I haven’t been blogging any more about my Less Accounting experience, largely because I haven’t made much progress in actually using it. Much as recessions will reveal what auditors cannot, changing accounting systems reveals Quickbooks flaws that will not come up in any other way. Everything has been on hold while everything gets properly imported into the new system.
Less Accounting Review – Part 1, My Accounting Background
I recently signed up with Less Accounting and I will be publishing a Less Accounting review and experiences with the setup process here (read the introduction).
- Introduction
- My accounting background (This post)
- The Signup
- Import Quickbooks File
- Wire Account
- Set Recurring
- Hook up Bank Account
- Hook Up American Express Account
- Less Accounting – One Week Later
- Less Accounting – One Month Later
In the beginning, by which I mean my awesome web company’s beginning in 2002, there was Microsoft Money. That was my first accounting software and it served me adequately for about five years. It was nothing special, but it did the job with a moderate amount of hassle, but after a while it began to show it’s age. Somewhere along the way I started using BlinkSale, which was one of my better decisions.
Along about this time I first heard about Microsoft Office Accounting. It was a relatively easy migration over from Microsoft Money and I was able to do my minimal accounting and bookkeeping tasks in significantly less time. Plus, it worked like every other Microsoft product, and if you know Microsoft products well (which I do) then using it was a breeze. Then Microsoft decided to discontinue the program and for reasons I don’t recall I thought that was a big deal and did not want to get stuck using obsolete software.
So I got a copy of QuickBooks, and away I went. Specifically I went through a painful migration software. I also came to the realization that there were many parts of QuickBooks that were not compatible with 64 bit software at that time. I debated using Quickbooks Online, but that did not seem like a good option.
The good part of using QuickBooks for my Accounting Software
My accountant knew and liked the system, and we could do the entire thing remotely.
Beyond that, there were no good parts. After a while, and inspired by Peter Drucker’s book, The Effective Executive, I began looking for options. That led me to Less Accounting for my financial management and financial analysis..
11
Apr 12
Written By Steve French
Less Accounting Review – a 10 part series – Introduction
I recently signed up with Less Accounting and I will be publishing a Less Accounting review and experiences with the setup process here
- Introduction (this post)
- My accounting background
- The Signup
- Import QB File
- Wire Account
- Set Recurring
- Hook up Bank Account
- Hook Up Amex Account
- Less Accounting – One Week Later
- Less Accounting – One Month Later
FYI – I did totally steal this idea from Shawn Wildermuth’s modern web development series, because I only steal from the best!
31
Mar 12
Written By Steve French
ASP.Net MVC 3 In Review – One Year Later
It’s been a little over a year since I’ve devoted myself to Asp.net MVC 3 and on the whole I’m quite impressed. Microsoft seems to have picked a definite direction for the web (the Microsoft Web Platform Installer makes a nice guide for it), and I like it. Here is my broad review, please bear in mind I’ve been doing asp.net webforms for about ten years.
The Pros of ASP.Net MVC 3
- The Razor View Engine – Brevity is wonderful
- The integration with Sql Server and Entity Framework CodeFirst
- The full integration with JQuery
- The bare metal approach to html, it is much easier to find bugs in the code when there is less code.
- The full integration with Visual Studio 2010 – it is nice to have the platform and the IDE work fully together
- NuGet! The single best way to install add-ons.
- The ease of testing your code via the test capabilities of Visual Studio
The Cons of ASP.Net MVC 3
- It is a pain to test actual data. With the advent of code-first one would think that you could simply have a test database, but there is no way. One has to use db fakes, which makes your entire testing a bit less useful.
- Coded User Interface Tests are not baked into the system in any way, and for no particular reason one cannot have CUITS in the same solution as the most popular ASP.net MVC 3 scaffolding packages.
On the whole, I am a huge fan – for more information about it, check out the wonderful work that Shawn Wildermuth and Scott Hanselman have been doing.
14
Feb 12
Written By Steve French
TechZing is an excellent, interesting podcast
This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog
23
Feb 11
Written By Steve French
An awesome proposal application – Bidsketch reviewed
Description: In their own words, Bidsketch is “Simple proposal software made for designers”. I found that to be true. It simplifies and organizes what often frustrates me most; writing proposals for new projects.
With Bidsketch, you just log into the web app, feed numbers and descriptions into one of several templates, and then send if off to the client. Bidsketch then keeps track of the proposal and its approval status (another problem of mine). I’ll leave it to you to take their tour, but I found the interface to be well crafted, the writing concise and the entire app highly useful.
I’ll use the following methodology (originally created for Startup Atlanta but it will do for here) for my reviews of web apps
- Problem Solving - It can be a cool product, but does it make anyone’s life easier?
- Actual Customers - I define the customer as someone with both problems and money.
