Wouldn't it be easier to charge per line instead of charging per hour? If I were to charge 20 cents per line I can multiple the total number of lines I've wrote for the program by .20 minus 10% for empty spaces and short lines such as brackets. The reason I'm considering the former method of charging is because I don't really understand how to go about tracking time. I like to mention that I have not done any paid freelance work.
There's a ton of software available for time tracking, though I often try to bill flat-rate rather than hourly except for bug-fixes. Check out freshbooks.com for a web app; there's Billings on the Mac (and plenty of others). I don't use Windows so I don't know of time tracking software for it, but I know plenty exists. Charging per line really doesn't mean anything at all - especially since bad, ugly code is often a lot longer than good, lean, efficient code. There's also no point of comparison to any other freelance coders since nobody else bills that way.
I'll see if I can find Fresh Books easy to use and if so will use their service. Thank you for your help.
Per line charging penalises nice clean code. And when it comes to debugging a problem, you might spend an hour (or more) looking for the problem, and it comes down to a one line change.
I would suggest that doing it by line is fine, but also include time for debugging and layout of code. Don'T kill yourself for pennies.
Hit the nail on the head. Clients either pay a fixed price for a defined piece of work, or they pay by the hour. Paying by the line means you are eschewing fast, concise code for a more verbose and bloated alternative. Pay per line? It reminds me of Dilbert:
