Invoicing on a Mac

[JMC]

Hi All,

 

I'm looking for some nice, simple invoicing software, as an alternative to churning them out in word. To make things nice and difficult, I'm a Mac Man...

 

What does everyone use?

 

Cheers!

[Tom R]

A PC ;)

 

But seriously...could you not create something using MS Access? Im no Mac user - just a suggestion. Or maybe Open Office BASE?

[Pete McCrea]

If you want to do a bit more than simple invoicing (Such as accounts VAT returns etc) then try MYOB- Mind Your Own Business. Do a Google and It will come up. The other option would be to get FileMaker and create a Database with the correct forms and use that to keep track of things. MS Access isn't made to run on Macs (Unless it's a new Spangly Intel Mac), and Filemaker is a damn site better. Alegedly. It depends entirely on exactly what you want out of the system.

[mac.calder]

Personally, I would use a spreadsheet, as opposed to a word processor. HOWEVER: Have a look at iBiz - I have never used it, but I know people who do (WEBSITE).

 

The main problem with applications developed for invoicing (which is also their major strength) is that they rely on a database of items - If you are a company with a set pricelist (like a hire company or a venue) then that is fine, however if you are in the creative area of the industry you are less likely to have a set list of items.

[Tom R]

MS Access isn't made to run on Macs (Unless it's a new Spangly Intel Mac),

 

Not MS Office for Mac?

 

I agree with mac spreadsheets tend to be a lot easier to use, but can be a bit messy sometimes.

 

While on the topic (hopefully this isnt OT)

 

A company I know wants to be able to raise invoices with customers that have different levels of discount for different products. What would be the best way to implement this? Short of creating a pricelist for each customer with their respective discount levels...

 

Tom

[mac.calder]

I agree with mac spreadsheets tend to be a lot easier to use, but can be a bit messy sometimes.

 

Provided you are doing nothing out of the ordinary it should be fairly neat.

 

A company I know wants to be able to raise invoices with customers that have different levels of discount for different products. What would be the best way to implement this? Short of creating a pricelist for each customer with their respective discount levels...

 

Many of the applications out there allow you to set a number of different prices for the same product (IIRC MYOB has 6 different sale prices) and you set the pricing structure that each client has. If I was to program it either in an application or as a macro, I would use something like this (in php-ish pseudo code):

 

//In customer lookup code, when querying customer database for information ($RES is the result of the customer query, an array)
$priceStruct = $RES['pstruct']; //$priceStruct is "A","B","C" etc

//In object lookup
$query = "SELECT description, price_" . $priceStruct . " ....... FROM inventory WHERE iid={$a}"; //inventory has columns price_A, price_B etc

[Tom R]

Thanks, will pass this on

[JohnPartridge]

As a fellow Mac user I would add my 2p worth.

 

For my invoices I use Pages ( Part of iwork )

 

Go to templates and select Invoice - Job done ;)

 

If you want more help pm me.

 

John Partridge