What project management software does everyone use? I’m thinking about upgrading from my old spreadsheet, and as a lot of people on this forum are freelance designers using mac (like myself), I felt this would be a good place to ask.
As a freelancer, I would prefer not to use Basecamp as I think that it’s better for larger groups, and I would prefer an application on my mac rather than a web-based one. Although if any freelancers find Basecamp really useful, I’d be interested to hear it,
I have used iBiz in the past, and also tried (but never bought)
Studiometry. For more elaborate time planning, I use PMX (now taken
over by Omni, remade as OmniPlan) and Merlin. I find that the need
for these types of tools doesn’t justify their expense in most cases.
I keep them around because they can read Microsoft Project files, and
very occasionally someone sends me one of those.
What I end up using day-to-day is Basecamp. And since I went over
some magic minimum number of projects, I had to upgrade to the plan
that includes time tracking. Which is very nice and keeps out of my
way except when I need it. As for it being suited for larger groups,
Basecamp encourages you to make your clients part of the group. You
can control what they see and don’t see, what they can do or can’t
do, etc. And if you collaborate with other freelancers (say, writers
or photographers) you can add them to a project while keeping them
separate from your company. It’s incredibly well thought-out.
Walter
On Nov 13, 2007, at 2:20 PM, zacbest wrote:
What project management software does everyone use? I’m thinking
about upgrading from my old spreadsheet, and as a lot of people on
this forum are freelance designers using mac (like myself), I felt
this would be a good place to ask.
As a freelancer, I would prefer not to use Basecamp as I think that
it’s better for larger groups, and I would prefer an application on
my mac rather than a web-based one. Although if any freelancers
find Basecamp really useful, I’d be interested to hear it,
I use Studiometry. Since I am a lone wolf I have no use for the tracking of multiple designers which is built in, but it is still a useful feature for design firms. Besides time tracking, it has all the things that a stand alone designer needs for tracking payments, printing invoices, reports, etc. It is a bit pricey but I think you get a lot for the money.
Organed.net also has a book keeping sister application called Accounted. I haven’t tried that, but it may come in handy as it shares account info with Studiometry.
Organed.net also has a book keeping sister application called Accounted. I haven’t tried that, but it may come in handy as it shares account info with Studiometry.
Billings <http://www.billings2.com/> from Marketcircle <http://www.marketcircle.com/> is generally pretty slick and it’s invoice engine is hugely customizable if that sort of thing matters to you. A very Mac-like experience.
iRatchet <http://www.prettygoodsoftware.org/> is full-featured and very useful though not as customizable as Billings or as polished-looking.
Those are my 2 favs.
Todd
On Nov 13, 2007, at 1:20 PM, zacbest wrote:
What project management software does everyone use? I’m thinking about upgrading from my old spreadsheet, and as a lot of people on this forum are freelance designers using mac (like myself), I felt this would be a good place to ask.
For a fuller approach to cover accounting side we use MYOB, this can deal with most things, and keep everything (bank, purchases, debtors) organised not just your invoicing. The highest package tracks time billing also . It handles quotes, orders, and invoicing (converting them at each stage).
We also use FilemakerPro with a database specially designed by me to show at what stage projects are at, and what time it is applied to them.
On 13 Nov 2007, at 19:20, zacbest wrote:
What project management software does everyone use?
MYOB drove me crazy. Every time a new rev came out, they would tout how you didn’t need to know accounting. Well, maybe you don’t need to know math, but you did need to know what accounts each double-entry needed to go into. On top of that, I kept having problems with it printing to weird sizes instead of US Letter. When I stopped by their booth one year at Macworld, instead of answering my seemingly little questions, they told me how I could sign up for their consulting service and pay them more money.
So I found a little program called Accounts from a small Australian company. http://www.nano.com.au/ It’s still double-entry, but I can see the status of all my accounts on launch (I hated the way MYOB didn’t show you any info when you launched it) and it’s simple and it just works.
For time management and invoicing, I’ve been using iBiz. I like the changes in iBiz 3 for the most part.
Another option is that new “personal” database product from Filemaker, Bento. I haven’t tried it yet though. I’ve filled out the form twice to get emailed the download info and haven’t received anything from them.
It is a US program, and US letter is a default. But we manage to print A4 customised forms with no bother, the setting is there. However many of our quotes, sales, orders, are e-mailed now, directly out of MYOB. It handles UK VAT etc with no bother. Recurring transactions when set make almost everything automated and very easy.
Without doubt, if you want to control balance sheets, profit and loss etc, you need to be confident in knowing what you’re trying to achieve and need some understanding. If you don’t know the basics about balance sheets (double entry bookkeeping) and don’t want to learn, then pay your accountant to do it, and don’t go there.
But the payoff is when MYOB all running sweetly. Then you have a business, where you know where everything is, quotes, orders, money, purchases, price lists, balance sheets, profit and loss. And that is essential for any successful business.
After using other Mac accounts software packages (all have some issues), I would recommend MYOB one of the best all rounders.
Yeah, US Letter should have been the default, but instead it was printing at some other size (this was making PDFs. So I’d unknowingly email the PDF the client who then couldn’t understand why it wasn’t printing right. I’d then go back to check what I sent and it was some wacky size, not even one that corresponded to A4 or anything).
If MYOB works for you, great, but I found it to waste more of my time than it saved. I ended up learning a lot about double entry accounting though.
You got me worried for a moment, so I checked the size of PDF’s I send by email. Phew, yep, they are A4 PDF’s. :-p
You have to do a fair amount of digging to set up customised templates for forms as you need to set up the page size also, which is not that clear, but its a one-off operation.
On 14 Nov 2007, at 20:22, Joe Muscara wrote:
So I’d unknowingly email the PDF the client who then couldn’t understand why it wasn’t printing right. I’d then go back to check what I sent and it was some wacky size, not even one that corresponded to A4 or anything).
I’ve been using Studiometry for a couple of years now. Parts of the program can be difficult to learn, and I was disappointed when Oranged.net shut down their forum, but there’s a new user-to-user support forum for Studiometry at http://www.studiometryforum.com
