computers and heidelberg question

ladypilot
on 8 Jan 12 (20:45)

So, I have 3 questions tonight, 2 of them less letterpress than letterpress business issues:

1. For those of you running a printing business, have you found any good invoicing-type software? I work for a business that uses Parallels, but I’m not really happy with it and don’t have it on my Mac. I wondered if anyone had tried any open source software they liked.

2. Also computer-related, I’d like to create a website which allows customers to purchase directly online. For folks who do this, who do you use to facilitate the process? I’m a decent printer, but mostly at sea when it comes to the tech side of things.

3. Finally, a press question. We have a Heidelberg at my shop which no one knows quite how to use yet. I live in North Carolina and wondered if there might be a shop using Heidelbergs that might be willing to exchange a week or so of free work from me for a bit of training on a Heidelberg. We have manuals, but I would really love to spend some time with someone who knows what they’re doing.

Thanks in advance for any responses,
Emily
Lady Pilot Letterpress

Peter Luckhurst
on 8 Jan 12 (20:53)

It would help your cause if you put up the type and model of press !Good luck.

typenut
on 8 Jan 12 (20:54)

For a small Business,any off the shelve like Quicken etc. which also help you to track inventory and facilitate billing are useful.
eShox
www.eshox.com/ is a ready shopping cart with an easy interface and multi language support

woweber
on 8 Jan 12 (23:29)

As I am new to letterpress, I don’t know of any Industry specific software for accounting, however, QuickBooks is just about the standard software for small business bookkeeping.

cmcgarr
on 9 Jan 12 (09:17)

Ladypilot

I use Paypal for purchasing of my posters from my website. Its relatively easy to set up through Paypal and they have excellent instructions.

If someone needs business cards, etc… they also pay through Paypal.

Casey
Inky Lips Press

mephits
on 10 Jan 12 (01:58)

I haven’t really used it yet so I don’t know if it’ll work for you or not, but I did find a free Mac invoicing program called ExpressInvoice. They have a paid version as well and the free one does bug you to upgrade, but it seems to do all the basic invoicing with the free version.