The Elance Work System (Elance's features, tools and processes that facilitates online work) puts you in control, keeps you safe, and makes sure that you get great results.

• Job Posts allow you to post your job description and attract customized proposals, often within hours
• The Workroom - the hub of the Elance work experience - is a private online workspace that facilitates collaboration and tracks communication
• Terms & Milestones help define the work that needs to be done and by when
• Status Reports track progress on work performed, and establish next steps
• Tracker allows freelancers to document their work activities in real time
• Timesheets make invoicing and billing on hourly jobs simple and painless
• Escrow payments protect both parties by pre-funding the work and releasing payments only when results are approved
• Ratings and feedback are public records of client satisfaction, and inspire great performance 

Job Posts enable companies to describe their job requirements, set a budget range, request specific skill sets, and start receiving proposals from freelancers within hours. 

The Workroom is the hub of the Elance Work System. Workrooms are automatically created for each job on Elance, enabling real-time interviewing, proposal evaluation, hiring and collaboration, capturing and storing all communications, sharing files, approving work, and tracking invoices and payments for work received.

Terms & Milestones are established at the outset of a work engagement to set the pricing (terms) and define the timing of what is expected by when (milestones).

Status Reports are weekly updates submitted by freelancers, with a record of work completed, progress made, and plans for the upcoming work week. 

Tracker allows freelancers to document their work in real time. The information captured with Tracker is used to automatically generate detailed status reports and timesheets for hourly jobs. Work tracking facilitates accurate and streamlined billing. While Tracker simply tracks time and automatically updates the timesheet, Work View allows the freelancer to stream images and comments into the Work View section of the workroom. The images are taken at random intervals throughout the hour to create a record of the work performed online. Learn more about Work View.

Timesheets make invoicing and billing for hourly jobs a snap. Freelancers submit their timesheets weekly, with notes on tasks completed

Escrow facilitates safe payment on fixed price work while building confidence between both parties. Using Escrow, clients can pre-fund the work to enable work to get started. As work is received and approved, payment gets released to the freelancer. Freelancers appreciate Escrow as they’re able to see that the funds are held in reserve for their work while clients benefit from Escrow by knowing that they’ll only make payments when they receive actual results.

Ratings and feedback are shared by clients after the job has been completed.  These ratings are made public and are kept as part of the permanent work-history of the freelancer. Successful Elance freelancers consistently satisfy their clients and their feedback and ratings prove it.

Next Steps

Post Your Job now, and start receiving proposals within hours.