Does anyone have advice about bookkeeping for jewelers? One of the
things that I have found to be the most daunting about starting a
business is keeping track of the items that I am purchasing for my
business.
I saw that some people are using Quickbooks and Quickbooks for
jewelers, but I am leery of purchasing a Quicken program, because I
am really bad at the Quicken/Microsoft Money programs. Also, I have
heard that Quickbooks charges a ton of fees and I would like to buy
something that I can pay for ONCE and that’s it. I dont want a
program that is already quite expensive and then will start nickel
and diming me for years to come. I also am hesitant to try the
program that Rio is selling, because it is not as widely used as
Office and Quicken and I want a program that allows me to work with
Microsoft Office.
Does anyone have advice about such a program? It has gotten to the
point that I sometimes forget what I paid for the finding/stone
components of an item and then am unsure about what to charge for it
when it is time to sell.
I am pleased to introduce myself. I am FileMaker developer and make
custom software for jewellers. I also do CAD/CAM desiging for
different jewellers. Dont worry the software development will not
take weeks… just in days I can provide you a very good solution.
Secondly It would not be costly becuase I am living in Pakistan and
hrly rates here are very low then USA. It will be one time fee too
and will never ask any thing again… If you will be agree… I would
say some questions and then I will provide you the demo copy… if
you will like the demo copy then I will forward you the final
version…
Depends on your business volume, bookkeeping skills and your
computer skills, I think. Also depends on what operating system you
use. So, what OS do you use? Do you want to do double-entry?
I currently manage my bookeeping on spreadsheets I designed in
OpenOffice. The price (free) is definitely right. I could design a
bookkeeping database in OO Base, but what I have now meets my needs.
There are a lot of free, open-source bookkeeping apps available such
as Gnucash, but which ones are available to you will depend to some
degree on your OS.
We use Quicken for home and for my business-there aren’t a ton of
fees, just the once a year software upgrade.
Quicken is pretty easy to use-but then I also don’t have employees,
and my accounting is really easy. I don’t have a lot of things to pay
for. I imagine someone with a store, insurance, employees, etc. has a
lot more to keep track of than I do.
I can’t tell you everything about your question, but there’s one
thing I can tell you. Having tried both of them, I can tell you
clearly: Quicken is a tricycle, Quickbooks is a Mack truck. There’s
no comparison between the two. I don’t think Quickbooks is by any
means a perfect program, but it is made for small business. It is
GREATLY more robust than Quicken, which is geared to homeowners and
people with a few deductions.
The trick is not in inventory tracking, it’s in component-parts
inventory maintenance, form alternate vendors, at alternate stated
of completion be they raw, semi-finished or start-to-finish. with
metals changing globally–
Try that in Access! J.
PS DO NOT buy: Business works, Mass 90, MYOB, Peachtree, Quickbooks
with or without inventory add-ons, anything by 'right-click;
For software upgrades, new tools, etc. In this day and age it’s
dangerous to use software from several years ago-there are always
programming holes for wonderful people like hackers. Quicken has the
capability (we don’t use this aspect of it) to talk to your bank
account on line, so upgrades and program patches would be necessary.
I know other bookkeeping software programs now have the same
capability, and the same concerns would be an issue.
I start using a system called Art Affair. It is wornderful, just
what I needed. Saved me the time of doing an access database. And
the best part… the owners of the company have the BEST customer
service ! I had an older system for a laptop and they wrote a
program at no extra cost to get rid of the issues I was having !