Invoicing Techniques, Inventory Control, etc

[duggyb]

Well after my training a year ago and some dabbling in it over summer this past year i love doing PPF and Vinyl,etc(i dont do tint just yet!)

Now this coming summer i am looking to get a little more serious into it(but i still have a full time job as well)

For last summer i just invoiced using Microsoft Word, this as most know is not the optimum route.

I am just curious about getting quick books and how it works for invoicing and inventory control

Can you control film by feet? does anyone else even bother to control inventory?

or do they just input a dollar amount and once that amount has been sold the rest is profit?

also how do you guys invoice? i only did a handful of invoices last year but i was combining product into labor and i think i am taking a bigger tax hit on that.

how do you guys separate labor and product? do you have a set labor rate? per hour? based on sq ft?

do you guys then markup the product and separate that in a invoice.

do you separate shop supplies? or even charge it?

also if anyone has a sample invoice(prices blurred out) they could upload so i get a feel for it that would be great.

i am thinking i am going to do quickbooks this summer unless someone else has a better idea.

currently i don't take credit card, as i don't really want to have a whole POS setup, is there other options? maybe an old manual card machine?

any tips for POS/invoicing/inventory and purchase orders would be great!

Thanks.

Dustin

[duggyb]

i did a free signup for freshbooks.com

anyone else try this?

ive been playing with it, looks alright for me maybe as its basic and small time