Luc Latulippe

I haven’t tried it myself but there is a decent review of Cashboard at FreelanceSwitch

It seems at my cursory examination to have pretty much everything you are asking for.

Thanks for the tip about Cashboard. Unfortunately, I find it’s a lot like the rest of the Freshbooks/Blinksale-style knock-offs out there, and offers nothing new or innovative. And again: no way to input expenses. Frustrating.

For folks who want a direct link to Cashboard:
http://www.getcashboard.com/

ps: I’ll admit Cashboard has one nice feature: a Dashboard/Yahoo widget for time-tracking. That’s a step in the forward-thinking direction.

Don’t know how it handles all you need but check out MarketCircles ‘Billings 2.5’

It’s gorgeous. It surely works with time tracking and invoicing…not sure about the rest.

I don’t use it (yet) but I do use Daylite and it has a great OSX interface.

xo

http://www.billings2.com/

Yup, listed Billings above. I found it too clunky.

I have yet to find an accounting program for Mac since MYOB…so I bought ...augh….gurp…..a….pc. Then put Quick Book Pro on it.

Great article, spot on, there is not a perfect solution. I have been using Billings 2.5 the last 2 months and I am going to stick with it.  I totally agree with your review though.  Way to complicated and annoying than it should be.

I haven’t been in the freelance pool for several years now, but when I was, I used iBank & iBiz (formerly known as iWork) from IGG.  Not as powerful as QuickBooks but it had a great interface and was very stable.

http://www.iggsoftware.com

Hi, Luc,

For some free alternatives, you might want to try Turbocash or GNUCash.

For Mac, there’s also Grisbi.

I have a longer list at http://sme-in-a-box.org/BusinessApplications/Others The site is still a work-in-progress, though.

Hi Luc,

Great post/article. I’m on the Mac and for over 7 years I have used Filemaker Pro Contacts Estimates and Invoice templates that I have modified. I have an old version of Filemaker Pro 6 on my G5. It does not have some of the features you want but if you have Filemaker it’s practically free. You can save the multiple page invoices as a PDF directly from Filemaker.

Get them here off my website for free!
http://www.jaymontgomery.com/illustratorforms.html

I’m more tech than illustrator, but if you or someone you know can operate and maintain postgresql, Apache, and a CGI-Perl application,
http://www.ledgersmb.org/ is free and Open source.  It can email pdf invoices, manage multiple currencies, taxes, unlimited vendors or customers, automatic reoccurring billing, Inventory, warehousing, general ledger, etc.

Disclosure: I’m one of the developers on the project, and just stumbled upon this via drawn.ca ...

I’d like to chime in, in defense of Billings. While I admit some areas can be pretty frustrating (like customizing an invoice via it’s buggy and intimidating template editor), it’s been very easy for me to track time and expenses, as well create and track invoices.

The terminology of “slips” versus “invoice” is because “slips” are just items that you are tracking. Later, you select the slips you’d like to invoice for and make an invoice. One of the benefits to doing this separately is you can track time that isn’t invoiced to see if you’re losing money on a client.

To track expenses, you create a new slip and instead of choosing “timed” or “flat rate” or whatever, choose “expense.”

So, for a typical web client, I might have four timed slips—say, “graphic templates,” “html/css,” “CMS integration,” “beta testing”; an expenses slip, say “stock photos”; one slip not invoiced, say, “client meetings.”

I know one man’s meat is another’s poison and all, but I was surprised to hear the confusion between the slips and ability to track expenses since it was one of the biggest draws for me to Billings.

I second the iBiz recommendation. Not perfect but pretty good.

I’ve been using iBiz for about two years, now. It may not have everything you’re looking for but, like a couple other comments mention, it’s pretty good.

Thanks for sharing all your tips and suggestions folks! I’ll look into the other apps you mentioned and test them out to see how they feel

@ Jay Montgomery:
Thanks for those links to your business documents! These are wonderful. I considered looking into Filemaker, but wondered if it was more than I needed. I’ll check into it again though. (I also downloaded trial versions of Apple’s iWork programs, with the hopes of using their spreadsheets app; that’s how I used to track invoices/expenses years ago.)

@ Richard Medek:
I’m happy to hear you’ve mastered Billings! I just didn’t have the patience. As with anything though, there’s going to be a learning curve, like it or not. You’re right to have stuck with it until you had it figured out.

I added this EDIT at the bottom of the post, but in case anyone missed it, here it is again:
EDIT 2: John Critz from Blinksale emailed and said they’re currently working on adding the ability to input expenses AND time-tracking! He didn’t give me a date, but hopes to roll these features out in the next two months.

Thanks for this list…I’ve been searching for an alternative to QB for ages.  By the way, you might try a file-conversion service to turn your old file into a file that’s compatible with a newer version of QB. 

http://www.4luvofbiz.com/custom/FileTransfer.php

I had this same exact problem. Quickbooks accounts for mac was a joke. It turns out that this Canadian version was actually a rebranded version of MYOB, and had nothing to do with the *real* verson of Quickbooks.

I found that the best option was to install bootcamp on a new iMac, and run Quickbooks Pro on the PC. It works pretty well. Almost all bookeepers and accountants can use your files, and does everything on your list and a lot more.

Has anyone tried to install GnuCash on Mac?

Thanks Tahuti. For anyone interested, the URL to GnuCash is here: http://www.gnucash.org/

Actually, this looks like it has everything one might need. What confuses me and might keep me away, though, are notes like this:

For the Microsoft Windows operating system there is a self-installing setup program which includes all necessary additional libraries.

To install GnuCash on other platforms, users will need Gnome 2, guile, and slib. Neither the currently used swig nor the previously used g-wrap packages are needed anymore when compiling from tarball or when installing a binary. (my italics)

Um, I don’t know what the shit that means. I don’t have “Gnome 2” or “Guile” or “Slib” and I’m not sure I care to download them in order to download GnuCash.

