Windshield Repair Forum

Curious as to see what software you guys are all using here for your businesses. Are you using Quickbooks, Quicken, Peachtree, ACT? Other CRM programs of preference?

I searched about 2 years back on the forum here and found alot of different programs everyone is using, but in 2 years a lot changes in software preferences.

Also please note the software versions and years of the programs.

We have used ACT for CRM but after switching to Windows Vista, have been in the process of ditching ACT and are looking into new CRM software.

For accounting, sales, invoices, etc, we have gone between Quicken and Quickbooks. Deciding which will suffice.

What are your opinions/favorites?

I use quicken home and business. I find it easy to have my personal finances, my business finances and business accounts (invoices) separete. So it gives me an overall picture of what is going on at anyone time. It has alot of features that I never use as well. The price certainly is attractive as well at under 100.00.

If I had multiple employees with payroll issues I would be more inclined to spend the extra money and get Q-Books.

I write my own software.

I wrote a program for windows that is a Service Invoice program that does everything except payroll related stuff. I may build that functionality into it later. I have full accounts payable, sales history, Work In Process, Invoice Register, Customers, Multiple Tax Codes, Inventory Items to sell (like a part) on an invoice, and you can describe all the labor "story" you want to in an un-limited text field. The invoice can have both taxable and non-taxable items listed on the same invoice. It provides "true" cost of sales against each invoice because you can edit costs and sales figures specific for individual invoices. There are Sales Reports and Tax Reports, AR Reports etc. You can do a "vehicle due for service" search and find all the vehicles that are due for service. They can be due for service based on time or mileage. You can assign a vehicle to a customer, and with that you can develop your fleet customers and their vehicles and manage them easier than any other software I have tried.

It does a lot more, but in a nut-shell, it's a great program. I use it and my dad uses it for his service business and he totally loves it. He could not find anything off the shelf that he could buy that does what he needed it to, so I wrote it for him.
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I have a contact management program that's the bomb! I actually wrote it for my employer and use it constantly all day long in my job. Several other co-workers use it and would now be totally lost without it since its running on my employers server so we all have access to the contacts we develop. It uses key-word searching to find stuff fast. I put EVERYTHING that I need to remember in it, and everyone who uses it adds content to it so over a period of several years, it has grown and become a huge wealth of information that we can all access. We don't just use it for storing customer contact or vendor contact information, but we also use it to help us find "hard-to-find" parts or formulas... pretty much anything goes.

Yikes,... my keyboard is smokin !!! better stop now.

Sneck

Sneck,

Hope you do not mind, but as a "mastermind" I/we are still waiting for it!

SGT, I hope you don't "mind" waiting just bit longer. I've been making some "master" changes to the program so it will appeal more to the automotive and windshield repair industry. As it is now, the program is still more for heavy equipment and industrial applications - like what my dad needed. I'm almost done with the modifications to convert it into an automotive application, so when its ready for release, I'll let you know, and send you a copy to play with and provide some feed back.

Sneck

Now thats what I call "TEAM WORK"! Kudos to you sneck....you're a good person!

Sneck;29224 wrote:SGT, I hope you don't "mind" waiting just bit longer. I've been making some "master" changes to the program so it will appeal more to the automotive and windshield repair industry. As it is now, the program is still more for heavy equipment and industrial applications - like what my dad needed. I'm almost done with the modifications to convert it into an automotive application, so when its ready for release, I'll let you know, and send you a copy to play with and provide some feed back.

Sneck

Put me on the list, as I would gladly pay for something like that.

To us that aren't programmers, hopefully others will chime in on the software they use.

SNECK!!!!!!!!...your ALIVE!!..good to here you are still around...will it work on smartphones??...right now I am using Q-books on my laptop and lowfat software for my invoices

sneck, with your programing knowledge and skills, what's a smart guy like you doing bent over a car windshield?

If he feels the same as me, having fun this is the best business I have ever owned. Not the most profitable but I am now finished for the day and it is 12.36 UK time. 4 screens repaired and PDR on 2 cars that will do me for a days work. I know lazy old git.