Software for managing the buisness (Mac)

[Worm324]

I was curious what software you all use to keep track of customer, invoices, costs, profits, ect....

I would love to be able to do this all with 1 program that has email integration built right in so i can just email the invoice right from the program and stuff.

I have a MacBook Pro now so I'm not to familiar with the available programs that are good for this kind of thing?

Any thoughts or experiences would be greatly appreciated

Best,
Jay

[Rodeoshooter]

Jay,

I use photostudio a program I helped design and write. It is no longer available but since I designed it, it fits me very well. Downside for you is it is a windows program based on Alpha 4 database program.

I know there are many out there though. I do know a lot of people in different businesses use the one advertised on TV and I can't think of it's name. I have heard many complaints because it can't be modified and they require yearly updates to make it work.

I would look for the photo based programs. If you use a pro lab they may have one or options on one for you.

Originally Posted by Worm324

I was curious what software you all use to keep track of customer, invoices, costs, profits, ect....

I would love to be able to do this all with 1 program that has email integration built right in so i can just email the invoice right from the program and stuff.

I have a MacBook Pro now so I'm not to familiar with the available programs that are good for this kind of thing?

Any thoughts or experiences would be greatly appreciated

Best,
Jay

[brian.austin]

I've used StudioPlus and like it. It does all of that except its Mac compatibility requires you to jump through a few hoops. Basically, they want you to run it from a PC with MS Terminal services or emulation. I like its integration and we've used it from marketing through order fulfillment with Miller's. It does web galleries as well. Your accountant would like the fact that it exports to QuickBooks or does its own accounting in a fairly standard format.

Successware runs on both Mac and Windows but I have no experience with it.

Google "photography studio management software" for a comprehensive list.

[Worm324]

Thanks Guys

Best,
Jay

[Songman45]

Is there an office suite for MAC similar to MS Office? No direct help here since I'm a Win/Offcie user. I use the database program and the word processor. Since its a suite, the programs work together. I'm not done with every element of the database [its a labor of love and a work in progress] but I have facilities for customer trackng and contacting, sales ledger, AP/AR, suppliers and inventory. Its not perfect but so far it does what I want and generates what I need and is customized totally to suit me.

If you've got some know-how or some learn-how about you, you may find building your own from the ground up more workable than hammering your round business peg into a prepackaged program's square hole.

[brian.austin]

As an IT consultant and small business advisor, I generally recommend going with a canned program vs getting something customized. I say this both as a former app programmer, a business owner, and an IT geek.

You're right: you get exactly what you want and how you want it.

The drawback is that you're stuck with it and every single extra feature beyond the basics has to be added by you. Want detailed A/R reporting? Build your own. Marketing lists based on zip codes? Build your own. Integrate the accounting package to feed into Quickbooks so your accountant can look at it? Build your own.

If you have the fast, expert experience, this isn't terrible...but ultimately it takes the owner AWAY from his/her primary responsibility: growing the business and not the support systems. Every hour you spend developing your application is an hour you'll never get marketing, selling, or shooting. Those are the only three things you'll do that generate income.

I know some businesses doing just fine with some good Excel spreadsheets and integration with Word. That's all they use while generating $1M worth of business moving product. If it works, great. I know others that have $100,000 database systems with a full time programmer and only $750,000 annual income. They feel they need it. Okay, if that's where you want to put your money.

QuickBooks will do the basics and costs only $200 for both Mac and Windows. Depending on your margins, that's easily earned in a few jobs or a wedding. The products I linked above are higher priced...but tailored specifically to a small studio environment. You pay extra for that but in many ways, it can be worth it. I know I wouldn't do a school shoot without StudioPlus at this point. Tethered shooting, database tie-in with student IDs, barcode scanning, and easy interface turned a 25 student class into a 15 minute experience. We actually had teachers complaining because we were too FAST!

[Worm324]

Thanks guys for the info

I ended up getting Quickbooks a few days ago. So far I think it's going to work out pretty good for my needs. It's incredible powerful I have to say. I'm not really sure what features I need, but so far I added a few customers and printed a few invoices. I don't really understand why there is a separate invoice, payment received form, and a sales receipt?

