Godplace/Mission238 forums

Open Discussion => Consumer Issues => Topic started by: SippinTea on May 22, 2016, 04:52:46 AM

Title: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: SippinTea on May 22, 2016, 04:52:46 AM
I'm looking for a new system for bookkeeping and invoicing for our new business venture. Up until now, paypal and an excel doc worked fine. But it's quickly getting unmanageable. I tried the free trial with Zoho, and I really liked most of what I saw, but they have NO options for pay-and-print shipping labels. And I really need that, since it would be a total waste of time for me to be copying addresses and names into USPS or paypal for every order. I'm in the process of getting Square up and running (for credit/debit at farmer's markets at such, primarily), but does anyone know if Square has a pay and print shipping option?? If so, I can just go with that. If not.... I need some suggestions/recommendations.  :-?

:beret:
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: Lynx on May 22, 2016, 11:10:20 AM
Wow, I didn't know your business was so booming. Congrats!


Sorry, no experience with this. But if business is that good... are you hiring? :D
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: Lynx on May 22, 2016, 11:31:12 AM
Okay, a quick google found something. (Protip: Instead of googling "freeware (program you want)" google "Linux (program)" and see if they have a windows version. These days if you google "freeware (program)" you get a lot of trial offers for payware stuff.)  Of the following choices I found, eMadar looks like the best bet, followed by dolibarr.

gnucash is a freeware accounting software.
https://www.gnucash.org/

eMadar is an invoice management and crm suite. Get all the programs or just the parts you want.
http://www.emadar.com/

dolibarr is a web based business management suite with tons of addons. The dolibarr-made addons are free, but there are some third-party addons that cost a bit.
https://www.dolibarr.org/downloads

Of course there's also tryton... learning curve is high, but I'll throw it out just in case you're more of a nerd than I thought. I know I'm not nerd enough to try it... :cool:
http://www.tryton.org/
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: Lynx on May 22, 2016, 11:33:23 AM
Oh, and since they are all open source freeware you lose nothing (except of course time) downloading and trying them. ;)
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: SippinTea on May 22, 2016, 04:13:24 PM
Thanks! I'll check those out as soon as I can (I.E. No sleeping baby on my lap).

It's quickly getting to the point we WILL need to hire more help.  :updown:

:beret:
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: Lynx on May 23, 2016, 02:02:50 AM
By the way... Do you just need a basic label printing program? Because those are all over the place.

If you need a program that prints labels from your records, you might try LibreOffice spreadsheets and/or database for keeping your business records. A bit more cumbersome than dedicated accounting software... but it can print labels directly from the charts. :D  For the record, LibreOffice is the freeware answer to Microsoft Office. And it works a lot better than modern versions of MS Office, according to... well, everyone who uses it.

Just a thought.
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: SippinTea on May 23, 2016, 02:41:33 AM
Okay, so I checked all the above links, and I'm not seeing any with the specific feature I need integrated. Ideally, I'd love something that would be able to handle clients/vendors/inventory/bookkeeping/invoicing/shipping all in one neat package. But maybe I'm asking for the moon. :/ Zoho was looking great, but the missing element was integration with USPS pay-and-print. Or click-and-ship. Or whatever they call the service. You know how with, say, Ebay or Amazon or really any other online selling stuffs, you can push a button or two and pay for the shipping and have a label printed with the info the customer provided? That's what I need. When a client pays their invoice, I need to be able to push a button and have the label print with the correct (paid) shipping and their address. I've been using Paypal for invoicing and pay-and-print, but that's not bookkeeping or inventory service, and while an excel doc has been working for small amounts of clients, it's not going to work much longer. Which is really a GOOD problem to be having. :)

:beret:
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: SippinTea on May 23, 2016, 02:47:37 AM
I just found this: http://www.shipstation.com/partners/square-ecommerce/

I THINK that's the missing link I needed to make Square fully functioning the way I need it to. Maybe. Gonna do more digging.

:beret:
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: Lynx on May 23, 2016, 01:18:57 PM
*Lynx sniffs around the square and sneezes at the payware.

Sorry.  *sniff* I'm allergic to payware programs.

I was concentrating on freeware, but I don't think any of them will provide all you're wanting in one package. Glad you found what you need.

And I'm glad you have such a good problem. Reminds me of the problem AT&T has with too many users. Verizon tries to make hay out of AT&T's dropped calls in advertisements but Verizon WISHES they had AT&T's problems.
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: SippinTea on May 23, 2016, 03:45:03 PM
Well, I'd definitely rather have a free option. But I'm willing to pay to get what I need at this point, because it would make life a whole lot simpler. My brother had attempted to get me set up with a free option, too, but since both of you are pretty much saying the same thing... that what I need doesn't exist in a free option... well. Learning programming in order to make my own might take too long. :P

:beret:
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: Lynx on May 23, 2016, 06:21:36 PM
But... But... But that's the Linux way.  If you want something and it does not exist, make it yourself.  And then post it in the repositories for other people to use. And then spend a lot of time adding feature requests from other users... 

Okay, yes, it's probably better just to get a payware option.
Title: Re: Bookkeping and Invoicing products
Post by: SippinTea on May 23, 2016, 07:17:46 PM
Yes, and I love that in theory, but it's not working so well for my busy life just now. LOL!

:beret: