- Hours Worked (Actual)
- Rate per 1000 Words [or per Page] (Actual)
- Words [or Pages] per Hour (Actual)
- Rate per Hour (Actual)
- Amount to Quote Before Tax
- Tax Rate
- Tax Charged
- Amount to Quote Including Tax
- Amount Invoiced
- Amount Received
What expenses data can I record and analyze with the standard TEA package?
The Income & Expenses spreadsheet in the standard TEA package includes the following columns in the Expenses tab for each of your expenses:
- Date [when the expense was incurred]
- Month [when the expense was incurred]
- Expense Category
- Item [Name]
- Item Cost
- Tax Paid
- Total Amount Paid
- Receipt [format, e.g. printed receipt or credit card statement]
- Notes
What summary data is included with the standard TEA package?
The Income & Expenses spreadsheet in the standard TEA package includes the following tables in the Summaries tab:
- A Monthly Summaries Table breaking down income invoiced and received, hours worked, and expenses by month.
- An Expense Categories Summary Table breaking down expenses by category.
- A Client Summaries Table including the income received, hours worked, average rate per hour, and date last contacted for each client.
Customizing Your TEA
Can I customize my TEA at any time?
Yes, although some times are better than others! Many people find it helpful to first purchase the standard TEA to get a feel for it and add customizations at a later date. If you wish to do this, I recommend adding customizations before you start entering your business data for the current year. This is because if your TEA already has some data in it, you'll either have to copy it into the new customized version of TEA that I send you or share your filled-in TEA with me so I can customize it directly (see my T&Cs about sharing your business data with me during customizations).
The customization fees increase slightly each year, but otherwise there's no extra charge or penalty for purchasing a customization at a later date.
The customization fees increase slightly each year, but otherwise there's no extra charge or penalty for purchasing a customization at a later date.
Which TEA customizations would you recommend for new / experienced freelancers?
TEA users' needs and preferences vary so much that it's hard to make a blanket recommendation. I would suggest thinking about what you're keen to keep track of, and where your admin strengths and weaknesses lie. You may, for example, be exploring a lot of new marketing avenues and want a table to track which ones lead to the most paid work. Or, if you work best with bright visuals, you may want a pie chart showing the countries that your clients are based in or the types of clients you have (indie author, hybrid publisher, academic press, etc.).
If you'd like to schedule a consultation about your specific business admin needs, feel free to get in touch anytime.
If you'd like to schedule a consultation about your specific business admin needs, feel free to get in touch anytime.
Using TEA: General
Can I make any modifications to my TEA myself?
Yes! All TEA users can hide, unhide, and make changes to any unlocked cells in their TEA spreadsheets. Which cells are unlocked depends on the version of TEA that you have and the customizations you've purchased. All TEA users can also add new tabs to their TEA spreadsheets.
TEA users who purchased their TEA in 2021 or who have upgraded to the 2021 version can also hide and unhide locked cells and add new columns anywhere in their TEA spreadsheets.
TEA users who purchased their TEA in 2021 or who have upgraded to the 2021 version can also hide and unhide locked cells and add new columns anywhere in their TEA spreadsheets.
Why can't I add, delete, or move rows?
Since each row includes some locked cells that contain formulas, TEA users cannot currently add, delete, or move whole rows in TEA.
I have disabled the option to let users add rows in the TEA spreadsheets because any newly added row would contain only blank cells and would not include the formulas that power the TEA calculations. If you manually entered project or expenses data into a blank row and did all the calculations yourself, that data might not get included in the Summaries tab, and there would be a risk of introducing inaccuracies and inconsistencies through human error.
Similarly, it's not possible to delete or move whole rows of data, however, because each row contains some data that's locked (i.e., the formulas in the locked columns), and the formulas must be protected so that they work in each row. This means that you will need to manually delete the data that you've entered manually or copy-and-paste it from the old rows into the new rows, and the auto-fill data will automatically disappear from the old rows and get automatically added to the new rows.
I have disabled the option to let users add rows in the TEA spreadsheets because any newly added row would contain only blank cells and would not include the formulas that power the TEA calculations. If you manually entered project or expenses data into a blank row and did all the calculations yourself, that data might not get included in the Summaries tab, and there would be a risk of introducing inaccuracies and inconsistencies through human error.
Similarly, it's not possible to delete or move whole rows of data, however, because each row contains some data that's locked (i.e., the formulas in the locked columns), and the formulas must be protected so that they work in each row. This means that you will need to manually delete the data that you've entered manually or copy-and-paste it from the old rows into the new rows, and the auto-fill data will automatically disappear from the old rows and get automatically added to the new rows.
Is there a simple way to clear contents from a row when some columns are locked?
Excel's ‘clear content’ function unfortunately doesn't work across a whole row in the TEA spreadsheets because some of the columns in each sheet are locked. You will need to delete the text from each unlocked column in the row, one at a time (which would also clear the data in the auto-populated locked columns).
If you wish to clear the sample data that I included in your TEA spreadsheet, you'd only need to do this once and then save the sample-free spreadsheet as a new file if you want to create a clean template for future use.
If you wish to clear the sample data that I included in your TEA spreadsheet, you'd only need to do this once and then save the sample-free spreadsheet as a new file if you want to create a clean template for future use.
