Legit Reviews

Does anyone have any idea of a program I can use for my business. Currently I'm using a spreadsheet. But, I want something.. Prettier or better organized.

I need to have a place for Customer Names, addresses and phone numbers sometimes email.
Would like, but not need a place I can scan the purchase agreement under their name.
A place where I can mark profits and company costs along with inventory of a few things.
Things I can use for deductions would be great, but I'm guessing unfeasible. Like mileage and gas. Or pay outs to my employees.

Any ideas?

Use a database for that kind of stuff

Maybe a local college kid would be able to make a bespoke system 'on the cheap' for you as a holiday/side project?

Dan

Sounds like you need an MRP/ERP system, basically they are front ends to databases. MRP will track stuff you make, ERP will track the money side.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise ... e_planning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_r ... s_planning

If this is for a buisness I would start talking to software providers, your going to need dedicated harware and help getting it all setup. Making one from scratch (depending on how big of business) will be an insanely large pain, but if you can find a sharp enough programmer then setting one up for just your needs could be done. Would be easier/cheaper to go with something that is already made. If nothing else for the long haul support and updates.

Would OpenOffice Base (like Excel) do the job?

It's FREE.

He said he had a spreadsheet already, but I think he wants to move away from excel-like programs. MS Access works decently if you take a bit of time to get familiar with it. I haven't used it a whole lot myself, but it is almost like a spreadsheet although you can sort by different items quickly.

As for the size of the business. It's not going to be like a huge corporation or anything yet. But, it does need to be able to be used for 4 offices. About 5,000 existing customers and the only thing that needs to be secure such as their credit and social security info isn't on a computer. I'll keep looking around I figured it would be easier than this.

If you need something like Quickbooks that can do invoices and such, check out gnucash...I use it for my personal finances and it is beyond wonderful. It's also designed for small business use as well which sounds like exactly what you need. GnuCash Business How To Guide

On the other hand, if that's not what you need, check out openOffice Base which is actually more like MS Access than anything else (I think stev got calc and base mixed up ). It's a great piece of database software from what I tell. Just grab yourself a good guide and go from there. Here are a couple tailored for oO Base to start with: [link] [link]

Awesome that program works perfect.