Don't move this thread please. No one ever checks fluffty General Talk and this is important.

I need some very simple financial management software. In fact, it doesn't even have to be financial management.

I work in media, and we need a way to keep profiles on authors, their addresses, bank details, and miscellaneous fields (works completed). This all needs to be printable on a document with all fields visible. It also needs to be exportable to Excel.

That's all I need it for - basically, just data collection and collation. I don't need the software to know my bank details, I don't need to make transactions through it. All I need is what I described.

Also, I need it to be simple, and preferably online.

Note that Quicken Online or Mint.com don't work outside of the US/Canada. I am outside of the US/Canada.

Suggestions? Ideas? Probes? Stfu ford?

...why don't you just use Excel?

Yes.... design your own table in excel :P

I'm not familiar with how to manipulate excel into what I want, nor am i sure it can do what I have in mind. I need to keep tabs on works produced monthly, which for some people can be numerous, whilst also keeping a history of everything.

sounds like you want a database.

I know you're already distancing yourself from using Excel for such tasks, but regardless of that I must warn you.

At work, I suggested we port some of our record-keeping, as well as some other tasks over to Excel spreadsheets. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now that they've become indispensable, I'd have to conservatively guess that I've spent about 1,000 working hours creating and maintaining them.

If you don't plan on going to epic scales with the spreadsheets, you're probably fine, but if you end up getting rather technical with them, expect to do a lot of work, in addition to the actual work you wanted to make easier.

Oh, as a positive, though, it's allowed me to throw together numerous EE spreadsheets for miscellaneous data with relative ease :P

I *could* probably get Excel to do what I want with it, but I don't have nearly the expertise to manipulate it as I'd need.

I want to be able to, let's say, make a "profile" of someone that contains the following fields:

Name:
Amount owed:
Bank Account Number:
Bank Details:
Address:
Works published:

I'd like this to keep records/archives obviously, but also shorten results (especially "works published") by timespan.

That way, if I want to pay 50 authors for April and May, I could sort it by those dates (amount owed is linked to the number of works that appears), put them all on a spreadsheet or whatever, print it off and shoot it to HR. Or email it. w/e

I just don't have the prowess to design something like that in Excel.

You could use *shudder* MS Access.

You could use OpenOffice Base.

Those are perhaps the two easiest things I know for your situation.

Thx, I'll look into it.

I have Access open now. Don't know wtf to do. I guess I'll figure it out. :P

you could do all that on excel tbh although as has been mentioned the set up time could be prohibitive.
If you set up excel properly then you end up saving a lot of time down the road. (I have an entire valuation system built mostly in excel and the requirements for that are very strict as it must survive audits and a whole host of regulatory requirements in addition to the mounds of technical calculations and user inputs).

DB software like access is probably better in your case TAN. You probably don't need anything more sophisticated than that.

Alternatively you can use accounting/simple business management software which saves you from having to design much yourself but you lose flexibility.. also probably not as good for your needs:
http://www.simplyaccounting.com/ for example.

And don't take this the wrong way, but given what you described and the size/scope/complexity of what you are trying to do, I suggest improving your skills in excel and access as this will help you tremendously. You can always hit people up on this forum for help:P

ps: don't try to use a sledgehammer to pound a nail.

what martian said

Agreed

finance people use excel therefore use excel. if you want someone to do this for you go to:

http://www.odesk.com

there are people there that are willing to create database for a small price - pay them $20 and they will do your work.

There's this new hardware called pencil, integrated with paper, its compatible with any system except illiterate 2.01. The copying system can not be beat, although pencil can sometimes crash with error: 65921, which can easily be fixed with the newest piece of hardware called a pencil sharpener. Combined with the last page of your check book, the "balancing tables" saved in .jpg format, youre golden.

I think pen is a superior version of pencil!

:P

Not since pencil 2.0, it now has a backspace key.

dang, they work cheap. supposse i should take a pay cut so i can compete with them. naw, too much work.

pen 2.1 also has a backspace key and comes in multiple colours!

I tried MS Access. I've had to teach myself since I know *nothing* about this type of software, but I've set up something basic.

I just need to learn how to tweak it and stuff.

Got problems with the "duplicate" function not wanting to work, but oh well.

Access can probably do what you want in a multi-user environment, but other database products might be better at it depending on how people are required to connect.

plus, Access is meant to be a relational database. it's not a blessed spreadsheet.

didn't even know it had a duplicate function.

well if you want the best of both worlds (spreadsheet and db) then you need something astronomically more expensive like SAS (which ironically can integrate itself into excel). But like was already said your problem really only requires a relational db with some pretty features like access.

If you can't manage this stuff yourself, have a business oriented small software firm create the software for you.

LINUX + APACHE + MYSQL + PHP w00t

all problems can be solved using dynamic database driven web pages!

hehe

(i had large data sets to deal with for my project, and used a db + php to analyze them...)

Dunno what all this stuff means, lol.

I'm just a poli sci / international studies guy.

We had a former principal in our firm who wrote a custom set of databases and interface using Borland and Delphi. It was probably state of the art in 1995, but the interface is clunky, slow, and not capable of retrieving more than one record at a time, or exporting 90% of the data (and extremely slow at the remaining 10%). Since the guy who wrote it is no longer with the firm, and no one writes in Delphi anymore, there is no tech support for it. I strongly recommend finding an industry specific database package instead of trying to create something proprietary. That said, I was able to create a decent set of forms in access when I was toying with starting my own business. Since my partner only had open office, I tried to recreate them in Base. Open Office Base is worthless.

are you doing a multi-user database, TAN?

build a database - collect the information and generate reports - easy stuff

For now, just something simple (I suppose even an excel doc could do the trick) - I want to be able to, at the very least, keep a database of contact and bank information along with an extra field to type notes in, which all needs to be sortable and printable.

Ideally, I want this to be a database that not only can sort by author, but also by specific dates (not just by decreasing/increasing, but within time-frames).

I want to be able to associate a published work to an author, so that I can click on an author and see all works that he/she has published on our site, and then sort them by date (or, ALL authors who had works published within a timeframe).

Just imagine, for argument's sake, an excel sheet with the following columns:

Name - Amount Owed - Bank Account # - Bank Address - Works Published

I want the database software to be able to fetch all works associated with an author, fetch that author's bank details, and put it into a printable spreadsheet - along with all the other authors and works they've published within the same time period.

It's really quite simple, and I dunno how to do it.

I think your options would be A. what everyone else has already suggested in building your own Excel/Access tables to track it for yourself, or B. getting something like Quick Books which has way more features than you'll need, but will also have those core ones that you want.

You could also try signing up with mint.com (free), but I have no idea if it has those features or not - I've just heard really good things.

1) Mint.com is not available outside of USA/Canada.
2) Quickbooks online is not available in Qatar (where I am).
3) I'm not paying money for Quickbooks Pro 2011 or whatever without trying out the software first (no trial available for that version).

The problem, NOW3P, is that I've never used database software before -- despite Microsoft Access being...well...Microsoft, the software is complex and although I've managed to teach myself enough to create a very basic database, I will eventually need to take it to the next step, which I fancy will be much more complicated.

Tan read up on relational database. You will get the hang of it

mint.com isn't that customizable, though it's great. find someone with a lot of free time (earth noobs on IRC?) to build this for you in access/excel, as others have said.

We use Peachtree to keep info on customers, inventory, and sales reps. I don't think it's free though.