Best way to keep the proper books

[uniquechev]

I'm having a hard time juggling the books and the paper trails. I've really been looking at the "groundskeeper business software" ... has anyone used this program ? or how do you guys do it ? I mean i know that , thats what the software companies do, is sell you their product. and i'm kind of sold on this one but its alot of money so i just wondering what you all think about it all ?

[topsites]

Netbook, spreadsheet.

It's a brain buster to learn, at least it was for me...
But that crap RULES!
Well worth it, Open Office is a free program.

All the customers in the column on the right, (Hide) address + phone number, make it a persistent column.
Then in the rows make that a calendar, I can do 6 months at a time, 2 files cover the entire year.
For the cells, make pull-down boxes with fields relating the various jobs you perform.
So then to schedule, simply locate the customer and the date for the job, pull down the box and select the job, voila.
In the Hidden section underneath one can enter estimated cost, and pertinent notes.
Couple of check mark things, one to mark it done, the other to mark it paid.

Once I get mine set up right I'll see about sharing the template, but you'll need a mobile computer...
Before you run out and buy one, wait until you see the template, it can be loaded on the home pc :p

So yeah, spreadsheet.

[ALLPro Landscaping]

I tried the demo gopher software, It looks great, and seems real easy to use, i am going to get but just not now Im saving every dollar

[topsites]

Well, all right I got the template finished.

This is a spreadsheet application!
Hence you will need Open Office (http://www.openoffice.org/)

Notes:
1. The reason the first two rows and columns appear to duplicate is because the sheet is split in order to make
the names and date persistent, meaning a user can scroll down or to the right a long ways and still maintain date /
name data in sight.

2. On a pc with limited RAM (1gb in my case) one can only fit 8-9 months at a time, hence I decided to go with a 1/2 year.
Customer-wise, I don't think you'd run out, I think there's enough space that way for a few thousand, I think.

3. As a rule, rows 6-9, 11-14, 16-19 and so on are under 'hide' and can be revealed via 'show' by selecting the
two outside rows and right-clicking.
Every 5th row is customer Name, this should be the only thing showing, for ease of use and privacy.
I left rows 5-10 showing as an example, the spaces in rows 6-9 fits data such as address and prices and what have you.
For example, to 'show' rows 11-14 one would select rows 10+15 while holding shift, then right-click on the row numbers and select 'show.'

4. Every initial Date-customer cross-reference field is a selector box which shows when that field is selected, allowing for easy
selection of jobs. Should one select the wrong date and mistakenly enter a job, selecting the LAST field of the selector box can
be used to correct errors as it is empty.

5. Any fields can be edited to your liking, please do expand, perhaps share.

6. I haven't figured out how to make check boxes yet.
Also it would be nice if, once a price for a customer AND a specific job is entered, that this price repeat itself the next time
that same job is selected for that same customer...
Hint :p

7. It's still a very simple form, no real hard-core formulas were used.

Well without further ado here it is:
The Mobile PC Schedule Template (http://stonypointlawncare.com/tools/Schedule 2009.ods)

Other notes:
This was created on a Lenovo netbook running Linux, yes it works on Windows also.
Thanks to my dad for his spreadsheet expertise, the Open Source community for the great software,
and to any users who can make use of this, please consider sharing any upgrades.

[DLAWNS]

We use Quickbooks to track everything that we do.