Pastel My Invoicing

[KimH]

I have a client who manufactures kitchen and bathroom cupboards and they are looking for invoicing software that can manage:

Quotes
Pro Forma Invoices
Invoices
Credit Notes
Inventory

They don't want to purchase Xpress and are looking for something smaller that can handle the above - my first thought was Pastel My invoicing, but I am not sure whether this software includes inventory and if it does whether there are any limitations with the amount of transactions it can handle.

Thanks.

[Neville Bailey]

Hi Kim,

Click here to see a comparative list of features across the Pastel packages.

My Invoicing will maintain a history of items sold, but it will not maintain inventory quantities on hand and inventory costs.

[KimH]

Thanks Neville, I will let my client know.

[Newretailer]

Neville, which one would you recommend between My Business and Xpress Start-up? They seem to be very similar.

[Neville Bailey]

Neville, which one would you recommend between My Business and Xpress Start-up? They seem to be very similar.

There are pros and cons for both.

The major con for Xpress Startup (as opposed to Xpress Multi-Company) is that it only allows you to create a single company database. This means that you can't maintain historical records prior to the previous financial year. (Actually, there are ways to do it, but it's not a standard feature).

Here are the main pros and cons of My Business, as I see them:

My Business Cons:

• No General Ledger - your accountant/auditor will not like the fact that this fundamental accounting feature is not present.
• No Projects - not a major issue, unless you want to break your business into cost/profit centres.
• No Bank Manager add-on module - very useful module for importing bank statements.

My Business Pros:

• MS SQL database - far more stable than Xpress's Pervasive SQL database (next year will see Pastel adapting the rest of their packages to the MS SQL platform).
• Unlimited number of companies/databases.
• Unlimited number of cashbooks (Xpress has a limit of 30 cashbooks).

Overall, I would go for Xpress, if you want to keep proper accounting records, rather than simply have a means of invoicing and maintaining debtors, etc, and I believe you will get more support out there, as Xpress migrates seamlessly into Partner. You will also find more employees with Xpress/Partner experience.

I personally don't support My Invoicing or My Business, as the market is too small to justify the effort to become an expert in them, although I do sell the packages.