Electronic Invoices for one man show?

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Mule

Mule

Senior Member
Location
Oklahoma
Doing mostly smaller jobs, papers papers papers is my worst enemy. Since MOST customers these days have email, is there any one emailing invoices from the truck or otherwise? I've tried taking my lap top wich has wireless internet, but Im thinking about a hot rod plam pilot or something..:) Just needs to be a larger screen than a iphone, since Im blind...haha My supplier emails me all invoices nightly, and/or I could jot it down on the palm pilot at point of sale......Is anyone doing this, and does it work ok?
 
Oh come on:smile: nineteen views and no comments......Im just trying to think outside the box.......bad idea?
 
Lap-top, air-card, Quickbooks Pro. And remember the sage advice offered on this forum, always collect from res. service calls prior to leaving. (A rule I frequently break because most of my customers are established with the company). Good luck out there, and stay safe.
 
i have a few regular customers that I e-mail invoices to by request. On routine service calls though, I use carbon-copy invoices I had made with my logo, address, etc. . . from the local print shop. I don't think what you're proposing is a bad idea, its just easier for me to jot down on the pad what I did and give them a copy, versus firing up a computer, typing all the info, then logging into my e-mail, etc. . .etc. . .
 
I have the triplicate invoices I use currently, but Ive also been using a excel "home brew" invoice that I made. It automaticaly calculates markup, fuel upcharge, labor totals and the like. Has all of the terms on it, remit payment too and so on..... Its so handy....

Knock on wood, I just dont have much problem with non payments and I snail mail invoices all the time. I was just thinking quick books pro, or Ive heard that they make a "excel light" version. If I had a palm pilot I could show the customer the invoice on the screen, collect the money, and hit send. Then all of the data would not have to entered a second time on some computer like you have to do using hand written invoices.....just a thought
 
George Stolz said:
Mule, check out Streamline's truck. Any questions? :)
Click to expand...

YEP that's what Im talkn about....And as Marc mentioned in that thread, spending the time to enter data is on the customers clock not yours.

All I need is a printer, I already have a inverter in my truck, but its SO noisy, as the muffin fan is just about on its last leg.....wonder if they make a 12v printer?
 
You might look at the following: http://www.worktrack.com/default.aspx

They provide an application that runs on Palm (maybe others) which allows you to create a Quickbooks integrated invoice, email it, and even receive credit card payment... all before you leave the customer's house (if you believe the sales pitch). I was intrigued enough to see a live demo about a year ago (their office is nearby) and it looked pretty compelling.

However, it required a lot of pre-work in getting Quickbooks set up with all the data needed so that the Palm user could enter the items (material and labor) from a drop-down list. For example, if you did a service call that took 2 hours of labor and you used 10 different types of material (e.g. 1g cut-in box, 14-2, wire nuts, device, plate, breaker, etc.), you would have to have all of those parts and labor pre-loaded into Quickbooks so they were available on the Palm device. Once everything was pre-populated... it really appeared to work just as advertised. Before leaving a service call you could email the invoice, receive credit card payment - and it's already entered in Quickbooks.

The reasons I haven't adopted it are:
1) My Quickbooks does not yet have all the thousands of material items loaded into it, and I'm not sure how the application would handle that.
2) We don't do a ton of service work so it's not really our focus.
3) Palms are pricey and don't want to buy new ones too often if they are fragile.
4) And perhaps the biggest reason - I'm not sure it would be easy and user-friendly enough for the guys in the field to actually use it instead of just writing up a service order.

Would love to hear if anyone is actually using it.
 
I'm thinking they were the company I visited before, had a salesman call me... a bit pricey for me.....

If I have a counter invoice from my supplier, I just enter the invoice number and the amount into my excel sheet and it calcs the markup based upon the amount of hours. If I pull the parts from inventory on the van, Ive been talking to my supplier about having a van inventory excell sheet that the supplier will update for me every 30days. Then I just select the item and enter the quanity and wala.....sounds easy anyway:wink:
 
Mule said:
Doing mostly smaller jobs, papers papers papers is my worst enemy. Since MOST customers these days have email, is there any one emailing invoices from the truck or otherwise? I've tried taking my lap top wich has wireless internet, but Im thinking about a hot rod plam pilot or something..:) Just needs to be a larger screen than a iphone, since Im blind...haha My supplier emails me all invoices nightly, and/or I could jot it down on the palm pilot at point of sale......Is anyone doing this, and does it work ok?
Click to expand...
I would love to see your Caribou with the satelite dish tywrapped to his antlers. Can you send a pic?
 
quogueelectric said:
I would love to see your Caribou with the satelite dish tywrapped to his antlers. Can you send a pic?
Click to expand...

YOU are harlarious...I figured you would say "plow horse"
 
electronic

electronic

I use a program called hindsite ties back into office and quick books. totally paperless.
Works great totally customizable.
 
I am planning on doing something similar, although I don't know that I will email the invoices. I refuse to use quickbooks though, as I despise their business tactics of only renting you software. I have built up an Excel workbook with a full inventory page that has the items I use with price where I can use vlookup on my main invoice to auto populate it. If I use something not in my inventory, it's very easy to add it into the inventory page. I just haven't made my invoices auto number yet, not as easy as it would seem. I use a moto Q phone, so plan on creating a virtual private network that I can tunnel back into out in the field via my phone and create the invoice on the fly. Most of my service is warranty work for our builders, so no need to print out on the job. True service calls I go on, I use the ole tried and true carbon system.
 
We E-mail invoices all the time to repeat customers, real estate, and out of town corporate organizations. [The owner has an electronic T&M invoice similar to the triplicate forms used in the field that he made up on his own in Excel. The invoice is password protected and sent with email reciept verification.
It is nice to do the job, leave and later fill in an invoice from home and e-mail it to the client and owner. They will sometimes get a hard copy mailed if it is a company that will be processing the payment.
As a standard procees to reduce trips to the shop, we also scan all our field notes from surveys, walk thrus and such and send to the owner. Then he can email pics, notes, and a copy of the proposals to the guys in the field so that they can either print out or leave on the computers for reference. It saves alot of wasted paper laying around in the trucks and also keeps the info handy for any of us. You never know who might do a trim out on the house you wired and have a few issues [we also use a camera for digital records]
 
I've started this week and have done all my job's via excel email invoices, its sure nice. I get my daily counter tickets via email that night. Plug in the ticket amounts and number, and any inventory I used from the truck, and the man hours...and "bloop" there it goes off into digital land. Then I enter the invoice amount into Quicken as "due" and post date it, then it flags me in 30days if it hasnt changed status. BUT I still carry hard triplicate forms in the van I have some one that looks shady...:smile:
 
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