There are a number of different options here, but this month I am going to recommend a website we have used ourselves (and have no financial link to I hasten to add) called http://www.ifreelance.com/
Ifreelance.com is a website aimed at small to medium sized businesses who may have a particular project they need completing, and who may also want to consider low cost options or good quality work levels.
Sign up to the site for free, and post details of any particular projects free of charge as well. You will get a range of bids for the work from around the world. We have used consultants based in India, the USA, Australia and the UK so far.
We have sent at least 6 projects through the site, some of which would have cost £1000s through a conventional company. These have included data capture, website design, database manipulation, marketing and research. You can also use the site to identify outsourcing partners.
An example would be our need for an Excel spreadsheet process – how to get data out of our bespoke recruitment software and into a manipulative state so that we can post our candidates and vacancies online at low cost.
I spoke to our recruitment software company, who wanted £4,500 plus an ongoing maintenance contract of about £1,500 per year. I spoke to our online database supply company, who wanted about £1,200 to set up a piece of software.
I posted the project onto ifreelance.com and within 2 days had the project completed for £250. They set me up a range of macros in Excel plus additional add ons, that automatically converted the data, and meant that we did not need any ongoing maintenance. The consultant who carried out the work was based in the USA, and worked as a freelance IT consultant.