Business solution with quickbooks.

T

TopGun

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Jan 22, 2005
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This is gonna be my first real business experience with computer work so I need a little help from you guys. One of the people that I've done computer work for had me get in touch with one of their family members that has a tavern that needs a technology update.

I've done quite a few computer jobs for people but aside from where my dad works I haven't really done much in this area. They told me that right now they're using a combination of quicken and excel. They have to put all of their expenses into excel and they're using the very basic features that their version of quicken has.

They were talking to me about having wifi and a laptop with a portable printer that would have better book keeping software on. I'm thinking QuickBooks would be the way to go but I don't have really any experience as far as book keeping goes. I can handle setting up a wireless router and the laptop and securing it all but just need some insight for the software side.

Here's just a few of the things they would like to be able to do:
--End of the day receipts, basically the amount of product they sold (beverages, food, etc...) They've been manually entering this into excel for their record keeping.
--Keep track of vendors (food, beverages, etc...)
--Total expenses for the week, month, year.
--Be able to print checks to pay the vendors.

I'm going to be calling them back on monday to let them know what kind of solution would be best.

Sorry for the long post. Having a business client would really help with college expenses.
-Justin
 
First, totally not a long post.

Second, sounds like GNUCash should be able to do everything they need it to. I'd look into that.
 
Master Bob said:
First, totally not a long post.

Second, sounds like GNUCash should be able to do everything they need it to. I'd look into that.
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You get what you pay for.

I highly recommend going with Quickbooks or Peachtree. The last thing any business needs is something that does not have support.
 
How large is the tavern?
They do food and beverage? There are many POS/Accounting packages out there that are specifically tailored to restaurants.
 
I haven't been to the tavern myself but it's in a pretty small town. The only chain business there that I know of is a gas station. I was told that they stay pretty busy during the evening though. She said that she would like to keep her current cash register and didn't want to computerize that. They do sell food and beverage.
 
Do any of you guys know which version of quickbooks would be best for them?
 
Just talked to them about quickbooks and the pro version seems to fit the bill pretty well.
This is turning out to be a pretty big job for me at least. They want me to buy and setup this:

Desktop
Laptop
Portable Printer
WIFI (just for the personal computers)
QuickBooks Pro

I'm thinking that Dell Vostro systems would be good for the laptop and the desktop.
The printer and router I still have to decide on and discuss with them.

I just gotta figure out a decent hourly rate. I've always been pretty negotiable on prices with personal computer jobs and having a set hourly rate is something I really need to figure out.

I'm living in a rural area and this computer job is going to be in a small town not too far from where I live. So based on those factors I was hoping you guys could point me in the right direction on a hourly rate.

Thanks guys.
 
Personally I always charge the same rate for all customers (business/personal.) I also harge a two hour minimum for travel to be onsite. I am however flexible an actual billable horus. (For those people that deserve it.) As for equipment and software, I don't recommend adding a surcharge, just get the cheapest price you can for your customer.
 
Can't help on the hourly rate, what do other labor jobs get paid? Electricians/plumbers/etc.

As far hardware, if they are ordering themselves point them to the best deal, if you are selling it to them, get friends with some resellers, sell gear at what bestbuy would charge, if you get some slickdeals.net deal on machines charge whatever the price is on the site. You need to make money too, your ordering, your time, your credit. Does the tavern give drinks at cost, negative.

Vostro is good stuff, maybe delloutlet for some optiplex and latitude, tavern to me screams small form factor, maybe vostro all in one. Printers I like Brother especially the lasers.

Router for 2 machines, setup a DIR-655 with WPA2 and be done.

Backup done by Mozy or Intronis (I like this one :) ). QB Pro. Easy 2-3 hour setup. Logmein for support.
 
marley1 said:
Can't help on the hourly rate, what do other labor jobs get paid? Electricians/plumbers/etc.

