Building the Fiverr Manager is really part of a much bigger project I’ve been working toward for a long time. I’m trying to build a proper back office for my digital business projects instead of continuing to manage everything through a collection of separate apps, spreadsheets, Airtable bases, browser tabs and random tools that don’t really feel connected.

What I want is something that feels more like an operating system for my business.

That is why I’ve been building the Modern OS-style back office. I like the idea of having one desktop where I can open different applications for the different parts of my business: project management, task management, marketing, finances, analytics, files, customers, publishing, Fiverr, and whatever else I eventually need. Instead of going from one website to another, everything feels like part of the same workspace.

It also gives me a lot more control. I can build each module around the way I actually work instead of trying to force myself into somebody else’s software. If I decide I want a customer log, a file manager, a project tree, a certain report, or a particular field, I can add it. I don’t have to wait for a software company to decide it is worth building.

I also like the idea of self-hosting more of this. Airtable is still useful to me, especially as a data warehouse for ideas and information I’m not actively working on, but I don’t think I want all of my active projects living there anymore. The back office gives active projects their own working environment while still letting me keep Airtable for what it is good at.

There is a business angle to all of this too.

My plan is to use these systems myself first. I want to run my own projects through them, find the annoying parts, see what is missing, fix the bugs, and let the software evolve from actual use instead of trying to guess what somebody else might want.

Once I know the system inside and out, I want to look seriously at selling it.

That could mean selling the complete back-office system to businesses that want their own branded workspace, but I also think there is a lot of potential in selling the individual modules separately. Somebody may not want the entire operating-system-style back office, but they might want the task manager, marketing manager, Fiverr manager, receipt manager, project manager, file manager, or one of the other tools by itself.

I like that model because I would be selling software I actually use myself.

I’ve always been more comfortable selling something when I understand it deeply and believe it solves a real problem. If I’ve been using the same system every day to run my own projects, I’ll know where it works, where it doesn’t, and what people are likely to ask for.

The OS-style setup also makes the whole thing feel different from a typical WordPress plugin collection. Instead of installing ten unrelated plugins and having ten completely different interfaces, the modules can feel like applications inside the same environment. They can share customers, files, projects, logs and other information while still being useful independently.

That is the larger vision behind what I was working on today.

I spent a good part of today working on my Fiverr Manager plugin for my back office. It ended up being one of those projects where I made a change, tested it, found another problem, and kept working my way through it. It was frustrating at times, but by the end of the night it was looking and behaving much more like I originally pictured it.

One of the biggest problems was the size and positioning of the main Fiverr Manager window. It was too cramped, things were getting cut off at the bottom, and I could only move the window from side to side instead of actually dragging it around the desktop normally. At first we kept trying to fix everything from inside the plugin, but eventually realized that part of the problem was actually coming from the Modern OS theme itself.

Once we made changes there, it made a huge difference.

The Fiverr Manager could finally use more of the available screen and behave more like one of the other desktop applications.

There were a lot of smaller layout problems too. The content on the right side was sitting too close to the vertical navigation menu. The Orders page had unnecessary scrolling and some of the columns were cramped. The Customers page had a horizontal scrollbar even though I really only wanted the customer username and number of orders displayed there. The customer workspace and logs were getting cut off at the bottom, and the Files section wasn’t showing all of the uploaded files because there wasn’t enough room to scroll.

I gradually cleaned all of that up.

The spacing between the left navigation and the actual module content looks much better now. The Customers list is simpler, the windows have more room, and the vertical menu can scroll so the modules near the bottom aren’t hidden. I also noticed that “Recent Activity” on the dashboard looked a little too heavy compared with everything around it, so I softened that typography.

There was also a strange problem with the Gigs module. I could open most of the gigs, but the first one wouldn’t open at all. That was another one of those odd little bugs that didn’t make much sense from the interface itself, but I tracked it down and fixed it.

The detail windows were another headache.

When I opened an order or gig, the window would sometimes appear so high on the screen that I could barely see the X to close it. At one point the gig details practically filled the screen but were still positioned incorrectly. Fixing the underlying theme/window behavior helped tremendously with that too.

The Files section also evolved quite a bit.

I wanted to be able to attach files to orders and customers, include a description, and know who uploaded each file. Then I decided it would be useful for users of the system to leave comments directly on files too. That turned the file manager into more than just a place to store attachments. It started becoming part of the history of a project or customer.

I also built out the customer side more.

The Customer Workspace now includes a customer log where I can record notes, messages, issues, revisions, follow-ups and other activity. Each entry records who added it and when.

Toward the end, I added something I think will make the customer section much more useful.

When I open a Fiverr customer now, there is a Customer Orders section before their files. It shows their orders, the gig, status, dates, earnings, and a link to open the order itself.

That makes the customer page feel much more like an actual client record instead of just a place to keep notes and files.

I like where this is going.

What started as a fairly basic Fiverr dashboard is becoming a little CRM and project back office specifically for my Fiverr business. I can track gigs, daily statistics, orders, customers, files, earnings, keywords, expenses, goals, reports, logs and other information without having everything scattered around.

There are still things I want to improve, and I’m sure I’ll find more bugs as I actually use it.

But tonight feels like a good stopping point.

A lot of the annoying structural problems that were making the plugin feel awkward have been worked out. It’s starting to feel less like a plugin I’m building and more like an application I can actually use.

And that is really the point of this whole project.

I want to build the back office I always wished I had, use it every day, improve it from experience, and then see if there is a business in helping other people build the same kind of system for themselves.

I’m calling it a day.

I’ll pick it back up after I get some sleep and look at it again with fresh eyes.