Can I keep using TEA to record my income and expenses after this financial year?
Absolutely! If you're a TEA user, I encourage you to keep using your existing TEA package to record and analyze your business data in years to come. Simply open the most recent TEA Income & Expenses Excel spreadsheet that I emailed to you and save a new version of it (with a filename that reflects the new year), where you can enter all your data for the new year. You can open and re-save this file directly from the email I sent you to ensure it doesn’t contain any of your previous year's data.
Using TEA: Project and Income Data
I quote on a per-hour or a per-project basis. Can I still use TEA?
Yes, TEA is suitable for people who quote per project and/or per hour as well as those who quote per 1000 words, per page, or in other ways. If you use per-word or per-page calculations in your quoting, you may still find it useful to track your per-word or per-page editing speed and rates for your own records. But not everyone works this way, and TEA allows for that by letting you skip some fields or via customizations.
If you use a flat project fee, in the standard TEA spreadsheet you could simply leave the per-word or per-page estimation fields blank and just enter your project fee in the "Amount Invoiced" and "Amount Received" cells for each project. If you also enter the word/page count and the number of hours you worked in the relevant cells, TEA will calculate your actual rate per 1000 words or per page and your actual rate per hour using the "Amount Received" figure.
If you would like to calculate your quotes on a rate-per-hour basis, the standard TEA requires you to enter a word or page count for each project, along with your estimated per-1000-words or per-page editing speed. That auto-populates an estimate of how many hours the project will take. Then, you'd enter your desired hourly rate, and TEA would generate a quote by multiplying your estimated hours by your desired hourly rate.
I can also offer a customization that would let you manually enter an "Estimated Hours Worked" figure for each project (one that's not tied to the project's word or page count) and build your hourly-rate quote in a simpler way. Get in touch to find out more!
If you use a flat project fee, in the standard TEA spreadsheet you could simply leave the per-word or per-page estimation fields blank and just enter your project fee in the "Amount Invoiced" and "Amount Received" cells for each project. If you also enter the word/page count and the number of hours you worked in the relevant cells, TEA will calculate your actual rate per 1000 words or per page and your actual rate per hour using the "Amount Received" figure.
If you would like to calculate your quotes on a rate-per-hour basis, the standard TEA requires you to enter a word or page count for each project, along with your estimated per-1000-words or per-page editing speed. That auto-populates an estimate of how many hours the project will take. Then, you'd enter your desired hourly rate, and TEA would generate a quote by multiplying your estimated hours by your desired hourly rate.
I can also offer a customization that would let you manually enter an "Estimated Hours Worked" figure for each project (one that's not tied to the project's word or page count) and build your hourly-rate quote in a simpler way. Get in touch to find out more!
How do I record projects that start in one year but end in another with TEA?
I recommend that you include rows for the project in both years' TEA but only fill in the payment and hours-worked details that pertain to the current year in each spreadsheet. Filling in all the details in both years can lead to the payment amounts and hours worked being included in the monthly, client and overall summaries for both years.
As a simple example, if the client paid for work in 2020 but you only did the work in 2021 (and if your TEA is organized by calendar year), your 2020 TEA should include a row for the project with the "Payment Due Date on Invoice", "Date Paid", "Amount Invoiced" and "Amount Received" columns filled in, and your 2021 TEA should include a row for the project with the "Start Date", "Work Deadline", "Work Completed" and "Hours Worked (Act.)" columns filled in.
As a simple example, if the client paid for work in 2020 but you only did the work in 2021 (and if your TEA is organized by calendar year), your 2020 TEA should include a row for the project with the "Payment Due Date on Invoice", "Date Paid", "Amount Invoiced" and "Amount Received" columns filled in, and your 2021 TEA should include a row for the project with the "Start Date", "Work Deadline", "Work Completed" and "Hours Worked (Act.)" columns filled in.
Using TEA: Project Timesheet
How do I use the TEA Project Timesheet for each new editorial project?
I recommend going back to the blank template you received as part of your TEA package and saving a new version of the Project Timesheet workbook for each new project. It's also possible to create copies of the Project Timesheet sheet within a single workbook, though (instructions here) – for example, if you want to keep timesheets for each client in a single Excel file.
Similarly, the standard Project Timesheet template doesn't have space for previous sprints, so usually you would just keep overwriting the sprint fields as you go. If you need to retain the details of previous sprints, however, you can create copies of the Project Timesheet sheet for each sprint within your Project Timesheet workbook.
Similarly, the standard Project Timesheet template doesn't have space for previous sprints, so usually you would just keep overwriting the sprint fields as you go. If you need to retain the details of previous sprints, however, you can create copies of the Project Timesheet sheet for each sprint within your Project Timesheet workbook.
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“TEA is an invaluable resource.”
Dean Kyte Writer and Editor |
“There is nothing negative I can say about the customer service! Maya was prompt and courteous and addressed my issues even earlier than she promised. She went above and beyond, providing several options to address customization requests, which was very helpful and provided guidance on my decision-making.”
Adrineh Der-Boghossian Editor and Translator |
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Want to hear more from other TEA users? Check out the TEA Case Studies page to see how freelance editors use TEA to manage their business affairs. |
