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I run a small engine repair and lawn service business and I've been using Quickbooks for a number of years but now they aren't going to stop supporting my current version after May 31, 2022, and the options they are offering are getting more expensive. So I was wondering what others are using for their small business. I am a one man shop so I don't need anything that has payroll in it but would need invoicing, receipts, inventory, sales tax, profit/loss, be able to import bank data, etc but still easy to use. Good customer support would be a plus.

Thanks!

I run Adminsoft with Automanager Module enabled. But I don't think it imports bank data. It does about everything else. The payroll module isn't for the US anyway. Now the price file import can be a pain at times but it is the software but the vendors supplying odd files that need to be modified for proper importing.

The burning question is how much do you want the softwear to do ?
My customer files are in a Filemaker data base which also prints out invoices
The accounting side is done with Best Books , the early verson of MYOB.
SO all I do with it is add the customers accounts as a sales item with 2 lines , parts & labour .
Inventory is only done , again in File Maker for belts & blades only as I work alone so I don't need to know how many Zama pump diaphragms I have in stock at any point in time.
For tax purposes I reduce the "parts in stock" item by 75% of the amount I billed as parts & increase it by what ever I have bought in that year .

It is a little fiddley but takes no more time than using one single programe that does everything and of course reduces the chances of a hacker holding me to ransom .
It never needs to be upgraded and I bought Best Books in 1991 when I bought my first computer.
Down side is it won't run on the Intel or Apple chipped macs but I do my accounting on the 1998 G5 which will probably run forever .
Because I use filemaker for repairs, I can attach photos to any individual repair so I can reffer to it latter rather than hoping I can find the images on my phone .

It is very easy to get caught up in technology that is supposed to make your life easier but n reality just makes you 100% dependent upon the softwear supplier and has you spending your hard earned money in the continuing spiral of upgrades till like you have found they discontinue .
In many cases it is cheaper to buy a couple of old laptops that have bought softwear on them so it never needs to be authenticated or upgraded .
If I had gone on the upgrade with MYOB from Best Books, through First Accounts & Now into MYOB Proper I would have spent over $ 6,000 on softwear and another $ 10,000 to $ 20,000 on computers .
I am not a luddite but I don't work to make billionairs even richer .
You are obviously not using all that Quick Books offers so ask yourself do I need the upgrade ?
As for customer support, you should never need it and usually you will get better & faster results from You Tube.
All accounting packages are nothing more than a spread sheets or data bases with some fancy input screens so you put the numbers in the right places .

FWIW.
I do not do internet banking , it is the most risky thing you can do with your money
The accounting computer ( G3 Mac ) is turned on 24/7 & is not connected to anything other than it's own printer & Maxtor back up disc
When I get the mail. it sits on the keyboard till I am ready to deal with it & nothing is opened till I am at the computer , with a coffee .
Then the envelopes are opened & data entered .
Occasionally I go to the main computer & download a bank statement which can be anything from a day to a month, print out the statement then update the accounting computer
It is easy to get sucked into the instant update vortex but it really does not matter if you know an account was paid yesterday, the day before or a week before that.
All you need to know is at the EOM the account was paid and if not to sent out a reminder to your customer .
I find phoning works best because you can start with " doing the monthly banking & it appears that your account has not been paid ,,,,,,"

Even better is as I have been using the same softwear for 30 years I don't need any sort of customer support .
The other trick is I make copies of my accounts & contacts ( customers & suppliers ) with no data in them so I can run each financial year as a stand alone file
Thus I can keep 2020 open till the tax man is up my rectum for the return to be lodged
It also makes it very difficult for the tax auditors as they can not understand what I am doing so most give up.

On top of that everything is paid into the cheque account and a cheque is drawn for every payment ( even if they are to me because the vendor will not accept cheques )

Considering what Adminsoft can do it is well worth it to at least check it out. The cost to use is about as cheap as you can get. The unregistered version is free even though I am running a registered version as I just felt better helping the programmer out.

Adminsoft Accounting software

I believe anyone that tries this program for our type business will pleased with the auto manager end as you can go back multiple years and see what was done at your finger tips without having digging through paper files. Besides keeping track of all the work orders and parts used can get rather involved when you run an one person repair shop. Keeping track of all the open purchase orders is helpful too.

