Those of you with service businesses how do you keep track of your projects?

It hates me too!

Just buy an accountants notepad and it has all the columns marked out. Much easier to use, and you can put it on your desk next to your computer.

Don't forget to have a column for the location of your resources. i.e. where the clients notes are. You'll drive yourself crazy looking in your email, PM box, Skype otherwise.

Find someone to do it for you. Outsource these task so you can focus on growing your business. Build a strong team to delegate these task so you as the business owner can focus on the area your business needs improvement.

Here is a list of open source CRM software.

You can give TurboCASH a try which is at the bottom of the page.

As much as it sounds strange for someone that lives and breathes high-tech, there is just no substitute for old fashioned pen and paper. Being what many would call an "old dude" this shouldn't be a total surprise, even those that know I spend at least 14 hours a day sitting in front of a computer on my day job, IM and personal activities.

I keep track of projects (and ideas) on old fashioned 3x5 index cards. My Wife bought me a little leather thing called a "pocket briefcase" a number of years ago. Has several sections to hold 3x5 cards, and fits into a man's shirt pocket. Very useful and always handy. I think she got it from a company called Levenger. There are a bunch of accessories available (like a stadium sort of file that allows you to put cards in several rows. It takes post-it notes kind of things to a new level for keeping the top projects on the top levels...) At work, it is in my shirt pocket or on my desk. At night it is next to the bed on my nightstand. If I have an idea in the middle of the night, I jot it down and go right back to sleep. Since I got this, I have much better and deeper sleep. I can be assured to remember a new idea in the morning because I wrote it down, so I can sleep more deeply because I don't have to remember it in the morning...

As Colin already mentioned, an accountant's notepad works well for keeping track of invoices and payments. Never lost a bit of data from a hard drive crash on one of those!

However, I also use Excel spreadsheets and Access Databases for the higher tech side of the world, particularly with invoices, payments and other financial information. I don't see this as much like duplication as verification. With a database or spreadsheet I can easily manipulate the information into the reports I need, when I need them. Several of my friends swear by Quickbooks, but I have no personal experience with it because I can do anything I need in Excel or Access. I used to run SQL on my home server, but eventually shut it down because of the cost of electricity where I live (we pay about $0.42 per Kilowatt hour here, net delivered). My server was costing me nearly a hundred dollars a month for electricity alone. I mostly run from a notebook now, with extensive backups.

The paper helps keeps me sane, especially the 3x5 cards. Each day, I take the ones with me that I want to work on that day. As I think of new projects, I start a new card. Some get filed for later, some get action right away.

Yep, computers are wonderful and useful, and can help you if you use them properly. However, sometimes paper and pen is _still_ a good solution.

I would recommend you to give Invoicera a try. It is an online invoicing and time tracking application. Invoicera does offer multiple currency and language capability and also supports 20 global payment gateways more than any other invoice software offers. You can also customize your invoice as per your requirement, it allows you to completely change the design of invoice templates. I hope you would like it.