More and more webmasters are opting to sell a part or the full advertising inventory directly. This means that they solicit (directly or indirectly) the advertisers, finalise the terms and conditions of the deal, implement the advertisement and handle the billing and complaints, if any. This benefits both the publisher as well as the advertiser since they save on the cost that would otherwise have paid to the intermediary. Also with direct contact between the advertiser and publisher the needs of each other are understood in a better way. Also a number of webmasters have used this model to sell other services from their online store/site.

Direct marketing of advertising inventory in this way also has its own share of problems, the chief of which is to handling the billing. In case of a website selling advertising spots it is very important to ensure that he retains the advertiser month after month. For this, he must contact the advertiser well in advance of the billing period to know if the advertiser is satisfied with the service. If not, what can the publisher do to correct it. In case of service providers who charge for the effort and time, it is very important to maintain an accurate log of the time spent on each activity and bill the client accordingly.

An easy way to maintain all these infomation would be to use softwares, specifically for these purposes. To ensure that links do not get deactivated and to maintain your income/expense account of your website, a simple spreadsheet software would be powerful enough. You could either use a desktop version like Excel or an online version like Google Spreadsheets. For maintaining time, you will need a web based timesheet software. These simple to use utilities and some discipline on your part to ensure that you update these regularly will give you long term benefits.

Later we will review the best free spreadsheet softwares as well the most popular timesheet softwares available.