[tortech] Suggestions for invoicing/inventory tracking/accounting software?

[Dan Zlotnikov]

Hi everyone.

I get the impression that a number of people on this list are either
self-employed or are running their own businesses, so I hope you can
help me out.

If you're happy with your accounting/invoicing/inventory tracking
program (or programs), can you recommend them to me?

If you're curious, my needs are below.

Thank you!

Dan

I'm looking for a program or a set of programs that will allow me to do
the following:

1) Inventory control that does not mandate purchasing. We produce
everything from scratch as part of the manufacturing process, and have
no sub-assembly related items. I need to have the option of having
inventory magically appear.

2) Fudgeable accounting. We operate a small business, and don't want to
have to reconcile every single penny. Most accounting programs we've
seen require us to manage double-entry accounting, which is
time-consuming and almost completely unnecessary under the
circumstances.

3) Invoicing. Plain and simple, professional-looking invoices.

4) Exporting to and importing from some universally recognised format. Comma- or
tab-separated lists would probably do the trick.

[Bryan Fullerton]

On 19-Oct-05, at 2:06 PM, Dan Zlotnikov wrote:

| If you're happy with your accounting/invoicing/inventory tracking
| program (or programs), can you recommend them to me?

We use QuickBooks. It works, and our accountant likes it. We don't do
inventory, though, and I'm pretty sure it won't export to CSV.

| 2) Fudgeable accounting. We operate a small business, and don't
| want to
| have to reconcile every single penny. Most accounting programs we've
| seen require us to manage double-entry accounting, which is
| time-consuming and almost completely unnecessary under the
| circumstances.

I'm not aware of any accounting programs that don't require real
accounting practices.

Bryan

[Marc Bissonnette]

At 02:06 PM 10/19/2005, Dan Zlotnikov wrote:
|
|Hi everyone.
|
|I get the impression that a number of people on this list are either
|self-employed or are running their own businesses, so I hope you can
|help me out.
|
|If you're happy with your accounting/invoicing/inventory tracking
|program (or programs), can you recommend them to me?
|
|If you're curious, my needs are below.
|
|Thank you!
|
|Dan
|
|I'm looking for a program or a set of programs that will allow me to do
|the following:
|
|1) Inventory control that does not mandate purchasing. We produce
|everything from scratch as part of the manufacturing process, and have
|no sub-assembly related items. I need to have the option of having
|inventory magically appear.
|
|2) Fudgeable accounting. We operate a small business, and don't want to
|have to reconcile every single penny. Most accounting programs we've
|seen require us to manage double-entry accounting, which is
|time-consuming and almost completely unnecessary under the
|circumstances.
|
|3) Invoicing. Plain and simple, professional-looking invoices.
|
|4) Exporting to and importing from some universally recognised format.
|Comma- or
|tab-separated lists would probably do the trick.

Doesn't sound like an overly complicated set of requirements: Have you
considered writing something web-side with perl and mysql ?

I would imagine something like that could probably be put together in about
three days (that's with the usual back-and-forth with the people who will
actually be using it on a regular basis)

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Oct 19, 2005 at 02:06:19PM -0400, Dan Zlotnikov wrote:
| Hi everyone.
|
| I get the impression that a number of people on this list are either
| self-employed or are running their own businesses, so I hope you can
| help me out.
|
| If you're happy with your accounting/invoicing/inventory tracking
| program (or programs), can you recommend them to me?
|
| If you're curious, my needs are below.
|
| Thank you!
|
| Dan
|
| I'm looking for a program or a set of programs that will allow me to do
| the following:
|
| 1) Inventory control that does not mandate purchasing. We produce
| everything from scratch as part of the manufacturing process, and have
| no sub-assembly related items. I need to have the option of having
| inventory magically appear.

So when you produce something, enter it as exiting and bought from
yourself I suppose or some such.

| 2) Fudgeable accounting. We operate a small business, and don't want to
| have to reconcile every single penny. Most accounting programs we've
| seen require us to manage double-entry accounting, which is
| time-consuming and almost completely unnecessary under the
| circumstances.

Why bother doing accounting if you aren't going to do it right? If you
ever want to talk to an accountant about your stuff, it works much
better when the data is useful. And if someone ever decides you need
auditing, I suspect it will go much better with proper accounting data.
Double entry makes a lot of sense, if you understand the point of
accounting in the first place. If you don't understand it, ACC121/122
are two very useful courses to take at university of waterloo. :) I am
happy I did, even though I don't do accounting. At least I understand
why accountants want what they want.

| 3) Invoicing. Plain and simple, professional-looking invoices.

My parents used to do that in excel. Any spread sheet can do it just
fine in general. Some accounting programs can also do it for you.

| 4) Exporting to and importing from some universally recognised format. Comma- or
| tab-separated lists would probably do the trick.

Hmm, seems useful. Not sure which accounting programs do that.

Len Sorensen

[Stephen van Egmond]

| If you're happy with your accounting/invoicing/inventory tracking
| program (or programs), can you recommend them to me?

The short answer is there's Excel, or double-entry accounting
systems, and not much in between.

Long answer:

Accounting is a means to end. What end do you have in mind?

My ends are:

1. filing taxes
2. issuing invoices ad-hoc
3. issuing invoices for 1 month's commissions at the end of every month.
4. noticing when someone hasn't paid an invoice

For 1, my accountant gives me Excel spreadsheets. For 2 and 3, I have
a web-based system I wrote myself, tied to my ecommerce systems, that
mails off HTML invoices to the relevant individuals and lets me
track when payments come in.

To make (1) easy given (2) and (3), I take special care to deposit
everything at the bank separately so that I at least have a shot at
making sense of it at month (or, more likely, year) end.

My accountant actively discouraged me from running Quickbooks unless
I was had more than, say, ten sales/invoices/transactions a month. If
your bank statement fits on 2 pages that's not you.

Keep in mind, that numbers you track are numbers you need to enter. I
don't know what you make, but do you really feel like clicking around
every time you make one? More importantly, why do you care, and is
there some reason you can't just count boxes when you need to know
inventory at year-end?

| 2) Fudgeable accounting. We operate a small business, and don't
| want to
| have to reconcile every single penny. Most accounting programs we've
| seen require us to manage double-entry accounting, which is
| time-consuming and almost completely unnecessary under the
| circumstances.

That, right there, is why you need to use some stupid, unglamorous
system. Double-entry accounting is useful... for talking to
accountants, and if you have a CFO, and really not much else.