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[ Go to February 1997 Table of Contents ]
WinLab Reviews
-- by Joel T. Patz
MySoftware's Easy Custom Invoices offers an alternative for creating estimates and invoices, recording payments and printing reports. Unfortunately, it's overpriced and not terribly flexible. You can design your first invoice with a seven-step wizard in less than 2 minutes. To start, you're prompted to enter your company's name, address and the type of invoice desired: hourly rate, products, professional services, or products and services. Choose from five predefined styles and select the taxes (if any) that apply; you're then placed in the seven-tabbed main screen, ready to start your invoice. Select the Invoice tab and enter the customer name and address, select products or services to bill, and pick a custom message to include. To save time, you can import an existing customer list. Using the Estimate tab, you can create an estimate and eventually convert it to an invoice. Click on the Register tab to view a complete list of estimates or invoices. The Payments tab lets you record receipts, and the Customer tab provides a complete audit trail. Although easy to use, annoying irregularities are evident in this product. It fails to warn you when a new invoice exceeds the customer's credit limit. You can customize field headings themselves but not their placement on an invoice, and only a few uncustomizable reports are included. This disappointing program lacks the polish and ease of use of other invoicing products. QuickBooks version 5.0's new Invoice and Statement designers make that program a much better choice.
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