Hi I haven't been on the forum for a couple of days and I was reading about how Matt wanted some small business software. I can remember seeing a software program that was designed for rod builders. I have just found it Rod Maker Pro and it looks pretty good for a small rod building business for the amount it costs. Here is the website [application-software.com] . What you have to remember that with the cheaper small business programs like Quick Books, MYOB ect if you want them to manage your stock and invoice is once you get a few hundred stock items in them is they slooooow right down to the point it gets really frustrating. You can forget about a couple of thousand stock items. That would not be hard to use that many if you build rods fulltime and use a lot of different components from different manufacturers and suppliers. Or if you sell components as well as build rods. I use a expensive program to manage and sell stock (invoice and order) that you can have an almost unlimited amount of different stock codes and descriptions and use a cheaper program over the top to manage tax (income and sales), accounts (debtors and creditors), general ledger ect. Only because the expensive program is to hard to use and the cheaper one I can do myself.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2008 10:32PM by Simon Oakley.

Quick Books Pro provides some enhancements that make better use of indexing and searching and is much improved in performance over previous version. MYOB lags behind in this regard. At the higher end are the database-based applications, like AccPak. But part of the performance disucssion has to include consideration of the computer you're using - HDD capacity and speed, memory capacity and speed, etc.

If you are a full-bore parts supplier, or have a really huge inventory of parts just for use in building your rods, yes, you ,might need a specailty application. But that's not what it sounded like he wanted. The issues with specialty apps are integration with the rest of the financial systems and ease-of-use - most of them are overkill for a small rod-building shop, and the cost and setup time can be a bit much.

Just some thoughts - maybe it's better to start small and figure out what you really need than to jump right in to something considerably more expensive and complex.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

Thanks for remembering me Simon. I'm not looking for anything to advanced just one single program that combines a general profit/loss ledger, invoicing, inventory, keeps track of customer info and a few other little things. It looks like Quickbooks Pro is the program to go with but I'm not sure if I can justify the price, yet. I might be sticking with my excel spreadsheets and yellow legal pads a little longer.

matt

Just another tid bit for you..... The price is not as hard to justify if you look on @#$%& it is just over $100.00, plug it in and you are on your way.....

One more time ... QuickBooks Pro WILL NOT do parts explosion. You would have to sell a rod as a whole bunch of little parts to clear the inventory. QuickBooks Premier for Manufacturing WILL do parts explosion ... little parts IN and one big item OUT. If you buy the regular version, you are going to get a solid lesson in frustration.