I have no electricity in my van, so I would use a laptop, and hook a printer up to it to print the invoices. I need to be able to add pst. To get at least 8 hours out of a laptop what would be the best one to buy? I need all the help I can here folks. I'm pretty new at all this, so please give me lots of details!!
2007-12-09 15:41:34 · 7 answers · asked by cruising 1 in Business & Finance ➔ Small Business
Excel is pretty easy to use and if you have Windows you already have it on your computer.
2007-12-09 15:45:43 · answer #1 · answered by dartshooster 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I don't know what PST is.... MS Word has a lot of templates for invoices and you can download even more from the internet (there's a lot of them). As far as getting 8 hours out of any laptop - lots of luck.... You're better off getting an 'inducer' (I think they're called). It's got a plug on one side to plug in your cigarette / accessory plug in your car and the other end is an AC so you can stick your computer into it. Get a heavy duty one though - there's cheesy ones out there that aren't powerful enough. A good one will run around $60 but well worth it.
If you don't have an accessory plug, I'd get some kind of large battery to run your computer. Realistically, your lucky to get 2 hours out of a computer.
2007-12-09 23:49:28 · answer #2 · answered by longhats 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Intuit Quickbooks works GREAT! I love it. and I have it installed on my laptop
It is easy to use and very professional. Set up custom templates that all you have to do is enter a name, it pulls customer info from your current customers and print it out. It even keeps track of when those invoices are paid if you hook it up to your bank (which isn't that hard). It also makes taxes a breez. It automatically saves and stores all your info in a format that you can give to an accountant and you're done. -A ton of CPA's use Quickbooks by the way. Plus, Quickbooks has a very helpful customer service that will answer all your questions for free for the first 30 days. That should give you enough time to get used to it.
Best Wishes,
Rusty
2007-12-09 23:49:09 · answer #3 · answered by Rusty Curtis 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'd vote Quickbooks Pro as well.
Okay, so you're working out of your van. I would hope you don't plan to do that for long. Someday, and sooner than you might be planning, you're going to need an office and a secretary to handle this stuff. If you want to hire one that can be productive on day one, use a program that is either the same or very similar to what they learned to use in school or at the previous job, and that would be.... Quickbooks. You just don't want to spend their first three days teaching them how to do the job, which is what you'll be looking at if you use most of the other alternatives.
2007-12-09 23:49:09 · answer #4 · answered by open4one 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I use Word for invoices, but if you have Quickbooks, you can use it for invoices and for the rest of the accounting chores for your business. For a computer, any laptop will do; get an inverter and use it to power the computer when you are using it. (Make sure that the engine is running at the time; inverters take a lot of power.)
2007-12-10 00:07:52 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Quick Books Pro. Good stuff.
2007-12-09 23:43:11 · answer #6 · answered by Abolir Las Farc 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Quick Books all the way! You can use it for invoices, b/l, payroll, for all your accounting purposes, and it's user friendly!
2007-12-09 23:45:43 · answer #7 · answered by Excellante 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