Back in the introduction to computers days there was a saying amongst system administrators
"If your paper system does not work all a computer will do is get you into trouble a lot faster and cost a lot more to fix "
I must admit I do see benefits to your system from the bits & pieces you have posted .
I had thought about putting my full inventory into the computer but it was a massive job for very little benefit and of course there will always be problems when for instance you only use part of a rebuild kit on one job the the balance on another.
Then there are things like electrical terminals and main jet O rings , I wreck one then it has to be accounted for as shop use or shop scrap .
I can remember a customer fuming with an invoice from another workshop where everything was itemised, every nut bolt & split pin including "shop fuel ", bench rags & cleaning solutions .
As he said, the only thing they did not charge for was the dunny paper the mechanic used .

Being shareware it is a lot better than commercial package where every time you open the application it has to get permission from the makers to run and if you have no internet connection it will only open a couple of times then freeze till it can verify you are allowed to use it .

Bert, The way I have inventory setup is a bin system so when I look up a part that is in stock the computer lets me which to look in. I admit I had to get the program to understand that when imported price files that had supersedes that those bin location along with other info notes had to transfer to the new part numbers. Since that option was added thing have working fine. Of I had to my annual physical inventory to gets back on track but they should done at least once a year to check for accurate counts and damaged items.

And yes it is a lot initial work to convert over but I haven't regretted it as it just things a lot easier.

Many of my smaller parts are 18 gal totes with smaller 1 gal containers so they have a main bin location along a sub bin locations. Just makes finding part much easier. Here is example of a stock check. The same system of binning can be done on index cards just takes longer to flip thru the cards when checking inventory stock, plus I need to go to office every time I need to find a part status. Beside I have the follow number items to keep track of



Example my bin system


Now there a new items listed that have yet got binned as they just came in which I should be able to do today since I got 4 inches of snow on the ground here.

And the software in shareware mode does needs to check once each time you open the software but it more to so the programmer gets some ad money. As long to program is working it don't check again until it is reloaded. I use the paid version as I said mainly so the programmer got paid and a plus benefit is I get direct support for problems that he creates in new versions. Updating is not mandatory but it helps the programmer as he don't have dig out the older versions if I do have a problem.

I just leave the program running 24/7 as I up at all times at night. I also have one system in the home office and one in the shop usually. Currently the shop one is down due a power supply failure. Both are networked together so I have internet access in both locations. I did wi-fi for a while until the router blew now they are hardwired via a 200 ft cable.

lyldfred said:

I run a small engine repair and lawn service business and I've been using Quickbooks for a number of years but now they aren't going to stop supporting my current version after May 31, 2022, and the options they are offering are getting more expensive. So I was wondering what others are using for their small business. I am a one man shop so I don't need anything that has payroll in it but would need invoicing, receipts, inventory, sales tax, profit/loss, be able to import bank data, etc but still easy to use. Good customer support would be a plus.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

If they aren't going to stop supporting it , you should be good to go !

What if the op like to run the shop part of the AutoManager software that I suggesting for him to check out. It also has regular accounting functions.

Example screen shot.

or possibly the parts counter sales area.

oneoldsap said:

If they aren't going to stop supporting it , you should be good to go !

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Hi oneoldsap! I noticed in my original post that I said they "aren't: going to stop supporting my current version which is wrong. It should have been "are" going to stop. So some of the functions of the program will not work once they do that. And they are going to an annual fee of approximately $1000 a year to support/update the new version.

Thanks for your input gentlemen! I will check out these and a few other programs the next couple of months.

lyldfred said:

Hi oneoldsap! I noticed in my original post that I said they "aren't: going to stop supporting my current version which is wrong. It should have been "are" going to stop. So some of the functions of the program will not work once they do that. And they are going to an annual fee of approximately $1000 a year to support/update the new version.

