On 5/22/07, Aaron Roberson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Does anyone know of a good project time management application that > would be good for consulting jobs? I am thinking of something that has > a stop watch you can click to start and stop and automatically > calculate expenses incurred. It would be nice if it had invoicing > capabilities as well.
You're going to get a lot of options -- I certainly know since I've done this hunt for my business and for several clients with different requirements. Personally, I go for web-based which removes the impediment of operating system and installation but adds the problem of having to be online. For time-tracking, there's both Harvest (harvestapp.com) and Tick (tickspot.com). They've got online plus widgets for OSX, google/y!. I think both hook into BlinkSale which is an online invoicing tool. And both hook into BaseCamp. Of course that whole stack adds up to a fair bit of monthly cash (at least $30+/mo for any real number of projects) As an aside, I really liked Harvest out of that bunch -- and blinksale worked great as an integrated package. I personally chose Freshbooks (signup here! https://transitionpoint.freshbooks.com/signup/) which has timetracking, invoicing (mail or email including automatic recurring), payment gateway integration, and basic trouble-ticket and filesharing tools. The cheapest paid account is $14/mo for unlimited projects and 25 clients which seems to work really well. This gets more expensive as you add staff since it's got a per-login charge for staff, but for a solo shop it's great. My QuickBooks integration consists of manually putting in 1line invoices that duplicate the total of the invoice so everything works for my accounting -- though it looks like they'll be adding that soon enough. As an aside, it also integrates into Basecamp and can track time against basecamp projects/todo lists. I *had* used QuickBooks Timer for years, which is an awful little tool (written in VB3 it seems, still 16bit, Win-only, locks occasionally requiring a reboot to turn off the beep/screech) but integrated really well into Quickbooks for invoicing. The once/month 15m it takes to generate the dozen or so invoices in QB that I've already sent out is no big sacrifice in comparison, especially now that I'm on a Mac. > I used to have a similar app on an old machine of mine but it has > since fried (literally went up in smoke) and I can't remember what it > was called or Google it. > > Thank for your suggestions, > Aaron > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Upgrade to Adobe ColdFusion MX7 The most significant release in over 10 years. Upgrade & see new features. http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion?sdid=RVJR Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:278862 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
