Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

[itognet]

To CommitCRM: Feel free to remove my post, if you find it inappropriate.
I have to say, that your reporting and invoicing engine is just not good enough. Sorry.


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So, do you want a BETTER invoicing / reporting engine, please put your VOTE in this thread.
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Status on the project right now:

x - a very flexible and fast reporting engine, which can do advanced stuff.
x - design of own company paper, design your invoice.
x - creates PDFs with watermark (so it looks like your company paper)
x - register when the invoices is sent, and how (e-mail, snailmail, or personal)
x - step 1: one click - shows you all invoices in a specific period
x - step 2: one click - emails invoices direct to the customers
x - step 3: one click - set payment status to Paid
x - step 4: one click - shows you all invoices, for a specific customer or non paid invoices.
x - step 5: one click - emails over due invoices direct to the customer, with a specific text.


I use it twice every month, and it takes me about 15 minutes to do invoices, check for paidments and to do the over due invoices.

[lpopejoy]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

You are saying you have developed this already?

I would love to have item one on your list "a very flexible and fast reporting engine, which can do advanced stuff". The other items I may find interesting occasionally, and may end up using them all the time, not sure.

[itognet]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

Hi, to see some screendumps click here:

http://itognet.dk/CommitInvoicer/

[racassel]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

Crystal Reports runtime module would solve anyone's need. A tab under reports, Crystal Reports. Create Crystal Reports (In Crystal Reports program - add on) Gone Wild, Pie Charts, Graphs, Images, and yes, all in Living TechnoColor (tm), and be able to double click and run them from the reports tab.. I think the runtime module is even free to developers.

[racassel]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

Hey, but it wouldn't do that. Looks like a neat app/addon.

[lpopejoy]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

Nice work, except I can't read ... (?). :)

[paulNZ]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

itognet

How does one get a hold of this to learn how it works, etc

[nattivillin]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

@ itognet

how do we get the invoicer?

[hayden]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

Yeah needs crystal reports badly. I have to say, the reporting does suck, along with the web interface. Two things that are in bad need of an overhaul.

You shouldn't use a crm for invoicing. I'd suggest looking at www.xero.com

[nattivillin]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

I would love to not have to use quickbooks.

[Stanley Ng]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

Is there any online billing software will work with CommitCRM?

[hayden]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

I use Xero for billing. Now it is a manual process. We've dumped Quickbooks as it really is a pos (no offence).

The problem with the API for CommitCRM is that you cannot place buttons within Commit, so you can do a push to invoice like you can for Quickbooks.

The solution is to make a middleware app that scans the DB for any open tickets with billing charges, then push them some where.

I got that far and wrote oauth for xero's api... that's about as far as I have got. I don't have the time. It's a lot of work as you need to make sure all the customers in CommitCRM are synced with whatever you are pushing the info to, or you will end up with duplicates. That means the middleware app needs to handle any linking of accounts.

Great if someone from CommitCRM could tell me an easier way of doing this.

[Support Team]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

What you described is exactly some of the concerns and requirements that need to be taken into account when building a sync with other systems. Records mapping, marking records as transferred etc. Unfortunately I do not see a way to eliminate these requirements.

[nattivillin]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

Which is why a invoicing module for CommitCRM itself is badly needed. What happens when we finally tire of Quicbooks? Now we are forced to use it because that is what CommitCRM supports.

I have hated QB for many years. It's slow, glitch, and just too big for simple invoicing.

Qb is an accounting package with an invoicing feature. It doesn't support multi location or multiple users very well. I love it for accounting.

We have to run 3 separate QB databases now. One at each of our locations for invoicing. And another for accounting. There is no way to run all 3 stores off one QB database. Even with a 6MB up and down dedicated line it was too darn slow. Took 5 min to show the next screen.

I want to dump Qb and just use commit, but i cant. CommitCRM doesn't invoice, doesn't accept payments. We are stuck with crappy QB.

[itognet]

Re: Want a better invoice / reporting engine ?

I am sorry that I have not followed this thread up. It is because that I have waited for the right tool to arrive. Now it is here :)

The Invoicer described in this thread is dead - But I have created a new Invoicer for CommitCRM. I will create a new thread for this, search for it.