I looked at all kinds of billing systems, and ended up writing my own. I found there was always something missing that i needed - the ability to price a line independently of all the others, or the ability to use a currency other than AUD for example, or be able to send a copy of an invoice where the client alleges he never got it. At least one feature i needed was missing from all the systems i looked at.
So I wrote my own. It's not all that difficult. You need a means of putting line items into an account ready to be billed - software sold, hours worked, domain names registered, etc etc. Then you need a separate way to query that account and assemble those line items into an invoice, do the arithmetic calculations, prepare a PDF of your invoice and email it to the client. Then you need to be able to send copies to people who dont pay you because they allege they never received the invoice, Next, you need a way to keep track of who's paid you and who hasnt. And lastly you need to be able to produce reports for tax and other purposes. All involve adding records to a table, and/or querying the table and displaying them in one way or another. There is no fancy processing required or ajax or flex or any of that. (although there are things you can do to make it all slicker and sexier using tools like ajax and flex) but its fairly straightforward from a coldfusion point of view. I have a clients table, a price list table, a recurring charges table (for my hosting accounts and domain name registry - to handle the repeating monthly/quarterly/biannual/annual charges) and an invoices table. Thats it. It took me a day to write and test my invoicing app, and a total of about half a day since then for tweaks and mods i've made At first, i tried to be cute and tie the hours to be billed in my invoicing to a little time counter app i have, but that never worked because i dont always bill exactly the hours i work on a project. For example some projects i record the hours but bill a fixed price. Or if it's maintenance work, some of the work is billable, some isnt. It all got too complicated. So instead i have the time-tracking app (called Trax-Time but it would suit an AIR app perfectly) running separately, and i use the reporting stuff in that to tell me how many hours i've spent on what, then i handle billing separately. It takes me a total of about an hour a month to handle the routine billing tasks. I say all this not to brag, because i dont think its anything to brag about, but to make the point that it's not that hard to get exactly the billing system that suits you rather than have to change your business systems to suit some one else's idea of how your business should run. It's simple and does precisely what i want it to, and no more. And if my business model changes in any way i have the stuff to change my billing system to match the new business model. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia Adobe Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com ColdFusion, PHP, ASP, ASP.NET hosting from AUD$15/month On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 1:25 PM, Jason Durham <jdur...@cti-stl.com> wrote: > Thanks for the links. Unfortunately none of those have a billing > component to it. I like Project Tracker and may consider adding the > billing stuff myself. > > Jason > > -----Original Message----- > From: John M Bliss [mailto:bliss.j...@gmail.com] > Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 4:51 PM > To: cf-talk > Subject: Re: CF-based freelancer time/billing system? > > Have you checked out riaforge.org? Some possibilities...? > > http://lighthousepro.riaforge.org > http://projecttracker.riaforge.org > http://pronto.riaforge.org > > On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 4:47 PM, Jason Durham <jdur...@cti-stl.com> > wrote: > >> I'm looking for an inexpensive tool to keep track of time logs for > side >> work. Specifically, I'd like to be able to setup automated billing > and >> allow the customer to view progress on their project. Google landed > me >> on ProWorkFlow.com which seems to fit the bill, however it might be a >> little more than I need. 5GB of storage at $200 a month is excessive, >> IMO. >> >> >> >> Are there any other less expensive (or open source) projects out > there? >> >> >> >> Jason >> >> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:316947 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
