Computer Software

[sosa]

Hi all,

I'm currently a small company with myself, an apprentice, and another electrician and currently i write down all apprentice, electrician and job hours in a book. As work is getting pretty manic i'm in the process of taking on another electrician and a electricians mate and so was wondering if anybody had some information on some software that i can use to make my life a little easier. Something that i can keep a record of hours on individual jobs and hours worked by employees mainly but am willing to look into something that also does invoicing and quotations?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Essex1]

Hi all,

I'm currently a small company with myself, an apprentice, and another electrician and currently i write down all apprentice, electrician and job hours in a book. As work is getting pretty manic i'm in the process of taking on another electrician and a electricians mate and so was wondering if anybody had some information on some software that i can use to make my life a little easier. Something that i can keep a record of hours on individual jobs and hours worked by employees mainly but am willing to look into something that also does invoicing and quotations?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Try Workflowmax. It is an online software program.

 

[flyingsparks]

I use workflowmax and find it very good. Only downside is there is no way to back up the data to my own PC, so if the company decided to jack it in, or went bust all my data is gone..

 

[cjard]

That probably isn't true in the "impossible" sense of "no way to", only in the "no provided way" senses

As a software engineer Im reasonably confident that your data could be extracted from their site again, because anything your computer views on a site is downloaded, it just needs some transformation effort sometimes

 

[Diyisfun]

You could use 'Excel', if you are familiar with it should only take a few minutes to design what you want, its simple to change & easy to manipulate the data.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Only downside is there is no way to back up the data to my own PC

WorkflowMax allows you to import data into its various services or export from them should you wish to backup your data or migrate to another service.



And http://community.xero.com/business/discussion/77051

 

[flameport]

if the company decided to jack it in, or went bust all my data is gone..

Missing data wouldn't be the issue in those circumstances - the problem is what to do with the backup, given that the site or application it came from would not be available any more.

 

[JohnW2]

- the problem is what to do with the backup, given that the site or application it came from would not be available any more.

You can export your data into CSV format at any time. http://www.workflowmax.com/contact.aspx[/QUOTE]
Assuming that the structure is specified, obvious or 'workoutable', one could do what one liked with CSV data.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Except, sometimes, open it with Excel.

 

[JohnW2]

Except, sometimes, open it with Excel.

Under what circumstances will Excel not open a CSV file?

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Sorry, sloppy post.

Except, sometimes, usefully open it with Excel.

I've seen apps create .CSV files which are just rubbish when opened with Excel.

 

[JohnW2]

Sorry, sloppy post. ...

Except, sometimes, usefully open it with Excel.

I've seen apps create .CSV files which are just rubbish when opened with Excel.

Oh, sure - as I wrote ....

Assuming that the structure is specified, obvious or 'workoutable', one could do what one liked with CSV data.

However, if they were rubbish when opened in Excel, they would presumably equally be rubbish when opened with anything else.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Not necessarily - the rubbish I've encountered has been a formatting one, where somehow each field has ended up with two double quotes around it

""<field1>"",""<field2>"",""<field3>"", and Excel doesn't strip them out.

 

[JohnW2]

Not necessarily - the rubbish I've encountered has been a formatting one, where somehow each field has ended up with two double quotes around it
""<field1>"",""<field2>"",""<field3>"", and Excel doesn't strip them out.

OK, but if that happens, and Excel can't cope, one has to use some other application to parse the data accordingly (for subsequent processing by itself, Excel or whatever). It's certainly not an unsalvageable situation.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

No, just a PITA