Glossary
Explanation of the terms and abbreviations used on freelance sites.
Please note – although some of these terms are quite self-explanatory for English speaking freelancers, they can be misinterpreted or hard to understand for people from other countries.
Abbreviations of the freelance site names:
- FL, FR
- Freelancer
- GAF
- GetAFreelancer (now Freelancer)
- SL
- ScriptLance
- VW
- vWorker
- RAC
- RentACoder (now vWorker)
- EL
- Elance
- OD
- oDesk
- JL
- JoomLancers
- EUF
- EUFreelance
- GAC
- GetACoder
Terms and abbreviations commonly used on freelance sites:
- freelancer
- a self-employed provider
- outsourcing
- the delegation of the work or the part of the work, to an external resource (for example freelancers). With a growing popularity of this phenomenon, there emerged the freelance markets which provide the platform for contacting buyers with sellers
- buyer, webmaster
- both terms are used to describe a client
- seller, provider
- a person to do the contracted work (sometimes freelance sites use different terms – like coder, programmer)
- auction, project
- an auction where a freelancer places his offer (bid)
- bid
- freelancer’s offer placed for a project (usually includes the price and description)
- auto-bidder
- freelancer, who puts “blind” offers for multiple projects, usually even without reading the project description; the sort of provider avoided by more experienced buyers
- invite-only
- project open for invited providers only (to whom the buyer has sent his invites)
- confirmation
- acceptance of the selection for a project (required by some freelance boards)
- featured
- “special” project – the buyer has paid for its better exposure; quite often it’s a long-term contract (such projects cannot be posted as the common ones)
- review
- feedback given after the finished project; usually rating in 1-10 scale
- escrow
- deposit; seller places the price to be paid for a project in Escrow and waits for the work to be done; after that, he releases the deposited money and they are transferred into provider’s account
- withdraw(al)
- transferring the money from the account on the freelance site to the personal one (done using a cheque, wire-transfer, PayPal, etc.)
- wire transfer
- money transfer between 2 bank accounts
- invoice
- some freelance sites provide the feature of invoicing
- mockup
- a sketch or partial demonstration of the idea of finsihing the project; very often used to gain client’s attention before the project is awarded
- rate (hourly)
- the rate you declare to work for (estimate or average)
- cancel
- cancelling, terminating the project (from various reasons)
- PM/PMB
- private (or personal) message; private message board is used for direct communication with a buyer without it being seen by other providers
- deadline
- declared and agreed date of finishing the work on the project
- supspend(ed)
- freelancer’s account can be suspended in case of breaking the site TOS (Terms Of Service)
- ASAP
- as soon as possible; urgent project
- FL
- freelancing
- NDA
- Non Disclosure Agreement
- TOS
- Terms Of Service
