(Free Beta) Got a small business?

Archive
#1

Once I started Skewworks fulltime, I needed something to handle invoicing for me so I looked around and found a Windows 8 app that worked well and was reasonably priced. Of course, it didn’t take long before it wasn’t good enough. I was forced into a 75x75px area for my logo on the invoice, there was no custom emailing, etc, etc.

So I created Black Ink. This app currently is web only (I’m adding WP8 and Win8 app support soon) and lets you get your data anywhere. You can also set your logo whatever size works for you.

Black Ink lets you create invoices, clients, quotes and upload documents. You can export your invoices to PDFs and have the system email the PDF to your client. The email can be customized to fit your taste.

I’ll be moving it to a subscription/one off model in the future (still cheap, see pricing section) but in the mean time I wanted to invite everyone to try it out, full featured, for free as a beta. I just ask you post any comments, requests, concerns here so I can make changes before a full release. :smiley:

http://blackink.skewworks.com/

1 Like
#2

Hi Tom,
Looks good, i noticed something on the payment snapshot, shouldn’t the button called “Make Payment” be “Take Payment” or "Receive Payment"since the business is receiving the payment and not making one…?
The “Make Payment” would come in handy when you add a section for paying the business bills…

Cheers,

1 Like
#3

quickbooks is the way to go.

#4

@ Mike - Which Quickbooks and for what size business? I’ve seen good implementations and I’ve seen bad, enough so that I’ll give Black Ink a try. I’m using Quicken H&B at the moment, and for some reason I haven’t discerned, I just don’t really like it (either).

@ Skewworks - I’m game. I can do double entry for a while. Just sign up on the site, or get info on beta sign up from you here?

#5

@ Gregg - I ran. a consulting practice for about eight years with QB about ten years ago. at that time I used the standard version. I don’t know what version I would use now.

#6

@ Gregg - Yup just a normal sign up, everyone gets everything free as long as it is in beta. I’ll give 30 days notice to existing account holders before it switches to needing payment.

#7

On another note, don’t forget to comment about pricing too, want to make sure I’m offering good product and pricing :slight_smile:

#8

As for pricing, I’m a bit confused. Let’s take just Invoicing as an example. I would pay $1.99/month for access + $.99 per invoice?

#9

The standard terms are “accounts receivable” and “accounts payable”, for money coming into the business, and going out of the business, respectively. It probably makes sense to keep to the standard terminology.

#10

No its $1.99 for unlimited for a month or .99 for one offs. I’ll try to make that more clear.

#11

At that price, the one off seems kinda pointless.

#12

Agreed. I wouldn’t bother with the $0.99 offering. In fact, I think you’re selling yourself short. $4.99/month seems very reasonable for something like this. It obviously has plenty of room for growth in features but you don’t really want to have to increase your prices drastically later as you add features.

It looks very nice.

#13

So… What about ROME? :wink:

#14

Hi Thom

Interesting any info. on data security ? I assume that the data will be in shared tables.

#15

@ Gregg & Ian - Thanks, I’ll up the monthly and think about dropping the one offs.

@ Rajesh - Sensitive information (names, addresses, tax id, etc) are encrypted using AES256 with a per item unique key.

#16

Looks interesting and I have been looking for a solution to invoicing for a while now.

Can it handle multiple currencies? I deal with USD, GBP and IDR in my business so having the ability to handle them all might make me have a look at it.

I have found a couple of nice Android apps that do something similar but they only seem to handle a single currency or in my case, can’t handle the number of digits for the Rupiah :frowning:

#17

Black Ink can definitely handle the digit count. It currently only supports a default currency, but there’s no reason I couldn’t make currency available by invoice…though I’d need to figure out how to manage conversion so the main screen could keep track of profits.

Perhaps I could have Black Ink support multiple currencies and have it require you to enter a conversion rate?