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Yes that is why I keep using old computers and old softwear that you only pay for once .
Annual fees to MYOB did nothing but got new tax tables for employees .
Linking up with banks directly is another waste of time unless you are getting hundreds of payments a day.
I usually reconsile my accounts once a month when the bank statement arrives through the post .
Business softwear is supposed to save you time and make your life easier not have you jumping through hoops .
Thus the total time spent doing the banking is less than 1 hour a month
Using 2 different computers allows me to do the business bit in the same time as it takes to have a rest & a cup of tea which for me is the end of the business day & my mental key to switch out of mower thinking & go into motorcycle mode.

That is why I suggested checking out the software I use here to run my shop. The unregistered version free except for some non invasive advertising. My current version is a paid version but that was just wanting to help out the programmer and the fact I felt a little guilty using a freeware version. I have been using the software since 2014 so I do have a lot info packed into it. I have found it to be extremely useful to me as an one person ran shop.

I currently have the following job in various stages of repair. Some have taken a while as parts are on back order and some I just haven't got back to since the parts have arrived last week.

So yes I am already running a month behind and it getting worst as Spring start-up is here already.

I also have multiple PO that are either not order, partially received, or on order currently which the system is keeping track of for me.

And the software allows for multiple terminals to be ran at the same via networking. Just have to be login as different users at each terminal. It is nice to be able to look up the info if I am in the shop or in the office as they are about 250 ft apart and that would be a lot of walking back and forth al day long.

always depends on how much you want it to do. I use Excel spread sheets to keep track of every thing. I have a word template that I use for invoices. But I don't need a line item program that keeps track of inventory as it is sold. Point of Sale software is what you need if you are going to do that. Any company that makes it is going to charge for it though.

sgkent said:

always depends on how much you want it to do. I use Excel spread sheets to keep track of every thing. I have a word template that I use for invoices. But I don't need a line item program that keeps track of inventory as it is sold. Point of Sale software is what you need if you are going to do that. Any company that makes it is going to charge for it though.

Click to expand...

Do your spreadsheets keeps a repair history by equipment model/serial as to what was done and what parts used for the past ten years. In the software I run all this is easily accessible.

Example of a work order that I just completed.


Sorry but the Adminsoft software I run is available as free software that is supported by advertising which only shows up as you exit the software and the one line advertising line for Adminsoft software on invoices.

Now Sales Prospecting and Sales Orders section are for registered versions only but all other sections are available in the free version.

There is a paid registration version. My current version is a paid version where I could remove the ad line on invoices if wanted to but I don't. I felt that it was better to support the programmer plus I get priority tech support when needed. I am one of his biggest users when it comes the amount SKUs (inventory items) price files on my system. I currently have over 954,000 items listed (includes supersedes, NOS, aftermarket crosses, and NLA items).

When I first started his price file imports caused problems due to the shear number of items being imported (over 150,000 items at a time) but he has resolved those issues of taking days to import 150,000 down to under an half hour. Then there were other problems we had to resolve related to superseding during imports as initially the program would lose bin locations during superseding. Now I have an option to transfer all data to the new SKU numbers. The option is really important to me as I have notes on the parts too that needed transferring to the new SKU #s along with associated parts lists.

And considering I have over 2,200 different items in stock I really need to keep the bin location on superseding or items will not be easily found.


And the programmer recently added Sales Prospecting and Sales Orders to the program set. I don't use it myself as I primary just use the Auto Manger portion and inventory tracking / pricing. The only thing that don't work is the Payroll section as that is only for the UK which where his company is located.

But as with all software there are things can stand improvements and errors can be introduced during updates (which are quickly resolved once reported); although, I am still recovering from one a couple years ago where all my inventory movements were compromised. That time I went from having $26K in stock to having $750K in stock. Now with problem corrected I am back down to $38K in stock with a few items still being reported as in stock when they are not. But this is fairly close to my actual inventory as I have added a lot parts during this time frame. I will be cleaning the shop wall to wall this Fall/Winter, doing another annual manual inventory check as I still have a few items without Bin locations do superseding, and building maintenance. And I might even inventory all my tools. I really should do that one for insurance purposes.

Also note I have been using this software since 2012 so it about to start dumping some the older info now.

Here is a link to where the software can be downloaded.

https://adminsoftware.biz/download.shtml

I would recommend anyone running a shop at least check it out. Might just surprise those doing things the hard way or using software not design for our type of business. Even those that want to use POS style system with bar code scanner and multiple terminals are supported.

