Interesting. My immediate question was "is this US-specific", but it seems not: http://www.manager.io/about, section "First-class support for every country".
That was exactly my first thought. Something else encouraging as far as internationalisation is concerned is that the company is based in Australia not the US so they are less likely to be blinkered to only their home market.
Wow. I'm founder of Manager.io and long-time member of HN but I was always afraid to submit on HN link to my own startup thinking it won't ever get any upvotes. There are hundreds of people on www.manager.io right now. I'm amazed and completely humbled by the interest right now.
As an outside observer, it seems that providing the desktop app allows the developer to have a freemium model without incurring additional hosting costs for those users. Users who want cloud storage offset his costs directly with the $5 charge.
Just guessing
Side Note, for those who haven't downloaded the app. There doesn't seem to be a mention for the cloud storage option on the home page. The app stores data locally, but offers the option of cloud storage with additional benefits for $5/month. Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/zWYpv7I.png
Not being a webapp is a huge plus for me if I'm going to use a piece of software for something important (when the use isn't inherently tied to the web).
The people who make this could sell to GoogleAppleSoft, get hit by a bus, or start charging stupid money for it, and I'll still have a copy and all my data. A webapp by a company I've never heard of before needs to do much more to reassure me that won't happen.
If you were to use this, would you really want to give all your detailed financial information to someone else? Who else do you give that info to? So desktop definitely good idea.
lubos, it looks very interesting, but (there's always a but)....
I use QuickenPro (or whatever they call it today) and while I dislike it, it has Maximum Accountant InterOperability (MAIO) - since it's what my accountant's office tends to use.
I really like the idea of a simple, straightforward, just enter the data and get stuff done without getting in my way sort of package, but without AIO and preferably MAIO, I ain't even thinkin' 'bout thinkin' 'bout switchin'.
I suspect I'm not the only one in this boat, and "I dislike that other thing" doesn't really make "the other thing" broken - and if it ain't broke, why fix it? (In other words, the pain of sacrificing MAIO likely exceeds any pain from using "the other thing".)
What plans, if any, do you have for data import/export to ease pain and ensure MAIO?
1.) Manager has already full support for UK VAT. Just enable VAT plugin for United Kingdom. You will get necessary tax codes and VAT return to prepare your VAT.
2.) There is no need to setup financial periods, just setup individual reports for periods you need.
3.) OSX package is bigger because it bundles Mono dependency.
Thanks for the quick reply, I've got the VAT plug in set up, but I can't see how to use the flat rate scheme.
In the flat rate VAT scheme I pay 14% of my turnover, instead of [VAT on invoices] - [VAT on purchases], this saves me a bit of money, but there's not much software that supports it.
Manager has already full support for UK VAT. Just enable VAT plugin for United Kingdom. You will get necessary tax codes and VAT return t(Io prepare your VAT.
Any chance you'd develop a generic VAT plugin? The requirements across Europe must be quite similar apart from rates, periods and invoice/receipts based calculation. I ask, because I doubt there'll be much impetus for you to develop an Irish VAT plugin, given the size of our population and there's no point in even trialling the software without it.
It's been a while since I didn't comment on anything on HN, but since you are doing something that is really hard and I have some experience with accounting and banking, may I offer you some tips that you might want to investigate further:
- Regulation: Some countries (and some US States) do have guidelines on how this type of software must be constructed, make sure you are compliant to those regulations if it's the case. Example: IIRC you need permits to even start building a POS solutions in some states.
- Integration: An usable accounting software must include HR or have integration with common HR software used by most companies. HR is one of the most complex parts of accounting. Most clients will have outdated solutions they are comfortable working with and won't change completely to your software, make sure you can integrate with tools they want to continue using. Only fight the old if the option you are offering means task elimination. Don't forget you need to integrate with banks, but that's easy.
- Customization: Human systems are not pretty. There are things that do not make sense to accounting and are often loaded with emotional decisions, human relationships and corporate strategy. Sometimes a software just streamlines the human mess, make sure your software can be customized by your clients to a certain point.
How do you deal with conflicts in sync? We have an Accounting software and I liked your offline freemium approach. What are you using for local server? and for database?SQLLite?
You should work on integrating this into various niche apps, like WHMCS (webhosting control panel), VOIP panels, basically any reseller panel you can find. It'd take off.
I'd also suggest you create a bitbucket account for issue submission since:
1. You can enable access only to issue tickets
2. you can keep your source code private
3. it's got a low barrier to entry (you don't actually need to keep source code there, but git is awesome and so is bitbucket)
Definitely the export list is a barrier to adoption. Really, it's all I care about.
I'm sure that any small business package is going to have a chart of accounts, invoice creation, etc. What I have to make sure of is that my accountant can import the package's exports and do my taxes. :)
It appears to be a wrapper around a webservice that runs in process. So I assume the webservice is something like .NET and so they stuck with C# for the GUI bits.
Any interest in making personal accounting software as well? On the Mac, there are few good low-cost options if you want desktop software and not cloud-based.
I'm actually planning to build a native OSX app. Would love to talk more about your needs/pains. Shoot me an email if you get a chance. My email is in my profile.
Good work. The install process was very smooth. I like that it doesn't require admin. Also a neat architecture. Looks like it's a .NET app running an in process web server.
Very nice! Does this pull in transactions from your bank accounts automatically? I'm using Xero right now (awesome BTW) and that is a killer feature for me.
