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?
4 comments ↓
One possibility may be http://www.easytimetracking.net/, so long as it’s not too oriented to time tracking. The free version looks adequate - I’ve downloaded it to play with!
OK, Easy Time Tracking didn’t stand up to a 5 minute trial - the problem’s in its name: it’s focused on time tracking. For which, Allnetic Time Tracker would be perfect.
Back to the search for a Studiometry alternative!
We use Studiometry, it works.
Yes, they did not update their homepage for a long time. And yes, they have just released a 4.0 version, an they closed down their support system: guess what that means… it’s probably kind of ‘rough round the edges’. But wait until they release the first update to 4, and open up their support forums, and it should be more or less okay.
I like it, once you get the hang of it it works, you can create invoices rather quickly, I create them in an xml format and then import it into an Indesign template, it’s quite quick. They promise in this version to have a much improved invoice system so the process should be much more streamlined.
Invoices overview is good, you can keep a nice overview of what is paid or not paid, too. Plus, it can be used with more than one person.
The only real con is that it is not a real accounting program: their is no way to book costs that you don’t invoice your clients for, ie to keep track of general business costs. That still is a job for our accountant!
You may take a look at fanurio http://www.fanuriotimetracking.com/ . It seems a nice tool for windows with a nice interface. You can contact them to see how are they responding
Leave a Comment