Invoicing software.

[Beaver]

I need something for book keeping/invoicing ect. Simple and free are ideal (or easily available on the DL). What is there out there? If it makes any difference it will be for consulting/engineering.

[jfost]

everyone we met with for my wife's consulting biz says Quick Books is the (cheap, not free) way to go...

[m-ruta]

I use harvestapp.com for my on the side contracting stuff. It's got a free plan (not obvious, you have to do the trial account thing and then "upgrade" to it) and it does a good job of keeping things organized and making professional looking invoices with very little effort. My dad also uses it for his rather more complex systems consulting and likes it.

[adrenalated]

I have found Quickbooks to be well worth the money, FWIW.

[StopMakingSense]

I'm a QuickBooks pro advisor and work in in it 40hours a week as a bookkeeper for a ton of small businesses, just get QuickBooks, it's the industry standard

[stuckathuntermtn]

Yeah, but it's fucking annoying.
I say get Access. Yeah, flame away.

[jamal]

I tried some of the free online add-ins for google and they basically all sucked and wouldn't do simple things. Using quickbooks and like it just fine.

[RShea]

Unless you want a time and project tracking package, then you should at least look at Quickbooks. Most all small businesses start with that until they find a major reason to get into a "Real" accounting package (which is usually a huge price increase).

There are a few "Quickbook Alterntives" in either Open Source (free for download)
http://www.osalt.com/quickbooks

or a few other paid packages (Sage is the main company for higher end Accounting software): Peachtree and few others that are licensed.

[Alpinord]

I need something for book keeping/invoicing ect. Simple and free are ideal (or easily available on the DL). What is there out there? If it makes any difference it will be for consulting/engineering.

What platform? If Mac: iBiz . You can add project(s) to each client and bill/invoice by phases of the project.

[::: :::]

I'll second Harvest for timesheet/invoice software
we use it with good results for a 2-person office
our accounting is very simple (in terms of business accounting)
free for first 30 days, then a reasonable fee per month thereafter
http://www.getharvest.com/

[Shredhead]

Who has the best moblie app for an Iphone?

I replaced Sage Business works with Peachtree and am not real happy with Peachtree.

[AdironRider]

Do you really want to do bookkeeping on an iPhone. It's what I do and I think that would be a major pain in the ass. Quick books is like a couple hundred bucks, is form based, and well worth it. It's your business but I wouldn't cut corners.

[::: :::]

Who has the best moblie app for an Iphone?

I replaced Sage Business works with Peachtree and am not real happy with Peachtree.

not to appear to be a fanboi, but Harvest has an phone app that synchs well with the computer app

to be clear, you don't do your invoicing via the phone app, just the timesheets and expenses (altho you could via a browser)
i'd agree that the actual bookkeeping and invoicing is best done at a desktop

[Shredhead]

I just want to do order entry and be able to send my customers a confirmation from my phone. I'd like to cut my time in the office to a minimum.

I use logmein remotely on my laptop now. But it doesn't work nearly as well on the phone and laptops are to big to take skiing, biking, etc.

[TBS]

Another vote for quickbooks. Invoicing is the easy part - it's all the stuff that you have to do after - collect the money, remit VAT, pay income taxes, etc - that you need to work through. A simple acctg system like QB will do all that for you, and will easily handle other tasks like tracking costs by engagement.

Don't use Intuits payroll service though

[DHogg]

Xero is great, but there are cheaper alternatives around. Everyone over here is using Xero these days, not sure if its popular or regularly used in the US though.

[Colorado_Freeskier]

I've used both PeachTree and Quickbooks extensively. PeachTree is a massive POS with, by far, the worst interface I've ever seen. Quickbooks is much better and easy to use. Also, you may want to look in to using an web-based solution (QB and others)...think they free versions which may limit your number of customers and version that will run $10 month.