need new software

[JasonPC]

I've been using excel, word, access to manage my business. But it's really not cutting it anymore. I am doing my books and bills in excel. My contracts, letters in word. My database in access. I want a software that I can enter each day what my crews have done and it will automatically put it on a bill for that client so that when I go to bill at the end of the month all the services we've provided for that client is there already. It would also be nice to have a feature where I can enter all the jobs we have scheduled thus far. I want the bills to be attractive, easy to use and also need software that I can enter all of my receipts into for the end of the tax year to present to my acccountant. Are these pipe dreams? Thanks!

Jason

[twins_lawn_care]

I am in the same boat as you, planning for next year. There are three sponsors which Sean has posted a link to all, and they all offer a free sample of the software to try out. see the link above, they're for Clip, Gopher, and Groundskeeper Pro. I'd say give them all a try, and see which is the best fit for you.
I am doing this myself. And since I have not used any of them before, I can't say good, bad or other for the software itself, although my experience as far as help and support from Gopher has been nothing but excellent!

Hope this helps.

[MacLawnCo]

if you want a serious accounting package, start with quickbooks and add either Clip(specificly QClip) or Lawnmonkey(Qexpress i believe) for the routing and specifics to our industry. search on those two and you'll get some more detailed feedback.

[Team Gopher]

Hi JasonPC,

Please consider visiting our site and downloading Gopher to try it out.

Thanks twins_lawn_care for the positive words :)

[mitchellfeline]

Hi. I use GroundsKeeper Pro and it has been an excellent investment. Adkad now has a Guided Tour of GroundsKeeper Pro on their website. It will quickly introduce you to the business software's most used features. Here is a link to the Audio/Video Guided Tour: http://www.adkad.com/groundskeeper/gkprotutorials.htm. Good Luck!

[wakesetter2001]

I have been trying both Groundskeeper and Gopher. Right now with just a few days with the two of them I think that Gopher is easier to use and learn. I have not completely made up my mind but I am leaning toward Gopher. I just with Gopher would maybe have a Fall Software sale. (HINT! HINT!)

[Four C. Landscaping]

I try ed the 30 day trial for Gopher and grounds keeper and found Gopher far easier to learn and more professional looking when I printed out my first estimates.the pro version ($399.99) has all the bells and whistles (not including snow plowing services).I hope this helps but I definitely download the 30 day free trial.Grounds keeper only handles 5 customers at a time.Gopher handles all that I have so the trial was far more accurate than grounds-keeper.

[kppurn]

There are a lot of good products on the market to help you manage your business efficiently. I would demo some of them and see what you think. Quickbooks, Gopher, Clip, QXpress, Groundskeeper, and many others are available.
I personally use Quickbooks Pro and QXpress by Alocet. All financial work is done in Quickbooks and scheduling/ batch invoicing is done in QXpress.