Bookkeeping Programs

[Cy Shuster]

I use Quickbooks and a Palm.  There seems to be a natural division of data 
between customer tracking, scheduling, and accounting.

For example, in Quickbooks, I don't have a full customer database (and their 
customer database add-on is very primitive): I enter most transactions as 
Sales Receipts (since I'm paid on the spot), and use a handful of dummy 
customers: Mr. Cash Taxable, Mr. Cash Non-Taxable, etc.; those totals are 
good enough.  I only enter into Quickbooks the customers who don't pay the 
same day (and those I enter as Invoices).  These are the only ones that I 
enter twice -- and I don't need driving directions, etc., in Quickbooks...

My full schedule and customer database are on my Palm, so my schedule is 
always at hand and current.  On the Palm, you can enter data into the Note 
field on almost any record type.  For customers, I put driving directions 
and service history there (there's a nice shortcut "ds" for "date stamp" 
that inserts today's date; see Prefs | Shortcuts).  Don't forget that data 
flows both ways between the Palm and Palm Desktop, so you can do major data 
entry on your PC and then just sync up.

I looked at Time and Chaos, and honestly didn't see many more features than 
what Palm Desktop has.

Of course, I'm only tracking 150 customers, but I'm still only using half of 
my Palm's 2 Meg of memory.

--Cy Shuster--
Bluefield, WV


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 8:48 AM
Subject: Re: Bookkeeping Programs


> How do you coordinate between scheduling software, something to track 
> piano service history, and Quickbooks. Seems to me like you would end up 
> entering data two or three times.
>
> But that's why I ask - I don't know.
>
> Terry Farrell