It seems I need to create the invoice to get it into the system. Then I use the payment received form to show the money coming in. Then I guess I would print off the sales receipt for the customer. Kinda strait forward i guess, but I just have no experience with this type of stuff.

I need a few training videos or something I think

Best,
Jay

[Worm324]

double post

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by Worm324

Thanks guys for the info

I ended up getting Quickbooks a few days ago. So far I think it's going to work out pretty good for my needs. It's incredible powerful I have to say. I'm not really sure what features I need, but so far I added a few customers and printed a few invoices. I don't really understand why there is a separate invoice, payment received form, and a sales receipt?

It seems I need to create the invoice to get it into the system. Then I use the payment received form to show the money coming in. Then I guess I would print off the sales receipt for the customer. Kinda strait forward i guess, but I just have no experience with this type of stuff.

I need a few training videos or something I think

Best,
Jay

Quickbooks is a double entry accounting system. An Invoice means someone bought something but they haven't paid for it yet. It's recorded into Accounts Receivable at that point. A Payment moves the entry from A/R to an income account. The receipt is for the customer, acknowledging the payment.

Understanding some basic accounting would help here. Money moves into "buckets" and gets transferred from bucket to bucket depending on where it's going (in, out, bank, etc.). Each bucket is a general ledger account within your system. If money moves from one bucket to another, it needs to be subtracted in the first account and added to the second account...hence the name "double entry".

Quickbooks makes a lot more sense once you can get your head around that.

Glad you found something that will work for you. Now is the time to make sure it's set up correctly, though, so if you get too confused, get an accountant to help you out. It would only take a few hours to get you comfortable with it and the accountant would make sure it's started the right way. Starting wrong and having to go back to fix everything involves a LOT more work for everyone and costs more money in the long run.

[Songman45]

Wellcome to the wonderful world of standard bookeeping practices. You may not have a lot of times where the payments for your products and services are spread out, so separate invoices, payments and receipts might seem to be unnecessary. For a lot of reasons businesses need a paper trail. Everyone in business is a supplier and a customer. There are some basic forms that are generally acceptable so that everyone in the chain can keep up. Most everyone in the chain exccept the retail seller has terms for payments (COD, net in 10, net 30, net 90) and they have a continuing relationship, like a restaurant who has a produce supplier. Maybe the restaurant is on net in 10 terms with the produce guy and he gets deliveries twice a week. It wouldn't take but a month until neither he or the produce supplier would have no idea what was due, what was on order, what was perhaps past-due, and what was paid for. To help make things simpler there is documentation with serialized numbers that tie everything together, one step at a time. The restaurant begins the process with a Purchase Order it's numbered and the produce guy ties that number, if not the whole doucment to the transaction. This is the form that gives the order legitmacy. Its paper proof that the restaurant officially ordered the produce; it wasn't phoned in by the cook who's having a cookout over the weekend and wants fix-ins for himself at the restaurant's expense.

When the goods are delivered an invoice may come with them and be signed off as an acceptance. If the items are delievered by an outside shipper, then a shipping ticket will be included. Accepting the shipment equates to acepting the goods as ordered. The shipping ticket or the invoice should list what actually was delievered, what was not and indicate if its coming later. The invoice is not a bill in and of itself. However a COD customer may pay from the invoice, adjusting it and scratching figures here and there. A signed copy of the invoice is returned to the produce company, any adjustments or payments are made to the account. Then the bill can go out. Essentially the bill includes what was ordered, what was shipped, what was accpeted. There will also be the current billing, any balance owed and the total due on the account.

In a lot of cases paymetns and billings go back and forth for years. So every step gets its own special piece of paper. Not the least important of these is the reciept or payment record. If the ball gets dropped at any point in the game there is documentation. The reciept pretty much closes a transaction.

Some businesses do such a volume of business they employee a clerk who deals with accounts receivables and another for payables. And why all the detail? There are a number of reasons to know from moment to moment what the finances are. Taxes might be filed quarterly and no one wants to pay more of those than are due; they don't want to be caught short changing the tax man either. Perhaps the company needs a loan and the banker wants to see the company's condition. Stockholders, partners or the guy's wife might want to know how the company is performing.

