In starting an essay writing business, freelancers need a system to keep track of all the orders coming in.  While having a system may seem to be the least among the priorities of a freelancer who just started this business, it should be stressed that an order management system should be included in every freelancer’s checklist.  Thus, freelancers should not be solely concerned with marketing and writing quality papers, but they should also have a system for managing the influx of orders. 

So, what is an order management system and what does it do? How does it help the bottom line? How does it help the freelancer? 

Functions of an Order Management System

An order management system is a system that helps freelancers keep track of their orders, identify the date the order was placed, determine the client who placed the order, his email address and contact number, and provide relevant information about the order.  A freelancer who is interested in satisfying the needs of his clients and growing his business needs an order management system.  In this post, I seek to distinguish between a basic order management system and a fully functional order management system and what are the things that you need in both these systems.

Features of a Limited Order Management System

If you are just starting on this business, a limited order management system is best for your business.  It is easier to do and a lot cheaper.  These are the basic fields that need to be included:

Order Number

An order number tells the client his particular order number.  In case the client makes a follow up of the status of his order, the freelance needs only to ask his order number.  Using an order number, freelancers can easily identify which order the client is asking for.   Imagine a client who placed five orders at the same time. Without an order number, it would be extremely difficult for the freelancer to track which order the client is asking for.    

Client’s Name

In an order management system, it is important to include the client’s name.  Adding a specific field where clients can put in their name helps the freelancer to get to know their client.  For marketing purposes, it also helps to send the client messages using their first names. 

Client’s Email Address

An email address is essential because that is where the freelancer will send the paper.  Thus, the freelancer needs to make sure that the client placed the correct email address when he placed .   Otherwise, the email will just bounce back to the sender and paper will never reach the client. 

Client’s Alternate Email Address

An alternate email address is not mandatory in the order management system.  Nevertheless, an alternate email address can play an important role when there is a typographical error on the first email address provided by the client.  If the email bounces back, the freelancer may send to the alternate email address

Topic

The Topic filed is an important field in ever order management system.  This field gives the freelancer an immediate information of the specific topic that the client wants the writer to work on.  In some cases, the clients will simply give a general information on the instruction box.  The topic may contain the specific subject matter that the client may want the writer to work on.  For example, the instruction box may state: write an argumentative essay consisting of 5 paragraphs.  But in the topic field the client may write: gun control.  It means that the client wants to write an argumentative essay about the topic gun control debate.

Number of Sources

Professors instruct the students to use a minimum number of sources for their paper.  For this reason, the Number of Sources field provides a crucial information about the professor’s academic paper requirement.  The freelancer is expected to comply with the minimum number of sources as required by the paper. 

Citation Style

Clients also indicate the citation style which the students are required to follow.  Some students are free to choose which citation style they want.   On the other hand, there are students who are not required to use any citations. 

Academic Level

Clients should be able to choose the academic level depending on their needs.  Among the possible choices are: High School, College, University, Master’s, or Ph.D. level.  Freelancers are advised to put different rates for each of these levels.  The lowest rates should be for high school level while the highest rates should be reserved for Ph.D. level because the students are going to be expecting a lot for these papers.

Delivery

The clients decide on the turnaround time.  Among the choices are: 10 days, 7 days, 5 days, 3 days, 2 days, 24 hours, 12 hours, 8 hours and 5 hours.  10 days should have the cheapest rates while 5 hours should have the most expensive rates.  Freelancers who offer 5 hours should be able to deliver within 5 hours otherwise the website’s credibility might suffer.

Number of Pages

The number of pages tells the freelancers how many pages they need to deliver to the client.  It should be clear with the clients whether it is double spacing or single spacing. Moreover, it should also be clear with the client just how many words each page should have.  An average of 300 words should be sufficient for each page. 

Instructions

The instruction box should contain the details of the professor’s instruction.  The freelancer should always ask the client if he has a syllabus or the exact instruction from the professor. Freelancers have a better chance of meeting the professor’s instruction if they have an email or a pdf file or an MS word file of the professor’s instruction.

Total Amount

The total amount tells the freelance how much he received from the order. 

A limited order management system is sufficient to help get you started with your business.  Despite its limitations, I was able to grow my business slowly until it reached the point when I decided that I needed a fully functional order management system.