[Got Snow?]

Hello,
What software do you guys/gals use for manageing your business? Last year i used excel, this year i'm using Act!. i have about 40-50 residential customers and am thinking to include landscaping in the other seasons.

Act! is good, lots of contact info, good note keeping and a ton of other stuff (it's geared towards sales) but there's no invoiceing capacity.

Excel was good because i could move/group diffrent clients as needed (say to set up a sub route) but i'm thinking theres got to be something better.

Is it better to use 2 programs (quickbooks & Act!?)

thanks! :feedback

 

[J&JProperty]

Software

I've been using Quickbooks for about 4 years now, it works great for us. Big thing to remember is make sure what ever you use, your accountant will use it also. With QB you can customize invoices and set clients up on individual terms, pricing, etc. For routing I just use a generic excel or works spreadsheet

 

[snoboy1970]

Quickbooks was a little to expensive for me so I use Quicken, which I think is maade by the same company. It does my invoicing,statements, customer list and even does estimating. I also keep the company checkbook and accounts payable on it.

 

[gvlawncare]

Software

I use GroundsKeeper Pro. The main thing I use it for is landscaping, but it works excellent for snow stuff too. Adkad is the company that makes it, and they also make "BlizzardBuster", a scaled back version of GK. It is fairly close to GK but it doesnt have the pesticide tracking and things like that, that you dont need for plowing. The Thing I like best about it is the invoicing. It produces a very professional looking invoice that is easy for the customer to pay from. You can download a free trial at their website. I believe it is: adkad.com

I used to use quickbooks, and I think this is much easier and faster. It is geared toward lawn/landscape/snowplowing, where QB is very general, and could be used for any business....

 

[Got Snow?]

Quicken/Quickbooks

can you print out plow routes? add notes to customers? or do you still use a database software as well?

 

[wyldman]

We use Quickbook Pro for invoicing and financial stuff.Good old MS Excel for everything else.

Got Snow - Quickbooks allows you to add notes to customers,but no route sheets.There may be a way to do it,but I'm not familiar with it.

 

[John Banks]

We use Quick Books Pro for everything, and as Wyldman said, you can make notes about customers, etc. and you can input all of the contact info. My wife uses QB and ACT for her business. She likes ACT, since she runs a network and it updates everything instantly when any of her employees make notes/changes/additions. She also likes it for the level of detail and the amount of info she can include.

 

[wyldman]

Quickbooks Pro is networkable too.You do need a separate copy for each machine though.

 

[John Banks]

Ture Wyldman, but it can reside on one computer and then the other locals can access it one at a time. Works OK in my wife's office this way as she has one person who does billing once a week, the other does AR daily and my wife taps in as she needs.

 

[BRL]

There is a company (or even more than 1 nowadays) that markets software that works seamlessly with QB to do the scheduling & other things we want to do & still use QB for the accounting end of the biz. Can't think of the name of it off hand, but maybe someone else will.

 

[nben]

Clip is designed to work with QB and QB Pro. We tried a demo version this spring and it worked pretty neat. It is fairly expensive for the version we would need for the amount of customers we currently service (more to do with summer work than winter), so we didn't buy it........maybe next year.

 

[Lawn Lad]

We use QB for the accounting functions. I use Microsoft products for everything else. Excel is my primary tool for handling customer information. For contracts, I made a spread sheet with almost all of the variable information and then mail merge it into a word document. Takes all of about 5 minutes to input the information and print a contract that is customized for the prospect.

 

[CNY Joe]

I use filemaker Pro for all invoicing and contact managing along with Act 6.0.

 

[D&T Repair]

I use Quicken Home & Business, and am converting over to a program that I am designing, using MS Access.
Allows me to keep record of virtually anything that one can imagine!
Notes/maps/databases/invoicing/reports/income/vendors/etc...

David

 

[Mark Oomkes]

We are switching to Alocet's Qxpress. I'm not sure if this is the one BRL is referring to. So far it is very easy to use, much easier than Clip and also more reliable. You can do routing, scheduling, job costing and it has a Contact Manager. You can invoice through QX or transfer to QB and invoice from there. QX is cheaper than Clip, you don't have to buy numerous modules to do what you want.

I would strongly discourage Clip, there have been some major problems since their latest upgrade\version. It's too bad, because I used to really like it.

 

[BRL]

That's the one I was talking about. I've seen posts & articles that gave it good reviews. Good luck with it, & keep us posted.

 

[W-n-K Landscaping]

David- How is the switch going? Last time I looked at Access it seemed way to monstrous for me and my little operation, but I'm rethinking that now and wondering if I might be better off setting it up now while I am small so that it can grow with me. Are you finding it fairly easy to import everything you want so far?

Just curious- I'm thinking I might tackle some "software remodeling" in my slow times this winter.
Thanks for your response!

Bill

 

[pro property]

I use "My deluxe invoices and estimates"
Works well so far. But it just does invoices and estimates.
For a small business it is good. Keeps track of customers,sales, tracks sales and money owed... Alot of other guys I know recomend the quick books. It is a little more indepth I believe.:canada

 

[D&T Repair]

David- How is the switch going? Last time I looked at Access it seemed way to monstrous for me and my little operation, but I'm rethinking that now and wondering if I might be better off setting it up now while I am small so that it can grow with me. Are you finding it fairly easy to import everything you want so far?

Just curious- I'm thinking I might tackle some "software remodeling" in my slow times this winter.
Thanks for your response!

Bill

Bill, so far the switch is going smoothly. Everything from Quicken can convert to Excel data, and the Excel data will import into Access, or just link to Excel, either way works just fine.

Access is a huge program, as you might know!

The great thing about Access, is that you can make it do pretty much anything you want, other than do the plowing for you
It also helps that I am MOUS certified...
I'll post an example on my website when it's complete, so anyone can look at it and use it if they like.

David

 

[windmill]

Hey David did you miss an E after the MOUS? Just kidding.
I like the thought of a program that will do so much and look forward to you samples.
We use Simply accounting but I don't find that it does everything I would like it to do.