Your computer program works using the same standardized book keeping system that has been adopted and used for decades. This is a good thing. You may find yourself in a position where you have to present reports to a professional bean counter. Now you can look on paper just as well organized as any business running.

Your sales may all be straight forward COD with only a few payment types accepted and pretty simple to track; the receipts may serve only to tabulate your revenue from sales. But you may have suppliers like paper comapnies or ink suppliers who extend you terms. You never know when you may have clients to whom you extend terms. Make your book keeping complete and standard while you are small and as you grow your headaches will be fewer and less severe.

I hope there is something in all that babble that helps. I think there are some "Idiots Guides" and "For Dummies" books on both general book keeping and Quicken. Best of luck in your business ventures. I hope you make a lot of money and can realize your profits.

Steve

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by Worm324

I don't really understand why there is a separate invoice, payment received form, and a sales receipt?

It occurred to me that QuickBooks also has a point-of-sale interface that can bypass these extra steps while still making entries into the correct accounts. It may or may not apply for you but it's something you might research.

[Worm324]

Thanks guys for your input and thoughts!!

I think I'll pick it up pretty quick, it's just so new to me. I have zero accounting experience so it's very odd to say the least. You guys cleared it up some for me

I'm really small time so I don't think I need all the features, but can certainly use a few

Question:

A customer wants a portrait session. I charge $100 dollors for that. So I would add the customer to quickbooks and then create and invoice for $100 and put it in accounts recievable?

Then when the customer pays me I would create a sales recipt for the customer and I need a recieved funds entry of some kind and I need to put the funds somewhere. In my case I put it into the undeposited funds category.

Then when I actually deposit the funds I would add the funds to the checking account by depositing the funds in Quickbooks? That part is confusing to me. I ended up having multiple deposits for the same invoice somehow? Clearly I did something wrong, but I'm not sure what it is.

I entered about 5 invoices so far in this manner and when it comes to actually depositing the funds I have more than there should be.


Also, I have a new policy where I'm requesting a 50 dollor deposit for my portrait sessions. So I would again make an invoice for the customer for $100. Then when I recieve the check for $50 I need to add that to recieved funds area, but I still need it attacthed to the origional invoice somehow? That part I have no clue how to do.

In any event I found a few web sites that offer some tutorials that should help me out

Thanks again guys!!

Best,
Jay

[JimH]

PM sent

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by JimH

PM sent

Out of curiosity, why do people do this?

The person receiving the PM will see it. The person sending the PM knows he/she sent it. For a PM, this is enough to close the communication loop.

And now the rest of us know it when we didn't have to and (apparently) it has no relevance to us or can't contribute to anyone else's education here.

[JimH]

Exactly ... just to mess with you Brian.

Actually PM'd Jason to give me a call and walked him through it on the phone as I was feeling WAY to lazy to type it out and possibly lose something in translation.

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by JimH

Exactly ... just to mess with you Brian.

Actually PM'd Jason to give me a call and walked him through it on the phone as I was feeling WAY to lazy to type it out and possibly lose something in translation.

Whatever. You were talking about me behind my back, weren't you? Thought so. It's all a big conspiracy. You just don't LIKE me and I'm too good for that. I don't NEED you then. So there.

LOL...seriously, I really didn't get it. But thank you for playing.

[JimH]

Come to think of it .. your name DID come up in conversation.

Also, and since I forgot to address it in the last post, it wouldn't be the first time I sent a PM on an internet forum that somehow didn't go through to it's intended recipient; or that the recipient wasn't notified. (or they were ignoring me and just couldn't handle it)

[brian.austin]

Originally Posted by JimH

Come to think of it .. your name DID come up in conversation.

Also, and since I forgot to address it in the last post, it wouldn't be the first time I sent a PM on an internet forum that somehow didn't go through to it's intended recipient; or that the recipient wasn't notified. (or they were ignoring me and just couldn't handle it)

I'm going with the last. Technology never fails.

I actually said that with a straight face.

[Worm324]

Thanks Jim and Brian for your help

Brian, Jim basically walked me through the proper way to use the program for my needs. Turns out I was doing lots of extra steps I didn't need and within a few minutes I was right on track

Jim, I fixed all the errors and all my accounts are squared up! Thanks again for your help/ time

Best,
Jay