Job Tracking, inventory software

[Martin Boekers]

It looks like within the next 6 months I will be required to get software that will be able to do inventory control, job tracking and create invoices.
We are just a small business, so not too expensive or complicated.. ;) Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

Marty

[Gary Hair]

I use Quickbooks Premier Pro Retail - it does all that and WAY more. It's not terribly expensive and very easy to learn, you don't have to be a cpa to understand it.

[Martin Boekers]

Thanks! I'll check that out!

[Brian Leavitt]

We use a program called ShopWorks, but it ain't cheap. Aside from engraving/awards/trophies, we also do screen printing, embroidery, swimwear, promo products, etc.; and have dedicated sales and production people for each department. So for us ShopWorks fits the bill. Quickbooks is probably much more cost-effective, though.

[Mike Null]

I've been using Quickbooks Pro for almost 20 years. The critical thing about QB is setting it up properly to begin with. I did not set mine up to do inventory control though it could be done.

There is another software called Peachtree which gets high marks as well.

[Kev Williams]

I've been using Quickbooks for almost 20 years too. I like it, recommend it, but one could literally run General Motors with it... and for my business, it's total overkill. I wish they'd come out with a 'lite' version. I use maybe 2% of what it can do... all I have it do is make invoices, track the money in, money out, bills in, bills out. That's it. I have no employees, my inventory is nothing more than raw materials on hand, I write my own checks, etc. My main complaint is having to invent ways to have it do things MY way ;)

[Doug Fisher]

Kev, with your stated needs/usage you could get by with Quicken instead of QuickBooks!

[Paul hardy]

I you want a cloud based solution, you might check out datamoto.com (http://datamoto.com/). We haven't started using it yet, but it's cheap for the features.

[Ross Moshinsky]

You're taking on a huge project here.

Job tracking can be fairly straight forward. There are a bunch of different options out there that range from free to $200/mo (and I'm sure much more expensive). They have various levels of integration as well. If you're okay paying a monthly fee, look into the sign shop and screen printing/t-shirt options out there. They're reasonably affordable and should fit your type of business fairly well. If you're looking for free and simple, Google Calendar could be used effectively and it's obviously completely free.

Inventory control is a completely different monster. If you're like me, you work with most of the major vendors and will sell just about anything out of the catalog to make a buck. I bet you also combine different parts and pieces from each of the vendors to create different awards. This makes inventory control incredibly elaborate because you need to do a ton of programing and data entry to get it to work right. Then on top of that, you need to actually keep up with the inventory. I've thought about doing it many times but I just can't bring myself to do it. I genuinely think it would take me a solid month to get just the data into the system and have it all function properly.

[Kev Williams]

I tried Quicken years ago, didn't care for it. But I'm sure it's much changed since then, I may check into it! :)

Job tracking and inventory control-- another problem with delving into those areas is the possibility of an other ongoing expense-- another employee to take care of it all!

[Gary Hair]

I tried Quicken years ago, didn't care for it. But I'm sure it's much changed since then, I may check into it! :)

Job tracking and inventory control-- another problem with delving into those areas is the possibility of an other ongoing expense-- another employee to take care of it all!

There is a huge difference between Quicken and Quickbooks. Quicken is a glorified checkbook register and Quickbooks is an actual accounting program. There are different levels of Quickbooks as well, Premier Pro has all the functionality most businesses need and can handle invoices, job tracking, payroll, inventory, etc. I have been using it for 10+ years and I had no accounting experience whatsoever and still don't know the first thing about accounting. I send a file to my CPA and she does my taxes, that's all I want/need to know about accounting! I used Peachtree about 15 years ago for another business and quickly discovered that my lack of accounting knowledge made it almost impossible just to get it setup, clearly not for me.

[Martin Boekers]

Thanks all for your input.... From what I hear Quick Books is the way to go. Not sure I can talk the "powers that be" into it, I'm giving it a shot.
I know Quick Books has been around for ages, has good support and a lot of online tutorials... What has been recommended to me is a program
call "Where's my Job?" I've been playing with a demo a bit but not sure about it. Plus it's a monthly purchase without a one time deal. Things are really
busy for me right now so I can't dedicate a lot of time to it right now. It looks like I have to have it in place by the end of the year....

[Kev Williams]

IF you go with Quickbooks, and maybe any other too, here's a 'get ready for it' piece of advice--

Right now, in whatever spare time you have, locate as much of your current books as possible. Any and all unpaid invoices, paid this year invoices, all of your common bills, paid to date, those due, etc etc etc...

All that stuff will need to be entered into QB. Never done inventory, but I'm sure that too will need initial entries.

Customers involved with money due or past due will be entered initially, all others 'on the fly' unless you want to enter everything. Copy and paste will be your friend if you have a copy-able database already...

And my favorite, The Item List-- this actually confused me at first, because we didn't have 'items'-- my first 2 items were named "1" (still is!) which comes up "engraved per instructions" in the invoice description. Some of my future shortcut items are L1 (laser engraved as... ), P (engraved and painted...) etc etc... Since then we've added bazillions of customer's part numbers or actual mfr. part numbers (legend plates etc.), and whatever else saves on typing and price hunting! You name your item (a shortcut name), pick it's category (sales, service, etc), then enter its description, it's price (which can always be changed in the list or on the fly), taxable yes or no, and which account it's for, and maybe more I'm not thinking of.. This is great because when making an invoice, you enter your item shortcut, and the quantity, all else is automatic :)

Maybe you already work with an item list? But if not, maybe in your spare time, start thinking of your everyday items, descriptions etc, enter it all in a spreadsheet you can copy from, then it'll be all ready to enter...

[Ross Moshinsky]

How are you doing estimates/invoices/PO's/banking/etc without QB?

I do think you're going to be disappointed in the inventory control and especially in the job management. QB is an accounting software more than anything else. So if you're looking for something like:

Receive Order -> Take Payment -> Order Parts -> Send Proofs -> Get Proof Approval -> Production -> Package -> Ship

You're not going to get it.

It sounds like you really are looking for something like http://www.shopvox.com/. I was researching this last month so I looked at a few options. The thing I didn't like about ShopVox was the user fee. If you have 4 different departments, you need a minimum of 4 accounts. That adds $40-80 a month which I thought was expensive.

[Chris J Anderson]

I've been using since 1996 a local (to Western Australia) program called BizzWizz.

If you google bizzwizz Australia you'll find it.

It does really nice inventory, invoicing, job tracking, quoting etc.
It also manages orders, ledger, creditors etc.
The inventory section has awesome features when you have assemblies of multiple parts.

It might also be attractive because of the Aussie / US dollar rate.

As said, I've been using it 20 years and it is a very reliable program with lots of features.

It has a free 30 day fully working trial version.

[Martin Boekers]

How are you doing estimates/invoices/PO's/banking/etc without QB?

I do think you're going to be disappointed in the inventory control and especially in the job management. QB is an accounting software more than anything else. So if you're looking for something like:

Receive Order -> Take Payment -> Order Parts -> Send Proofs -> Get Proof Approval -> Production -> Package -> Ship

You're not going to get it.


It sounds like you really are looking for something like http://www.shopvox.com/. I was researching this last month so I looked at a few options. The thing I didn't like about ShopVox was the user fee. If you have 4 different departments, you need a minimum of 4 accounts. That adds $40-80 a month which I thought was expensive.

Through spreadsheets and "Fill in Order Forms" I send as quotes then print out when approved... Pretty backward I know... But that's all I've been allowed to use for years.
Everything be hand except for the limited and I mean limited financial software to enter inventory counts and purchases... :(