Feng Forum
Support => How To's => : Capitan November 24, 2008, 03:36:14 PM
-
I was wondering if anyone had any pointers about using opengoo as a law practice.
Specifically,
1.Keeping a list of clients
2.Tracking time spent on work for clients
3.Whether or not a project is completed for a client.
I am guessing generating an invoice is outside the purview of opengoo, but the only other thing I was wondering about is tracking costs associated with a client.
-
I don't run a law office, but I run my own small translation business and am so far using this pretty successfully.
1 - Yes, you can definitely keep a list of clients, and even make it more fine grained.
2 - Yes, you can keep track of time spent of clients and projects.
3 - Yes, you can track completion of a project and it can also be flagged as late if you wish.
As far as invoicing, you currently can't within OpenGoo, however, if you have MySQL installed (which you would if you are using OpenGoo), there are several options available to you. I currently am using a package called OpenCoin, which is offered by my hosting company. It's pretty complete for what it is, and you can have PDFs automatically created and emailed to the client.
As far as tracking costs, you can't currently do that, but if you are working off an hourly billing rate, you can easily calculate costs using the track tasks/milestones function. I don't know of any way to actually track other tangible expenses within OpenGoo. Again, any invoice package would be able to handle that.
R.
==
-
Thanks for the reply. I actually run opengoo off my local linux machine so I don't need a remote server. I was wondering, though, as I googled for opencoin, I cannot find what you were talking about?
I installed simple invoices and it seems to be nice. Sure wish I could avoid redundant entries for clients:O(one in each program)
I was also wondering how you are doing the things you talked about.
1.Do you just list your clients under "contacts?" How are you making it more fine grained?
2.Do you just use calendar to keep track of time spent with clients/projects?
3.I'm guessing the #3 you referred to is with calendar as well.
I read that they are going to implement something soon with opengoo to allow it to interact with google calendar, which would be nice, at least for reminders.
Thanks again for your info.
-
Actually, a simple document may be the best for #2? They are working on a spreadsheet module, so eventually that may be better, you could just enter date, start and stop times and it would add up billable hours for you.
#3 Tasks and Milestones would likely be the best bet...?
#1 I think by refining he means using workspaces.
I'm in Construction and looking to use this for client collaboration. I have a workspace "clients", and then inside that I have workspaces for different clients, and then inside those client workspaces I have a workspace for specific projects. For example... we've been doing a number of projects for Old Country Buffets, by setting it up this way I narrow down my contact lists according to the specific projects.
Each location has the info on the store managers we work with there. Then in the OCB client workspace is our general contacts with corporate office.
The same thing for tasks, calendar entries, etc. Enter them under the specific project, but by looking at the client workspace, I can get an overview of all the projects under that client.
-
oh yea, for time keeping, tasks also have a "start/stop" for time tracking... so you could create a task under a client workspace, use the start/stop (basically a stop watch it seems?) to track the time, then transfer that to a document for totaling up later.
-
oh yea, for time keeping, tasks also have a "start/stop" for time tracking... so you could create a task under a client workspace, use the start/stop (basically a stop watch it seems?) to track the time, then transfer that to a document for totaling up later.
I do pretty much the same as you've said in both your posts - I use Workspaces for further refining contacts, and for tasks and milestones I always use Sẗart/Stop to track time. That's really all I need for billable hours. I wish there were some way to incorporate other expenses (such as tangible items), ut I think that would require incorporating a full blown invoicing program, which would be difficult, I would imagine.
@Capitan: I meant to say PHPCoin, not OpenCoin. Sorry.
R.
==
R.
==
-
Thanks for the responses. I tried phpcoin but the interface is a bit, err, ugly. I'm going to see how simply invoices works out. Don't know if you guys have any thoughts on that(or another alternative to phpcoin).
rportinga - I think I understand what you are saying, but I was wondering, do you end up having a client's information listed under a contact(contact information) but then have the workspace thing for them as well, which only has their name?
It seems I can list contacts according to workspaces? So I guess I will put clients contacts under "clients" workspace.
Thanks
-
Under "Clients" I create a sub-space for each client. Some clients I do one job for, some I do multiple... so looking at the list of workspaces it might look like this...
Clients
Client 1
Job 1
Client 2
Job 1
Job 2
Job 3
Client 3
Job 1
Job 2
Client 4
Job 1
I enter the contact info for Client 1 under the Client 1 workspace, not under the Job, but say Client 2 is a restaurant chain and each job is a different location...
I'd enter the corporate contact info under the Client 2 workspace, but I could enter the store specific contact (manager or whatever) under the Job they are associated with. That way, when looking at Client 2, I see the corporate contact as well as all the job specific contacts... but if I want to filter it to a specific job, I just go to that Job.
Same principle works for notes, tasks, etc. I can track tasks for each job by putting them in that workspace, but I can get an overview of everything from that client from that client workspace.
Hope that clears up what I meant...
-
Thanks. I was wondering if there's some way to avoid the redundancy of creating an entry in contacts and a workspace?
-
Thanks. I was wondering if there's some way to avoid the redundancy of creating an entry in contacts and a workspace?
This is a very good question, and one that concerns me much. Currerently there is no way of doing this. I have a clear idea of how we could achieve this, but -unfortunately- it is a lot of work.
We'll get it eventually. :)