storing client info etc

philjohns

Senior Member
Im sure this has been covered before. But what program do you use to store client info? invoices? bills etc?

At the moment Ive got it all in a load of spreadsheets and word docs but this needs to change!

Phil
 
There's a great tool that people use thats free and I cant remember what the hell its called! Hmmm let me come back lol!
 
I'm using spreadsheets in OOCalc at the moment but I have me eye on a couple products; Express Invoice and BambooInvoice. Bamboo runs on php/mysql so you have to host it somewhere. The demo is down so I haven't seen it but it looks promising. I downloaded Express Invoice for windows and kicked it around a bit. Seems to do the job.

You could also try searching software.informer.com.
 
Using QuickBooks Simple Start here, pretty good for storing all that sort of info, handy for generating end of year reports for self-assessment. One negative to it is the ability to customize the invoice layouts themselves, it's not the easiest task, but it can be done with a bit of trial & error!
 
I had that problem with Daylite/ Billings too Greg was difficult to set up flexible templates for billing both by project and hourly and adding misc expenses. Kind of gave up on it, but an planning on giving it another shot as I need to cut down my time spent on paperwork.
 
Hi Russell,

It's OK for that side of things, you can setup hourly billing and different rates for different tasks/types of work, or just bill on a project quote basis, the actual PDF layouts of the invoices was the bit that was tricky to customize, ended up with something half respectable, but not quite what I had planned out originally.
 
Only thing that worries me about that side of it, is if they were to close the service down sometime in the future? and how you can store that data away from their site? and if they brought in a monthly fee to continue using the service at some point. But that may never happen!
 
System gives a full import / export function
so, you would or should be anyways backing up your data on a regular or as needed basis :)

Ps. im sure the owner / developer stated that it will always be a free service.
 
If you've got time may me worth giving a few of them a try, as I think all mentioned have free 30 day trials. I'm planning on trialling a couple that have been suggested to see which fits best so I can have a system in place for the start of the new financial year.
 
I have used and in fact still use Bascamp, although in the days of web 3.0 its starting to show its age. Still a very good system, but let down by its price tag.
 
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