Invoicing software

[RossJarvis]

Anyone use invoicing software which is very easy to use by an idiot and that will work on an old mac and iPhone 4?

 

[RobinBHM]

I got this software for my wife to do her piano lesson invoices

I dont know if there is version for Mac

I searched for ages to find a nice straightforward programme that just did invoices. Also a lot of software companies are moving to online only applications with monthly charging not a 1 off payment.

The Sliq invoicing plus version also has a design feature so you can upload logos etc

http://www.sliqtools.co.uk/

 

[RossJarvis]

I got this software for my wife to do her piano lesson invoices

I dont know if there is version for Mac

http://www.sliqtools.co.uk/

Thanks Robin, unfortunately it's not Macable and since my hard drive crashed I can't run Windows stuff on the thing.

really what I'm after is a very simple programme like you mentioned which just produces invoices, I'm really not interested in the online super duper stuff that links up with your bank account etc. I'm also a lot less interested in paying for anything :shock:

 

[JSW]

https://www.openoffice.org/

Any experience with spreadsheets? Wouldn't take long at all to set up an invoicing speadsheet with a few sums to account for quantity/description/sub-total/ VAT etc. I've used it for accounting in the past, once the template (incl. Logo etc) is created, running off an invoice is a five second job.

 

[RossJarvis]

https://www.openoffice.org/

Any experience with spreadsheets? Wouldn't take long at all to set up an invoicing speadsheet with a few sums to account for quantity/description/sub-total/ VAT etc. I've used it for accounting in the past, once the template (incl. Logo etc) is created, running off an invoice is a five second job.

Am currently avoiding doing this in spreadsheet mode as I really don't want to remember how to format a spreadsheet to my liking and work out a way of automating invoice numbers and so on. That's what I'm currently using. I want someone else to have done the work not me :x

 

[MrTeroo]

I got this software for my wife to do her piano lesson invoices

I dont know if there is version for Mac

http://www.sliqtools.co.uk/

Thanks Robin, unfortunately it's not Macable and since my hard drive crashed I can't run Windows stuff on the thing.

really what I'm after is a very simple programme like you mentioned which just produces invoices, I'm really not interested in the online super duper stuff that links up with your bank account etc. I'm also a lot less interested in paying for anything :shock:

If you mean boot camp won't run, try a free virtual machine like virtual box

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

I would recommend QuickBooks basic. Pick up an older one user copy on eBay

Not sure why you want it to work on your phone?

 

[RossJarvis]

If you mean boot camp won't run, try a free virtual machine like virtual box

Boot Camp will run but I no longer have the details of purchase or key codes for Windows, Microsoft have no record of me owning any of their stuff that they're admitting to and I can't afford to buy lunch, let alone new or secondhand software!!

Having stuff accessible on the phone is easy to enter details when on site or motorway service stations where the laptop can't come. This helps as memory in the head rarely lasts till I get home.

 

[jimmy_s]

Have a look at Zoho Invoice

 

[MattRoberts]

I use freeagent - it's online so will work on anything. Very good in my books

 

[MrTeroo]

QuickBooks do an online version for around a tenner a month

https://www.quickbooks.co.uk/accounting-software/

 

[RossJarvis]

Thanks for the help guys

 

[petermillard]

It’s something I look for periodically, but the costs for a one-man-band sole trader are pretty wild (or maybe I’m just cheap) especially when you have to commit to monthly fees just to keep your account active.

Out of interest (for those who subscribe to a service) do you know what happens if you decide not to continue with it? Can you still access your invoices, client data etc if you’re no longer a subscriber...?

@ the OP - I think you’re complicating things a bit by wanting an iPhone app as well as a Mac app; this implies (to my limited knowledge of these things) a degree of back-end syncing that may be beyond smaller software delevopers. Could you not make job-related notes in the errr Notes app and copy these details across to your Mac invoice app? Notes syncs between devices, so they’ll be on your Mac already...

