Business Software

What software are you using for the business end of your photography? I do not mean LR, Aperture or PS rather, what are you using for keeping your books, POS and anything else I am not thinking of?

I am thinking of using Photoshelter to sell my prints online but I am curious as to whether something like Quickbooks, Excel (Numbers for mac) would be beneficial.

Not sure if this is what you are thinking about but it is a recent discussion we had here on the board. PM me if you have any other questions about it.

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=835252

I am on a Mac so the CS+ unfortunately is not an option for me and the only other POS software I can find seems to be very pricey.

I use quickboooks and I love it

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forex trading vimax

Excel?

Hello all, I am a new member here and this is my first post. I am a software developer, and I have just released my first commercial application. It is geared towards managing the business side of a Radio Controlled Aerial Photography business, but I have started work on a second version to manage a free-lance photography business. It will start out very similar to the RCAPtures program but will drop the parts related to airframes, as I get feedback and suggestions the two programs will diverge to fill their markets better. You can get an idea of the software by looking at my site, www.fotocaptures.com. There is a page with some screen shots. For those interested in something geared towards managing the business aspects, your comments and suggestions would be very welcome. The site is still new and will be getting more content soon. You may send suggestions to frank@fotocaptures.com.

^ That is pretty spendy software. I do not see how the software would benefit my business.

The price is competitive with the only other software I have seen for photography business management. It might be nice if you did not dismiss its value with such a short and cursory look at it.

I paid a fortune for MYOB, and it's not even photography specific.

The program will have two more components added to it in the future. One will be the ability to email quotes, invoices, and form letters from inside the program. The second one will be a two-way interface to QuickBooks. I have access to the tools for that, I don't know if there are similar tools for MYOB. My price includes support and updates for the first year, then a maintenance contract for continued updates to the program. Those are optional, if the program meets your needs there would not be any requirement to do the maintenance contract in order to continue running the program. There is a support forum in place on another forum. This is a new program in its first release and will grow in features and capabilities. Especially if some good suggestions are sent my way. I hope to be able to release the free-lance version in the next few weeks.

I'll down load it and and provide a indepth review.

Bear in mind the current RCAPtures version is geared towards an aerial photography business, so there are extensions in the Equipment tracking and reporting. If you are going to review the software, it would be very helpful if you looked at it from the standpoint of what needs to be changed or added to make it more useful to a free-lance photographer. I fully expect the two versions of the program to diverge over a period of time. I plan on calling the second version 'FreeLancing' and hope to have a viable program on the market as soon as I can. My intention with that first version was to get some cash flow for the additional tools I need to build in, and also to get some feedback on features that would meet the market needs. I am a software developer and this is in progress, so any suggestions will be logged and will help shape the final product. BTW, I had planned on calling it 'FreeLancer' but that name is already taken by the warrior designer for World of Warcraft. Bummer.

If you are looking for simple client & project management with invoicing, try http://www.creativepro​office.com , an online solution. I'm using it for 2 businesses right now (photography and freelance consulting), and it works great. There are a few glitches, but it is very easy to use and best of all free.

There are several big programs made for the photography market also. But they can be pricey. Haven't tried these, but I've bookmarked them for a later look:
http://www.successware​.net/index2.html
http://www.cradocfotos​oftware.com/
http://www.thestudioas​sistant.com/
http://blinkbid.com/

A very complex one used by many people (and now free with great support) is PhotoByte: http://zimberoff.com/p​hotobyte.htm
I've tried it before, and if you can use quicken then you can use this. It's overkill for my needs though.

While looking up something, I just also found this, which looks promising: http://studiocloud.com​/features.html

I took yesterday off to go to an airshow, but did do a bunch of pondering along the way. I will need to make some extensions to my software to handle scheduling a bit better. The RCAPtures program is designed for outdoor photography, so all scheduling is basically "as soon as the weather permits". I'll add schedule date and time and tweak the displays a bit to accommodate that in the FreeLancing version.