Most models only have tax accountants to turn to when they have questions, Perez explains. There's not typically a money guru at-hand year-round to teach each model how to track her finances. Perez enlisted accountants early on in her career to help make sense of the books (eventually learning Quickbooks for herself), she told Bustle, but that isn't common. A lot of Perez's fellow models didn't really understand or keep track of specific numbers: "I've heard countless stories of models complaining about being ripped off financially, but when you ask them how much money they are owed, they usually don't know," Perez says.

It's also not uncommon for models to wait many months after a job to get a check in the mail. "Before I started tracking my jobs, I would often receive paychecks for jobs I didn't even remember doing," Perez recalls. This often leads to budgeting issues if, say, a model doesn't bring home as much as she was expecting, or get paid when she was expecting to.

While many features were designed with models in mind — like being able to enter multiple currencies to account for jobs all around the globe — Tycoon isn't just for the fashion set. There are also photographers, consultants, babysitters, graphic designers, personal trainers, and chauffeurs using the app, all of whom grapple with "a lag of time between when they perform a job and when they get paid," Perez says. Eventually, Tycoon will introduce a feature that allows users "to deduct commissions and estimated taxes from gross rates," which is helpful for anyone doing contract or freelance work who needs to know what their actual take-home pay will be.

Tycoon lets users feel more in control of what they're raking in by closely tracking their jobs, encouraging follow-up when a payment is overdue. To wit: You can program the app to send pre-written messages to clients that owe money. Ultimately, Perez set out to demystify the process of making a living by modeling (or via other freelance pursuits): "If you know how much money you're making, down to the cent, it empowers you to plan properly and make better financial decisions."