Can’t help you with a Mac app recommendation (I use QuickSale on an iPad for invoices) but Bee Invoicing (beeinvoicing.com) looks interesting, £7 Mac or PC, iPhone and Android app in development apparently.

Might be worth a look?

Cheers, Peter

 

[Eric The Viking]

@Peter M.: is QuickSale from the same stable as QuickBooks?

Quicken products used to be really brilliant years ago. I've no idea how they have changed since the era of mobile devices, etc.

There's no substitute really for spending a little while learning how to use a spreadsheet, It's not hard, especially if you have someone to guide you, and they are so useful, for estimating, calculating materials and making cutting lists, etc. Once you have got the hang of it (and it really is easy - honestly!), you'll wonder how you got by without.

As regards using something on both a PC and mobile devices, I use Google Docs a lot (Google Sheets is the spreadsheet part), and it is surprisingly good, and totally free. You can use that on any device that has a modern web browser (all desktop machines unless really antiquated, tablets and both Android and Apple mobile phones, possibly even the Windows ones too), and you'll see exactly the same documents in your account, irrespective of the device you're using when you log in.

None of these things are completely obvious to use, no matter what anyone tells you, and they all work slightly differently depending on what sort of device you are looking at them with (desktop/laptop, mobile phone or whatever), so you do need to set aside a bit of time to get used to them. But it will pay you back quickly.

Also, you probably can do auto-numbering of invoices in spreadsheets, but there are really good reasons not to do that, too. For a start, you probably still need to track the numbers independently, in case you have a tax inspection, and if you scrap an invoice for some reason, you probably would rather not have a gap in the sequence.

Personally, I'd use a spreadsheet, make up a layout I like, keep a master, and copy that to a fresh file each time I have an invoice to do. And I'd change the sequence number manually. There's nothing to stop you putting "instructions to self" in the spreadsheet, say in bold red lettering (that you then delete before printing), and one I'd put would be "Check invoice number and date!".

If you get to the stage that you want a full accounts package,* It's probably sensible to switch over at the start of a tax year, so that it's easy for anybody doing an audit to follow. I'd say "take your accountant's advice" on which package to use, except that one well-known British brand of software subsidises small business accountants to recommend it, and it's a product I really hate using (and accountants probably do too!). Try a few packages, and go with the one you find easiest and most suitable. Don't write off the USA stuff either: it's usually cheaper, and as long as it's proper double entry, it will work here too**.

Whatever full package you use eventually, as long as it will let you export into "CSV" format or "XML" (or something similar), you can re-import your data to something else if you ever decide to change software. Accounts systems that don't let you export data in standard formats (like those) should be shunned as you can end up trapped into using them forever.

HTH, E.

*again you can do accounts in a very simple spreadsheet, too, for free.
**you can't use US-specific tax reports etc. in US software products, but you ought to be able to set them up fairly easily to do VAT (as a sales tax). There used to be a vast price difference, making the inconveniences (which you get used to anyway) worth the effort.

 

[petermillard]

No, QuickSale is a totally different product, from an iOS developer - https://www.visionaryware.com

I do think that the whole accounting/invoicing/time-tracking software has become a bit of a racket, what with the monthly ‘subscription’ charges making it hard to move away. Doesn’t sit right with me - but then like I said, I’m cheap...

 

[MrTeroo]

It’s something I look for periodically, but the costs for a one-man-band sole trader are pretty wild (or maybe I’m just cheap) especially when you have to commit to monthly fees just to keep your account active?

Cheers, Peter

Not wild at all

When I started my business in 2001 I bought QuickBooks basic for £99

I'm still using it. Excellent ROI

 

[JSW]

There's no substitute really for spending a little while learning how to use a spreadsheet, It's not hard, especially if you have someone to guide you, and they are so useful, for estimating, calculating materials and making cutting lists, etc. Once you have got the hang of it (and it really is easy - honestly!), you'll wonder how you got by without.

