Business software for artists????

[JDeMoss]

I need some serious organization (it's hard to take over the world with sticky note records). Does anybody know of a really really good software program designed for artists. I'm talking about one that keeps track of sales, potential customers, sales tax due, galleries that have consignment work, etc. etc. etc. Basically a program that keeps track of everything that I need to keep track of.

Any ideas?? What do all of you use for keeping track of all your records/info/etc.
And even though your all glassblowers, I know a few of you have your shit together, so let's here about it.

Thanks

[jello]

Hey Jesse,

I would be happy to code you a program that will do just that... wanna trade?

[BlueDevil]

I use quick books pro here, It held inventory, custy lists, contacts, taxes and some shit i never used. I don't really use it now that the supply store is empty. Hope this helps.

Lee

[dboblitt]

You can do some really cool stuff with Excel. You can use to make just about any tracking program you want. I had to use it for class to create tracking for a product family of over 45 parts and then in the same program use it to plan and control the prouction for a 10 week period. Took a crazy amount of time but cool end product.

[vetropod]

Quicken for Small Business: http://quicken.intuit.com/small_business.jhtml

[skip]

Quicken 2005 premier is a good one. I hear quickbooks works great too...

No reason to reinvent the wheel and program something from scratch....

[jello]

Quicken 2005 premier is a good one. I hear quickbooks works great too...

No reason to reinvent the wheel and program something from scratch....


well that depends on if you want to pay all the fees involved with big company software.. yearly fees, update fees, upgrades.. what if you want custom fields?.

i use a personal app i wrote in c++
i dont have any cost for the software, Im not into using M$ products and sure is hell not going to pay them a arm and a leg for Excel every year. and Quickbooks is a joke. you cant even cut a company check unless you buy the mod and pay a monthly fee to boot...

so im not really trying to reinvent the wheel just make it affordable and have a tool just for glassblowers.

quickbooks(pro) std, all have their pros and cons... more cons then pros.
just my 2 pennies

[Cosmo]

well that depends on if you want to pay all the fees involved with big company software.. yearly fees, update fees, upgrades.. what if you want custom fields?.

i use a personal app i wrote in c++
i dont have any cost for the software, Im not into using M$ products and sure is hell not going to pay them a arm and a leg for Excel every year. and Quickbooks is a joke. you cant even cut a company check unless you buy the mod and pay a monthly fee to boot...

so im not really trying to reinvent the wheel just make it affordable and have a tool just for glassblowers.

quickbooks(pro) std, all have their pros and cons... more cons then pros.
just my 2 pennies

I'd be interested in something like that...

[skip]

YEah I hate fees too. Hell I hate paying for anything lol... I have never used quickbooks, so I am not familiar with any add ons.

http://isohunt.com/torrents?ihq=quicken

[christopher]

\ Quickbooks is a joke. you cant even cut a company check unless you buy the mod and pay a monthly fee to boot...


quickbooks(pro) std, all have their pros and cons... more cons then pros.
just my 2 pennies

That's simply not true. If you set it up correctly, you can print checks for anything anytime you want. Yeah, you've got to buy paper checks if you want them to look professional (but you don't have to buy them from Intuit). However, what makes a check a check is the information and the signature. If you wrote all the proper information on a 2x4 and took it to a bank, you could cash it (they'd probably hassle you, though, but in the end that's how it works). So really, you could just print a check on 8 1/2x11 and it would be a live check.

If you screw it up, quickbooks produces meaningless garble.

But set up correctly and maintained, it is an extremely powerful tool. It's like a sewer. You put shit in, you get shit out.

.02

[Primathon]

It's like a sewer. You put shit in, you get shit out.
It's been my experience that when you put gold in, you get gold covered in shit out. Not to say that QuickBooks doesn't work, because I've seen it in action and it's a hell of a thing, but that it doesn't work spectactularly well. I feel it's poorly coded (or at least appears to be on the surface), and suffers from the inevitable bloated feel of programs as they evolve without major restructuring.

But in the end, I suppose it works. Good analogy, BTW.

[flamebob]

I have Act and its a great database manager. It intergrates with my quickbooks, fedex and a bunch of other programs. Helps to reduce the stick-note clusters.

[Alfred]

Check this program out (http://www.workingartist.com/)

[Tzonis]

One word. ACT, it is a fantastic program that does some of what you are looking for. A standard in many industries.

[revere glass]

Quickbooks

[canaan]

I actually use a mysql database driven program with a web front-end. Since I have several linux servers in the office, it's not a big deal for me, and I can access it from anywhere, anytime, and daily backups are automatic. Obviously not the ideal solution for everyone, but I keep track of 4 seperate businesses transactions in one nice little package, and everything has its own database. I've coded it myself, it's nicely done, and best of all dynamic. Fields are added or removed with ease through the web front end, and it provides dynamic reports as well.

I'm sure the prepackaged accounting software is nice, but it's not actually specific to my accounting needs. I prefer this. It easily handles inventory, fuel expenditures, a/r, a/p, taxes (quarterly estimated) and even projected sales based on past transactions, with dynamic reports as well as input fields (you can add more). May be a bit more overhead in setting up, as far as time goes, but the finished product is much nicer than quickbooks, or god forbid any microsoft crap.

[susheke]

I sell both wholesale and retail

I use Quickbooks

I use paypals invoice wizard that lets me send a quickbooks invoice with a paypal button.



But, I'm on a pc. Does quickbooks even work for a mac?

[UmaJulz]

hisss, suzy, you should know better than that!

QB and Mac... this is not the dark ages any more!

[colonel4bin]

I don't find quickbooks to be the best program for an artist. I have the Working Artists Software and it works really well. I make a lot of my own stuff with excel, very usefull tool if you know how to use it.

[Dale M.]

Go to GOOGLE and search "EXCEL applications" or "EXCEL templates" and see what comes up..... There is tons of "applications" developed in EXCEL available just for the download.... May save some development time...

Dale

[susheke]

I live under a rock Julz, lol.