[lostduck]

Hi, I'm not sure if this is the place to post this but... I have started developing a Mobile Online Project Management / Invoice Software for my brother in law who is a Electrician he operates just a small electrician company but wanted a system to give estimates on site, keep track of the projects hes working on and billing in real time etc... I am think of expanding on it to sell this software to the market. So first I was wondering if there is even a market for something like this and two I was wondering if anyone would like to help me and beta test the software for there company's and give feedback on what other features to add and help fix any bugs...
Below is a few screen shots of the Software.
Here is the work order

View on the work order

Here you can change prices of items
http://lostduckranch.com/ele/pic5.JPG
Here is a list of the projects this being worked on
http://lostduckranch.com/ele/poic3.JPG

If you want more information on the features or want to see a live demo online just let me know. This for your time and thoughts. Also i'm not trying to spam this form or anything I just wanted to talk to the people in this field and see if this is worth pursuing.
Thanks!

 

[FrunkSlammer]

There's definitely a market... some of us are paying some good money for these types of programs.

What platform does yours run on? And what do you anticipate the price would be?

The big one getting pushed around here right now is from mpengo.. I think it's a one time fee of $20-25. I use Freshbooks ($20/mo), which is good for estimates/invoicing/project management/timetracking and business management (accounting). I have access to everything on my iPhone, iPad and home computer.

 

[lostduck]

Thanks for the info! I'm going to check those out!
The software is a web based program so it can be accessed anywhere by customers, employees, you etc. It just needs a username and password. It runs on IE, Chrome, Fire Fox, All phones Etc.. Its based online and uses MySQL to save the Data. That is backed up all the time. For a prices I want it to be cheap for people. I run a prototyping company for automation and always find it hard to spend money monthly fees. I was thinking around $9.99 a month or $119.99 a year. Because of the hosting cost.

 

[lostduck]

Also here was a few on the features that are in this project
1. Quotes
2. Invoicing
3. Client interaction to login to their projects and add items subtract items.
4. Client to Company messaging per Project
5. Company Notes / Messaging that the client won’t see
6. Upload pictures to the project for client or company viewing
7. Upload receipts for accounting
8. Employee Time tracking
9. Setting date of project
10. Search to find client invoices fast search by address, name, date, notes etc…
11. Employee login to add time at job
12. Assign project to employee to help schedule projects
13. Print function with company logo for paper invoicing

 

[macmikeman]

Initially I like your idea here, but pardon me a bit if I let loose my first thoughts after clicking the picture resizer bar to see what you had there.-
Call it anything you like but to me, a project is not adding a wireless doorbell or a dryer circuit. Thats a job, not a project.

To me a project is 80 or 90 electrical blueprint pages of information about one job , putting a crew together, and the equipment needed for them, and laying out a plan of installation and figuring out the required money flow and disbursement strategy, setting up required cpm's, user docs and the like. That is a project.

But like I said I like what you are doing, the more the merrier. I myself have always preferred stand alone software that you can back up to a server if you like, but I am not keen on cloud based web anything , simply cause it can go away any time and you have no control of that if you are an end user.

 

[wcord]

I just quickly glanced at the various items and probably missed a few things.
A definite must, is a field or two, where additional pricing can be added. Example, a 200 base service would be 'X' dollars, but the one being quoted needs an extra 20 feet of so of pipe and wire.
Looks fairly comprehensive for the residential market. I used to have an Excel list, for pricing. The same sheet ( less pricing info, was used for the roughing and finishing crews as a check off sheet.

$ 10 per month is quite a good value for what you are offering.

 

[lostduck]

macmikeman - I guess calling it a project is not the right word. Its direction will be more geared toward a basic concept of
1. Client calls for a bid
2. Put all the data into the form.
3. It will give the client a total in email / verbal.
4. Set a date of when to do the job.
5. Client can log into the job and request items changes (But does not over write the original bid.)
6. Assign employee to job if needed.
6. Do job
7. Close the job which send the client a invoice to email. Or close the job and Print a paper copy to mail invoice.

Also I hear you on cloud computing. Its not my cup of tea ether. I tried to minimize this by setting it up so its on a mirror backup and external nightly backup which to some is skeptical so I'm going to add a backup button that the user has access to 24/7. And the user can download there files to there hard drive anytime they want. It will backup the database file and export it to a excel file. I guess after writing this it is a form of cloud computing....


wcord - Yes I'm still working on getting that done. I'm added a permit box too because those always change on price (I think). A Discount box for good customers or just a fast way to get a bid down. I do like what your saying I will differently add a misc box or two for additional cost or subtraction of cost.

Thanks everyone for there Ideas this helps a lot to try and build this thing right. I am going to put a live version online shortly so anyone can go and see it without looking at those big pictures sorry about that...
Thanks!

 

[lostduck]

Here is a update, if anyone would like to help test this for free please let us know. We are still adding things and working out bugs.... I have uploaded a video of a quick over view of the system right now its posted below... Please let us know what you think. If you go to http://lostduckranch.com/job-tracker-beta-testing-way/ you can log into a demo system and see it in action. Thanks again everyone for your input.