...

(15 minutes and one download of GnuCash later):

I now have a GnuCash folder on my desktop that contains 45 items in it, and not one of those is the actual application. As I find is often the case with Open Source projects, this is a mess of stuff that only the most tech-savvy will venture into.

Sorry GnuCash. Zero stars for you, because you complicate the crap out of me.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to wade through many of the same apps you list above, and ended up with TimeNet from AppleSource.

I needed something really simple and easy to use, and found that while not specifically an accounting app, it offered all the features i wanted, without all of the extra bulk of the beefier programs.

It does a great job of keeping track of my clients, their projects and *gasp* expenses for each project. It offers customizable invoices that you can manage easily with different categories and archiving.

Each client has a profile where you can, among other things, change the currency.

it doesnt hook up to your bank account or write checks for you, but it does keep all of my work/time/money straight and with a pretty robust support forum monitored by the developer, any performance issues are pretty swiftly addressed by him or the community.

and it’s cheap. $45 or something.

Thanks Suzie! For anyone interested, here’s the URL for TimeNet: http://www.applesource.biz/software/timenet/

I’ll definitely check it out.

I thought I was on crack because I was the only one that hated every piece of accounting software out there.

It’s nice to know I’m not alone. So I’ll definitely keep posted to see if you find something that’s great. Not good, not “OK”, but great.

Also, it would be cool if the app had a way of letting one create a template with logo and artwork, in either full color or grayscale.

I’ve been using Studiometry (along with Accounted) from Oranged software for the past few months, and they’ve been working out very well for me.

http://www.oranged.net/

I’ve had the same problem and find it strange that no mac based writer has managed to put something together that is simple and intuitive. I don’t really want to learn accounting 101 to record my incomes and outgoings!
And many don’t offer GST/VAT recording - needed for us in Oz, and those in UK/NZ I think

I am also in search of an appropriate accounting software for Macs.  I have searched a long time to find almost no one talking about FileMaker Pro except for Apple. 

Maybe I will go to my Apple store and set up a Procare appnt to review FileMaker.  I like the features, but from what I hear,  the good news is you can customize everything.  The bad news is you must.  No click and use right now?
Ugh. Appreciate Jay’s biz docs as a place to start.

I will check out the recommendations for Oranged, Timeless and iBank, maybe a few others. 

I wonder if most people don’t want to spend so much on $ software.  I mean, that’s why we need it!  Also, Mac devlopers are right brained techies- that’s what I like about them generally.  So maybe money is just too left brained? 

Thanks for all the help everyone. I’ll let you know what I decide.

Thanks Jessie. I downloaded a 30-day free version of Filemaker, and have only played around with it briefly. It’s an amazing program, but it’s totally ungainly for my needs. Personally, I prefer something simple and straightforward. But I know that many people do use it and call it a favourite. I’m waiting (impatiently) for Blinksale to make those improvements they mentioned. (Drums fingers on table)

Luc,
On the 7th, we released AcuInvoice.  It does most of what you want and, unlike some of the others you have mentioned, we are in VERY active development at the moment and would more than welcome whatever feedback and feature requests you have.  We are releasing the first version of an API today, opened a user forum yesterday, and started to support domain mapping late last week (something that is, to my knowledge, unique in this space).  It takes constructive criticisms from people like you to improve these products, but as importantly the developers must listen.  We’re listening and responding quickly, so I’d encourage you to check us out.  If you like our service, great; if not, post some constructive criticisms and we’ll likely respond.  Thanks for a great post.

...and I forgot to mention that our service is entirely free at the moment.  That always helps :)

Thanks Sidney, I’ll take a look at it and see how it goes.

I’ll have to post a follow-up to this first article, maybe with some graphs and pie-charts or something.

Here’s another online invoicing app I just found:
http://www.simplyinvoices.com/

It’s bare-bones though, and doesn’t do anything more than the others mentioned above. Like a few of them, it also have support for Basecamp, if this turns your crank.

Luc,
One thing that I’d note about many of these applications (ours included) is a desire to keep the core functionality simple, but provide others (or the developers on behalf of the subscribers) the ability to extend the functionality of the application through the use of the API.  This allows the developers to really focus on the application’s core functionality and avoid the slippery slope that can be scope creep.  For example, one of our early adopters just yesterday asked us if we had plans to develop some sort of universal form generator that could interact with his AcuInvoice account.  He wanted to have a form that customers could fill out and have the order automatically passed to AcuInvoice; his reasoning was that this would save him time because his customers would be filling out all of the contact information, etc.  We told this customer that we had no plans to make this part of the core application, since most subscribers wouldn’t utilize this feature and it would just be another item sitting unused somewhere in the menu hierarchy.  However, we all agreed that this would be a good feature for a certain segment of users and have decided to put it on our development roadmap as something that could be implemented in conjunction with the API.  As a result, we’ll probably have a lightweight PHP script that subscribers can stick on their server and have it easily interact with our service.  The net result is extended functionality for the more advanced user without the bloat that would be associated with building into the core application.  We are developing similar plans for time tracking (we think this makes more sense as a desktop widget that interacts via the API) and other features that some, but not all, subscribers will use.  I’d be interested to hear feedback from you and your readers on this line of thinking.

Seems like the comments field of this thread threatens to become an area for accounting software companies to advertise in. I may put the kibosh to that.

Another option would be Billable (http://clickablebliss.com/billable), similar to Billings. I haven’t used it extensively, but it seemed to work rather well during my trial use of it.

Try Studiometry.  My 30 trial has been going very well and it’s been a pretty good fit so far.