- Simplicity of Pricing – Can the fees be described to anyone? Do you need more information about the prospect before you can offer a quote?
- Chicken and Egg Problem – does the product require a lot of Customer A before Customer B becomes interested, and vice versa? This applies a good bit to middleman/broker type companies like E-Bay.
- Remarkability – that is to say, can someone who heard a quick presentation about it describe it to someone the next day, and have it be understood?
So, with no further ado, here is my review of BidSketch
- Problem Solving – 8/10 – Writing proposals, particularly for new clients is a huge time sink for me over at my other company, Digital Tool Factory. It is definitely a problem of mine, so this gets and eight out of ten.
- Actual Customers – 10/10 – After reviewing the site I signed up for the service, so ten out of ten.
- Simplicity of Pricing- 10/10 – Only two options! I like that a lot
- Chicken and Egg Problem- 10/10 – no chicken and egg problem that I can see
- Remarkability- 9/10 – “Simple proposal software made for designers” – pretty simple and specific, I like it, very easy to describe.
Total Score: 47
Quibble: I found it easy to create multiple copies of “sections” with the same name and different content
Suggestions:
- Have more standard templates.
- Partner with a copywriting service and poll your best customers and present them the following offer: Let us write one each of your most problematic proposals, and then genericise it for all Bidsketch clients.
- Integrate with QuickBooks (somehow)
I recommend signing up, it solves problems and pays for itself in the first hour. Plus it helps you have an easier, simpler, and more productive day.
This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog
24
Jan 11
Written By Steve French
Software reviews coming soon
As the entire city and all of my consulting clients are snowed in today, I’m experimenting with small business financial software InDinero, proposal writing software BidSketch, and project planning software Tom’s Planner. Reviews coming soon.
This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog
10
Jan 11
Written By Steve French
Adventures with PayPal Website Payments Pro and Authorize.net
Several days ago I decided to use PayPal’s Website Payments Pro system for the Stronico credit card processing system. At the time, I thought PayPal was the obvious choice. It had relatively low fees (about $60 per month), no setup fee, and it seemed to be the 800 pound gorilla in the space, so how bad coudl it behard could the setup be?
As it turned out, I was very, very wrong. I spent part of the day Sunday and all day Monday wading through non-working sample code, looking at near duplicate setup guides for the 56 (how it is 56 I don’t know) versions of their Website Payments Pro system, installing all of the add-ons needed to get the sample apps going and so on and so forth. All of that merely to make a Get request with the proper query string (which is all the Website Payments Pro System really is). Continue reading →
09
Jun 10
Written By Steve French
Everyone should read Brain Rules by John Medina
Several months ago I finished reading Brain Rules by John Medina and I’ve been raving about it ever since. Medina is a noted brain researcher and the book contains the 12 things he wishes the lay public knew.
The 12 things (with my notes in bold and italic)
- EXERCISE | Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power. – The most important chapter. Short version – if you exercise your brain will be smarter and it won’t get dementia. I’ve put this to the test, and I am more focused with exercise than without.
- SURVIVAL | Rule #2: The human brain evolved, too. – Not that memorable, good background information.
- WIRING | Rule #3: Every brain is wired differently.- Not that memorable, good background information.
- ATTENTION | Rule #4: We don’t pay attention to boring things.- Intuitive, and general background information
- SHORT-TERM MEMORY | Rule #5: Repeat to remember. – Important, counter intuitive info on memory.
- LONG-TERM MEMORY | Rule #6: Remember to repeat.- Important, counter intuitive info on memory.
- SLEEP | Rule #7: Sleep well, think well. – The second most informative chapter. I had always thought of sleep as a time of rest, it turns out to be a very active process for the brain. Sleep is when the brain cleans and restocks itself.
- STRESS | Rule #8: Stressed brains don’t learn the same way. – I had no idea that stress was the physical reaction that it is. This is the third most important chapter.
- SENSORY INTEGRATION | Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses. – Good advice for graphic designers.
- VISION | Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses. – mostly background information.
- GENDER | Rule #11: Male and female brains are different . – we knew this already, but Medina tells us how male and female brains differ.
- EXPLORATION | Rule #12: We are powerful and natural explorers. – mostly background information.
From this book I have made the following changes in life Continue reading →
03
May 10
Written By Steve French
Ten great books for American business
After writing yesterday’s post on lessons learned from eight years in business, I thought I would come up with my listing of great books that have helped me starting out.
I follow Tyler Cowen’s notion that if you you finish every book you start you’re wasting time on crap. On average I finish less than half of the books I start. Since I’ve gotten a Kindle I’ve upped my selectivity considerably. Before anyone asks, I have yet to finish Getting Things Done by David Allen.
With no further ado – here are the books I recommend to start out. Continue reading →
30
Mar 10
Written By Steve French
