If you have a minute and don't mind sharing some information I would really like feedback from members of this forum on the following.
I would like to learn what folks are using to generate invoices, poll below.
Also, in general can you describe your invoicing process?
What software do you use to track hours?
Are most of your projects lump sum, hourly, or something else?
I'm working on a small business /project management solution and will use the information I collect here to make our solution better.
Thank you for your time!
We use quick books for housing estimates and generating invoices we track time on paper (2 of us full timers/owners the other 3 part timers). We know our time keeping process is crap but not ready to improve yet
I will say we have a budget for multiple line items for each month. All this could've been done in excel but the automation with payroll and our bank account that quickbooks adds is second to none, in addition all the "at a glance" reports
I use my phone to track jobs, times etc, then import to Excel and print to PDF.
Android Time Punch Pro is best I found. Development has stopped but still works brilliantly for my device.
It's rock solid and I've never lost any data over 5 + years I've been using it.
I've tried several time applications and invoice generators for Android.
None had that 'finesse' I was looking for, to produce invoices, but that's my fussines.
I'm a sole operator and don't generate hundreds of invoices a year.
All jobs charged by hour and are many and varied across cadastral, environmental, topographical, setouts, quarry work etc.
Government, private, local councils as clients.
I use a combination of Peachtree Accounting, MS Access and LibreOffice Writer (an open-source MS Word replacement). I enter the invoice in Peachtree for use in reconciling subsequent payment, I enter it in Access for additional tracking and reporting, and I create the actual document that gets mailed or emailed in Writer. It's a cumbersome system, but I don't generate a lot of invoices -- typically less than 50 a year -- so it's not a big deal.
I use Quickbooks Premium to create cost estimates and invoices as well as day to day accounting. I'm not a big fan of some of its reporting and the fact that you can not used the same data set between the different flavors. I really wish there was a better solution out there but I just have not found it. As for time tracking, like Richard I use a program TimePunch on my Windows Phone and workstation to track time as I go. The data is then input into Quickbooks for use in creating invoices and tracking projects. Unfortunately the is not a simple way to import the time data from TimePunch directly into Quickbooks so I just do it manually. When I had several employees, they would each enter there time into QB on a weekly basis.
Each employee writes their name on a calendar of the days they work along with the job name.
Started out with DacEasyLite that was really simple and produced all kinds of year end reports.
They Y2K bug ate it as the developers did not design it to roll over to the next year after 1999.
Stopped trusting software makers after that and especially after I met an online presence self named "Ghost".
Apparently we had common friends and he proved that he could get into most any computer he wanted to.
Now I make letter style invoices one by one in WordPerfect and save it with the Property Description.
Gonna have to read everything in hard copy cause it is not in my computer.
A Harris, post: 423745, member: 81 wrote:
Stopped trusting software makers after that and especially after I met an online presence self named "Ghost".
Fascinating about the "Ghost" comment. I'm building a tool out of frustration that nothing like this exists already. Softwares tend to treat employees, hours, expenses, projects, tasks.. all as separate things, when to me they're a complex relational database. I'm just building a gui for all the knowledge that exists for small businesses.
T sheets will import time sheet data straight to quickbooks
I use Advanced Graphics Technology's (AGT) Info-Retriever program to create my invoices.
Currently we use QB for all of our accounting & invoicing but will be making the transition to BillQuick sometime this quarter. It integrates with QB so we won't leave that platform because it's what our CPA uses but BQ will be our new daily driver for project accounting/budgeting, time tracking, expenses & invoicing.
Bow Tie Surveyor, post: 423752, member: 6939 wrote: I use Advanced Graphics Technology's (AGT) Info-Retriever program to create my invoices.
What an odd bit of software, very small market of users it would seem. Looks nice though.
Ours will be web based with mobile app for photographing expenses receipts and entering hours.
Tsheets too for time tracking. Affordable, easy setup, works seamless with QB to import time and run payroll and invoicing, has a nice mobile app, great customer service.
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
geopro_consultants, post: 423681, member: 9959 wrote: If you have a minute and don't mind sharing some information I would really like feedback from members of this forum on the following.
I would like to learn what folks are using to generate invoices, poll below.
Also, in general can you describe your invoicing process?
What software do you use to track hours?
Are most of your projects lump sum, hourly, or something else?I'm working on a small business /project management solution and will use the information I collect here to make our solution better.
Thank you for your time!
There are several bundled software suites out there that work quite well. Time Keeper was one of the best packages that I've used. As each project comes in it is entered into the system with the billing information (budget or hourly) and hourly multiplier. Each employee has an account with a user name and pass word, their hourly rate, etc. and logs in daily to fill out their time sheet by adding the project number, the hours and the coded tasks they completed or worked on. There is an additional field to comment on extras work or provide detail or clarity on any given task.
The great part about the program is it is written for professionals and has pretty good flexibility. Without leaving the system you can generate reports on project status, billing reports, AR reports and your regular payroll reports. All these reports can be generated daily, weekly, monthly or at year end.
The system works seamlessly with most electronic payroll preparers as well. It's not cheap and maybe not for the smaller businesses but if you do high volume it's a huge time and energy saver and provides you with all the project specific information you could possibly ask for.
I ran my own small business for 4 years with only 10 employees and the majority of my projects were fixed fee so I did not have the need for and special software. My bids were based on line item pricing so it was relatively easy to do my Billing and time keeping in Excel, track my payments as they came in and print invoices to pdf. That whole process only consumed about 45 minutes of my day which was no big deal as I did the calculation work before most projects hit the field.
