120 AMWA Journal / V36 N3 / 2021 / amwa.org • Need to write invoices and receipts (I use the time tracker Harvest for this) • Have multiple people using the same business bank account • Have regular employees or subcontractors When I transitioned from nonprofit work to freelancing, the minimum payment of $25/month seemed exorbitant. Quicken (I pay $3/month) does the following for me: • Automatically enters transactions from my bank accounts • Categorizes my income and expenses • Handles my business and personal accounts side-by-side • Streamlines reporting for taxes • Makes it easy to observe trends in my business and ana- lyze development efforts (reports are very user friendly) I started with my tax lady’s worksheet when setting up my categories; each line item she requests becomes a cat- egory. This ensures that I can write off as many business expenses as possible. I also track some categories for my family, such as eating out (way down this fiscal year!). A few more things to consider: • Make sure the software will sync with your specific bank. • I have not found the budgeting features very intuitive in either Quicken or QuickBooks. • It takes me about 15 minutes per month to review the transactions uploaded in Quicken and make sure every- thing has been categorized properly. • At tax time, it takes no more than 45 minutes to report everything accurately. My tax lady gives me a discount for turning in my information early. This discount more than pays for the annual price of Quicken! — Allie Boman FREELANCE FOCUS International Society of Managing and Technical Editors October 11-14, 2021 Virtual https://www.ismte.org/page/Conferences Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society September 12-15, 2021 Virtual https://www.raps.org/regulatory-convergence National Association of Science Writers October 8-11, 2021 Boulder, Colorado, and Virtual https://www.nasw.org/events International Conference on Communication in Healthcare October 17-20, 2021 Virtual https://achonline.org/ICCH2021 American Public Health Association October 24-27, 2021 Denver, Colorado, and Virtual https://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual AMWA Medical Writing & Communication Conference October 27-29, 2021 Virtual www.amwa.org/conference European Medical Writers Association November 4-6, 2021 London, England, and Virtual https://www.emwa.org/conferences/future-conferences/ Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions January 12-15, 2022 Aurora, Colorado http://www.acehp.org/p/cm/ld/fid=570 American Association for the Advancement of Science February 17-20, 2022 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Virtual https://meetings.aaas.org/ DIA Europe 2022 March 29-31, 2022 Brussels, Belgium, and Virtual https://www.diaglobal.org/en/flagship/dia-europe-2022 CALENDAR OF MEETINGS Please confirm with individual meeting hosts www.amwa.org/conference 2021 AMWA Medical Writing & Communication Conference OCTOBER 27-29, 2021 Coming to a device near you Trends and Opportunities for Medical Communicators http://www.amwa.org/conference https://www.ismte.org/page/Conferences https://www.raps.org/regulatory-convergence https://www.nasw.org/events https://achonline.org/ICCH2021 https://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual http://www.amwa.org/conference https://www.emwa.org/conferences/future-conferences/ http://www.acehp.org/p/cm/ld/fid=570 https://meetings.aaas.org/ https://www.diaglobal.org/en/flagship/dia-europe-2022