I only found one drawback and that is the inventory price files must regularly updated especially with all the prices changes going on lately. Yes it is a pain to keep having to update monthly but it is now necessary because our current status economy wise.

Due to me using FIFO I have requested an option for the PO system to use the latest cost price instead of last purchase price. It does throw off POs when not edit with current cost prices when an item been purchased in the past. This problem just recently came to light to all the recent price changes I have done.

Star,
I think you will find that fazeelnawaz567 is either a spammer or a web bot
2 identical posts, in the wrong place that actually make zero sense

bertsmobile1 said:

Star,
I think you will find that fazeelnawaz567 is either a spammer or a web bot
2 identical posts, in the wrong place that actually make zero sense

Click to expand...

Yes I seen those posts and didn't respond to them. The one I was responding to was sgkent's post as quoted.

I hate spammers. You have my permission to hang them by their private parts if you catch them. The hours of my life that have been spent undoing their crap makes me have no compassion for them what so ever.

Star - no, I do not keep a history like you do. They clients I still have in my business I moved them to a monthly retainer fee. I am formally retired and just help a few people whom I chose to stay with because they listen to suggestions better than most, making supporting them easy. I only have to say please don't do that once.

Kent,

I just about had it with things too. Just more aggravation then I can keep up with lately. I got equipment sitting on the repair yard for over three months due to parts back orders.

It mostly dealing OEMs that are just dragging their feet on delivering parts. I just cancel part of an order because Kohler wanted to take 45 days to ship a couple shoulder screws. I will just need to get them from my hardware supplier which has them in stock once I get the specs. Kawasaki is taking a month or more to deliver parts that my distributor does have in stock. And Briggs has the 793880 camshafts on back order until after Christmas. I just other brand to replace those engines that I can get parts for. None those HFT engines either.

I am seriously considering retiring in a couple years once I get on social security. I live on near nothing now but at least the SS would be a steady income. I probably just sell off the parts then.

Well the software just help out here as a customer could sworn that I replace his deck bearing in his JD last year. But records only showed me doing the front wheel bearings. Now I did his CC a couple years ago where I install 6 6204-2RS deck bearings.

People's memory over time is fairly poor
I have had this business now for 11 years & I still get calls from people who swear blind I worked on their mower last year or the year before ye their phone number is not even logged in my phone & there is no record of their machine .
Try and remember when various repairs were done to your own car , it just seems like yesterday when in reality it was 5 years ago .

I might add Adminsoft has added near full bar code input capabilities now. Before I started using my bar code scanner I was unaware that I only worked for checking inventory. It now works in the Auto Manager fine. Since I don't normally use regular invoicing mode that has not been fully checked out by me but I did request that function for all users. It is so much easier to scan a bar code for the data entry then having to type in the full local part numbers. Now just to get my vendor to include the leading zeros of bar codes in their price files.

The programmer even add the ability to print the bar code labels for the setup SKUs. Now of course there might a few minor bugs to work out but is to be expected with any software.

I stumbled upon this thread discussing the software and accounting programs used in businesses. It's always interesting to learn about the tools and systems that help us manage our operations effectively. Personally, I find it crucial to have a reliable product management software in place. It helps me keep track of repairs, maintenance, and customer details more efficiently. If you're looking for a similar solution, you might want to check out this service. It offers features that can streamline your product management process and improve overall organization.

StarTech said:

It’s cool that you came up with software for business, I also did something similar once. But everything was not so simple, in order for my business to grow, I needed to optimize my website, and the service admiral-studios.com, which deals with the breakdown and optimization of websites, helped me a lot with this! Thanks to this service, I can take my business to the next level and reach a larger audience, for which I am very grateful to this service.

Click to expand...

Cool software!

I can relate – I had a similar situation with my freelance gig. Switching systems can be daunting, but trust me, it's worth it! I stumbled upon this awesome accounting tool during a hunt for alternatives. It had everything I needed – invoicing, inventory management, bank data imports – you name it! Plus, their customer support was top-notch. If you're curious, you should check out monday free trial. It's a great way to explore new options hassle-free.