Also, you probably can do auto-numbering of invoices in spreadsheets, but there are really good reasons not to do that, too. For a start, you probably still need to track the numbers independently, in case you have a tax inspection, and if you scrap an invoice for some reason, you probably would rather not have a gap in the sequence.

Personally, I'd use a spreadsheet, make up a layout I like, keep a master, and copy that to a fresh file each time I have an invoice to do. And I'd change the sequence number manually. There's nothing to stop you putting "instructions to self" in the spreadsheet, say in bold red lettering (that you then delete before printing), and one I'd put would be "Check invoice number and date!".

Totally agree Eric, spreadsheets are an absolute Godsend once you get your head around inputting sums, conditional formatting etc etc.

And a definite +1 for using a master template, it IS possible to auto-number the invoice, but as you said, that has it's own problems, same with the date- inserting the

=TODAY()

function into a cell will bring up todays date, but that's no good for archiving, re-opening an old invoice would still display todays date, easy enough to change by adding the ACTUAL date of the invoice ie: 04/11/2017.

 

[Eric The Viking]

It's a good point, MrTeroo: last time I was running my own business with any degree of enthusiasm was in the mid 2000s. I dusted off some DOS accounting software from way back around 1986. It worked, and still does, even now, just fine, with the minor niggle that you can't use a networked printer, as it pre-dates PC networking! But it was really, really fast! My master copies were on 5 1/4" floppies, wich was a bit interesting, but now that it's on a hard disk, I'm good for the future, probably.

It's also amazing how much functionality there is in such a small software footprint: Full double entry, stock control, invoicing and reporting in roughly 1MB - i.e. 1/10th of the storage that one of my camera images usually takes up!

The principles of double-entry bookkeeping haven't changed for two centuries. For easily-auditable accounts, that's what you need - not all the frills you get from many packages. As long as you can get data in and out somehow they're good enough.

And I agree with Peter. There are a lot of small businesses out there who feel trapped by their accounting packages. They often don't represent value for money, and I am absolutely certain that some of the big names put product quality a long way down the priority list, profit-per-client being uppermost.

But I agree on QuickBooks too - it used to be brill. Glad to hear it still is.

 

[petermillard]

It’s something I look for periodically, but the costs for a one-man-band sole trader are pretty wild (or maybe I’m just cheap) especially when you have to commit to monthly fees just to keep your account active?

Cheers, Peter

Not wild at all

When I started my business in 2001 I bought QuickBooks basic for £99

I'm still using it. Excellent ROI

Good for you. But that’s not something you can do now; as I said above, the accounts/invoicing software racket has largely gone to a monthly-subscription format - quickbooks ‘self-employed’ plan would cost £54+vat for the first year, and £72 +vat for each subsequent year, so your 16 years of using quickbooks would cost over 1100 quid.

Pretty wild, if all you want is an easy way to do invoices - which is where the OP was coming from.

P

 

[MrTeroo]

Yes, you can.

Buy a second user copy of QuickBooks single user from eBay

 

[RossJarvis]

@ the OP - I think you’re complicating things a bit by wanting an iPhone app as well as a Mac app; this implies (to my limited knowledge of these things) a degree of back-end syncing that may be beyond smaller software delevopers. Could you not make job-related notes in the errr Notes app and copy these details across to your Mac invoice app? Notes syncs between devices, so they’ll be on your Mac already...

Cheers, Peter

Knowing nothing about these things I thought it might be a handy thing to have, such as when miraculously coming across a person owing you money on site who "never received that one feller" can have the thing poked straight into his face as proof.

In the short-term I've actually re-learnt how to format spreadsheets and come up with something in LibreOffice. All I need to do now is come up with a way of automating invoice numbers to keep track of things, then work out how to mark them as paid or outstanding. My current cobbled together method of doing this in pencil in the back of my accounting book seems to have too many potential flaws to it.

I am also very cheap and can't invest a penny in software at the moment, something to do with the Chancellor threatening to send the boys round and the income-outgoing surplus being the wrong side of zero.