Here’s a little problem I stumbled across today 
You’re working for a client on an hourly rate. There’s no allowance for expenses.
For a particular task you know it’s cheaper for the client if you buy some software to do the job (even taking the software cost into account). It’s unlikely you will use the software for any future work and there’s no expenses allowed, so the price of the software comes out of your pocket and not the clients.
Do you:
- Not buy the software and charge the client for all the time it takes?
- Buy the software and lie about the hours spent on the job, inflating them to cover the cost of the software?
- Buy the software out of your own pocket and bill the correct hours taken?
What would you do?
As I’m sure many of you have experienced, one of the first challenges when you set up your own design business is keeping track of everything to do, how long you’ve spent on tasks, client and project details, and who’s been invoiced (and not paid).
Being a bit of a software junkie I’ve been looking around for some software to use, which will take care of project & customer management, time tracking and invoicing. To my surprise all the software I’ve found is designed for Macs - iBiz, Studiometry and iRatchet.
Studiometry is the only one offering a version to run on Windows XP, and I’m currently trying it out. The trouble is, it feels like a dead product - the front page of their website announces that version 4 will be released in late July, and it’s now the end of August. I also entered a pre-sales ticket to test the support time, and have had no response in over a week, which is not a good sign.
I also don’t want a remotely hosted solution, such as sidejobtrack. I know hosted solutions are spoken of as ‘the future’ and are becoming increasingly popular but
- Client data is sensitive data (eg passwords)
- My internet connection goes down sometimes, or I have to work away from an always-on connection.
A locally hosted solution would be another option (indeed I could write it myself). This time though my reluctance is to do with the interface - I still like the responsiveness and ease-of-use of a desktop application. I also don’t want to spend the time reinventing the wheel. However, I’ll certainly consider locally hosted solutions!
So… what are the options available for PC-based developers? I guess Mac users were the original one-man businesses offering design and development services, which is why they have these programs.
I’m not changing operating system just to use iRatchet - I’ve bought way too many Windows-only software licenses!
What do you do?