As far hardware, if they are ordering themselves point them to the best deal, if you are selling it to them, get friends with some resellers, sell gear at what bestbuy would charge, if you get some slickdeals.net deal on machines charge whatever the price is on the site. You need to make money too, your ordering, your time, your credit. Does the tavern give drinks at cost, negative.

Vostro is good stuff, maybe delloutlet for some optiplex and latitude, tavern to me screams small form factor, maybe vostro all in one. Printers I like Brother especially the lasers.

Router for 2 machines, setup a DIR-655 with WPA2 and be done.

Backup done by Mozy or Intronis (I like this one :) ). QB Pro. Easy 2-3 hour setup. Logmein for support.
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For wifi I'd go with wpa2, mac filtering, and disable the ssid broadcast. Make it something weird too. You want it locked down as much as possible.

Anyway the vostros are good machine. Get yourself a dell business rep. They can work on the quotes better. Also dell has been running a deal right now to get quickbooks pro for 100 bucks vs the like 180 it retails for if you buy it will a dell business desktop. Saves a little cash right there. Quickbooks also has its own backup program although mozy or something like it can be good. Just don't full rely on them. Teach the client how to backup their quickbooks to a usb drive. Also I'd get a raid one in the desktop.

YeOld's question on what they are running is a good one. You might want to look at quickbooks point of sale or another POS app. Nice thing is a lot of small business apps talk directly to quickbooks.
 
Thanks for the info on the quickbooks deal. I'll be having them order the systems and parts themselves because I don't have the funding to buy the stuff myself. How difficult is it to get a Dell rep? Is that realistic if I'm going to have them paying for the systems directly? I didn't think of Dell Outlet but that's always a possibility. My last question is would Windows 7 Home Premium x64 be fine or should I use Professional? I don't see a small tavern ever moving to a domain and I would imagine 64bit isn't a real compatibility issue with most software now.
 
TopGun said:
Thanks for the info on the quickbooks deal. I'll be having them order the systems and parts themselves because I don't have the funding to buy the stuff myself. How difficult is it to get a Dell rep? Is that realistic if I'm going to have them paying for the systems directly? I didn't think of Dell Outlet but that's always a possibility. My last question is would Windows 7 Home Premium x64 be fine or should I use Professional? I don't see a small tavern ever moving to a domain and I would imagine 64bit isn't a real compatibility issue with most software now.
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Get professional. A dell rep is as easy as making a phone call and asking for one. They will give you some extra options. Hell they can quote out the networking gear you need and maybe the printer. Other things like an apc can also be added to the quote. This helps if the business wants to take out a line of credit to buy the gear. Just make sure the printer and whatever else works for windows 7 64. Nice thing with pro is that you can downgrade to xp if needbe.
 
TopGun said:
How difficult is it to get a Dell rep? Is that realistic if I'm going to have them paying for the systems directly?
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Last I heard, in order to open a Dell Business account you need to promise to keep a minimum sales quota of $10K/yr And basically you can get deals on any of their business oriented systems (optiplex/latitude/precision/servers.) that are better than the website. They would only match web pricing on the Vostros.
 
Well I know I'm not going to be buying $10k worth of hardware from Dell every year so I'll probably pass on that. The Vostro systems are already a pretty good deal, I'm going to take a look at the outlet to see what they have to offer too.
 
Keiichi said:
Last I heard, in order to open a Dell Business account you need to promise to keep a minimum sales quota of $10K/yr And basically you can get deals on any of their business oriented systems (optiplex/latitude/precision/servers.) that are better than the website. They would only match web pricing on the Vostros.
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You can get business accounts with less. I've also gotten better deals on vostros. One nice thing with a business rep is if you see a good deal from like slickdeals they can honor it with a business quote that will not expire as fast.

Stepfather just went through my companies dell rep and bought a single desktop. They haven't bought a system in years and dell was able to pull up the old account and ran it through dell credit from when they bought systems on a dell credit line years ago.
 
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