It would be nice to be able to customize the text in the invoices (for example to translate them to other languages) and be able to add your logo. Also full screen on mac would be very welcome.
If this works, it could be a new model for software. There's something about accounting that seems more appropriate as desktop software. I like avoiding the monthly fees and it's probably more comforting to the developer not to be serving the app (I realize they are offering cloud storage).
Seems like you could put the *.manager file into dropbox or another "sync service" and put a symlink into the Users/... folder to point it to the dropbox file, which would probably allow multiple users to all access the same data. I feel like this would sort of be bypassing your cloud service
I don't mind but the problem is, if two people edit the file concurrently, Dropbox won't merge them. It will just create a copy. Cloud Storage is designed to merge changes no matter how many people work on file concurrently.
I hadn't tested and suspected something like that may happen. Just keep in mind it's possible people could hack together their own working versions of a multi-user sync.
No need to hack anything. I'm going to release server edition which will give users multi-user access without putting data into cloud storage. That will settle this matter.
I have a tech related question. It seems like you are running a web server locally and using a web browser component to display the pages processed locally.
Would you care to explain how everything is setup?
Regarding web-server, I'm just using HttpListener class in .NET Framework (or Mono) which is ultra lightweight solution. As per web-browser, Manager doesn't bundle it. I'm just using whatever is available on target operating system, that is Internet Explorer on Windows, Firefox on Linux and Safari on Mac OSX. Lots of credit goes to https://github.com/picoe/Eto which allows easy creation of these cross-platform apps.
138 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 218 ms ] threadI have an error on emailing invoices. It says just "Error" in modal.
I'm curious as to why have you decided to package this as a desktop software, rather than a web app?
Just guessing
Side Note, for those who haven't downloaded the app. There doesn't seem to be a mention for the cloud storage option on the home page. The app stores data locally, but offers the option of cloud storage with additional benefits for $5/month. Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/zWYpv7I.png
And, incidentally, you are welcome for this submission ;)
The people who make this could sell to GoogleAppleSoft, get hit by a bus, or start charging stupid money for it, and I'll still have a copy and all my data. A webapp by a company I've never heard of before needs to do much more to reassure me that won't happen.
I use QuickenPro (or whatever they call it today) and while I dislike it, it has Maximum Accountant InterOperability (MAIO) - since it's what my accountant's office tends to use.
I really like the idea of a simple, straightforward, just enter the data and get stuff done without getting in my way sort of package, but without AIO and preferably MAIO, I ain't even thinkin' 'bout thinkin' 'bout switchin'.
I suspect I'm not the only one in this boat, and "I dislike that other thing" doesn't really make "the other thing" broken - and if it ain't broke, why fix it? (In other words, the pain of sacrificing MAIO likely exceeds any pain from using "the other thing".)
What plans, if any, do you have for data import/export to ease pain and ensure MAIO?
A couple of questions:
How do I set up things like financial year start date, VAT quarters, etc.
Does manager.io support flat rate VAT? (I'm in the UK)
Not that it matters, I'm just intrigued - why is the OSX package so much bigger?
2.) There is no need to setup financial periods, just setup individual reports for periods you need.
3.) OSX package is bigger because it bundles Mono dependency.
In the flat rate VAT scheme I pay 14% of my turnover, instead of [VAT on invoices] - [VAT on purchases], this saves me a bit of money, but there's not much software that supports it.
Any chance you'd develop a generic VAT plugin? The requirements across Europe must be quite similar apart from rates, periods and invoice/receipts based calculation. I ask, because I doubt there'll be much impetus for you to develop an Irish VAT plugin, given the size of our population and there's no point in even trialling the software without it.
I created a request on your uservoice page, for what it's worth: http://manager.uservoice.com/forums/202564-plugin-ideas/sugg...
- Regulation: Some countries (and some US States) do have guidelines on how this type of software must be constructed, make sure you are compliant to those regulations if it's the case. Example: IIRC you need permits to even start building a POS solutions in some states.
- Integration: An usable accounting software must include HR or have integration with common HR software used by most companies. HR is one of the most complex parts of accounting. Most clients will have outdated solutions they are comfortable working with and won't change completely to your software, make sure you can integrate with tools they want to continue using. Only fight the old if the option you are offering means task elimination. Don't forget you need to integrate with banks, but that's easy.
- Customization: Human systems are not pretty. There are things that do not make sense to accounting and are often loaded with emotional decisions, human relationships and corporate strategy. Sometimes a software just streamlines the human mess, make sure your software can be customized by your clients to a certain point.
Have you thought on maybe making a walkthrough screencast for tech guys like us from zero to doing the whole accounting through your app?
Thanks for the app, great job :)
Looking forward to taking it for a test drive.
I'd also suggest you create a bitbucket account for issue submission since:
1. You can enable access only to issue tickets 2. you can keep your source code private 3. it's got a low barrier to entry (you don't actually need to keep source code there, but git is awesome and so is bitbucket)
I'm sure that any small business package is going to have a chart of accounts, invoice creation, etc. What I have to make sure of is that my accountant can import the package's exports and do my taxes. :)
curious to understand your technology choice
Would it be possible to use other languages with Eto?
I am looking for alternatives though.
One question, can bank accounts be linked for realtime importing or is it based on importing csv's only etc?
I have a tech related question. It seems like you are running a web server locally and using a web browser component to display the pages processed locally.
Would you care to explain how everything is setup?
What webserver are you using?
Is it a QA app with a webview?
Thanks!