Invoice-Ninja - Lets take a look

[coffee]

First off, I have been looking for a decent invoicing software package for quite some time. I really am tired of QB and I do not want an online solution - in the cloud. I just wanted decent invoices and to look decent / professional to my clients. So, I was browsing around the linux news websites and saw a article for Invoice-ninja. I read it a bit and decided to give it a shot and see if its any good.

The Install:

I had a real bear of a time getting it installed. It runs in the browser and on your linux webserver. I spent probably about 12 hours off/on trying to get it installed correctly. I was almost ready to give up. So, I decided I would take one more stab at it. Now, Instead of trying to load it on my work server running LAMP I turned around and decided to install Nginx / mariadb / upgrade php to 7.0 and give this a run. I also followed the helpful site here:

https://websiteforstudents.com/inst...-04-17-10-with-nginx-mariadb-and-php-support/

Things actually went very smooth. In no time it was installed. So, Next came the big reveal. Was it worth all this darn work?

Fire it up time:

The first run thru the browser brought me to a setup page. You input the normal stuff like your mysql account info / email info / new credentials ect... What was nice is that at every point there is a "test" button to make sure it works. Then, I hit save and immediately I was greeted by a login screen and then a Dashboard.

Ok, Im impressed. Looks very clean and well laid out. However, I was after the real important stuff like invoicing and possibly product inventory/pricing ect.. So, I was looking at the left menu and .....



Im amazed. Its got everything I could need. Of course, I have not had any time to check it out fully. I went into the advanced settings and pulled up the invoice designer. Im impressed there. It blows QB right out of the water!

Some of the other options in the software that I did have time to glance at:
1. Customer portal on your website to view / pay invoices. The page code is included and tailored using your website settings. Customer logs in, views and pays bills on line.
2. Full email support for sending / receiving invoices and such.
3. Inventory control?
4. Client importing. I can now grab my clients from QB (export csv ) or Gnu-cash and just import them.

There is a lot more that I have not seen yet. However, From what I have seen Im excited.

So, If you are a small business like me and interested in something local and free I would say give this a whirl.

I have not looked at everything yet. Still in the process today....

https://invoice-ninja.readthedocs.io/en/latest/invoice_design.html

coffee

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Tom Lawrence @pcpickup did a video on it.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

It looked cool, but didn't really have a ticketing option. Not sure if that has been added or if they were even going to add it.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Their paid (hosted) options are pretty low cost as well.

 

[nerd2u]

They have a free version of their hosted app.

Seeing as I'd have to deploy a VPS for 5$ I rather just pay the 8 dollars a month to have them host it.

It becomes more cost effective to self host if you have multiple users.

I love invoice ninja

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[coffee]

You can host your own. I do on nginx instead of apache. You can buy the white label (removes invoice-ninja logo's from invoices and such) for around 20.00 bucks a year.

The more I use it, The more I find that its a really polished and solid bit of software. I do not have the portal setup as its not that necessary for me right now. I do like the option of just emailing the invoice. I do this with repeat customers and give them about 10 days to pay the invoice. It works rather well and now its a treat to check the mailbox

Had a client as me once what I do with those that do not pay their bills. I told him that they receive no more service from me and they will have to deal with geeksquad and pay their inflated prices instead. When they are tired of paying those prices and want a real tech then they can pay their outstanding bill with me and continue service. I havent had one yet fail to pay.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

Looks like ticketing will be out soon: