software mini-review: BambooInvoice
For the longest time, I had no real invoicing system for my independent contract work. I just never found anything that I really liked and rarely found the inspiration to go looking. But recently, I got in the mood to find a long-term solution. What I found was a lot of hosted solutions, a lot of closed source ‘for-purchase’ solutions, and a lot of second-rate software.
- PHP Invoice looked nice, but its non-free and not open source
- cInvoice looked ugly and the licensing terms were unpleasant
- InvoiceMe is shareware, I didn’t even see a demo
- PHP InvoiceIt is not open source, no demo
- gcdb might be good, but probably not since the latest release is from 2001
I could keep going on, there are seemingly limitless half-assed, incomplete or outdated projects available with friendly (GPL or BSD style) licenses, a few great software packages that are available in unfriendly licenses or not available to download at all, and a bunch that are both bad and have ugly licenses. I was ready to break down and build my own invoice system from scratch with python/django, until I found BambooInvoice.
With BambooInvoice, I’m able to do my work on site, then log on remotely to my invoice server, create an invoice and print a pdf before I leave. You can add private notes to invoices, track payments, easily email the invoices to your clients. You can easily create multiple accounts if you have other staff that needs to manage invoices, and you can store details on each of your clients. One feature that’s missing is recurring invoices, but I know that’s on the radar. Perhaps if I have some time, I’ll add that feature. Overall, the system feels solid, and the sliding ajaxy goodness makes it look sexy too. Plus, the whole package is licensed under the GPL. It just makes you feel good all over.
The *only* package I found that could meet my needs was BambooInvoice, and I’ve got nothing but good things to say about it. I already sent a note of congratulations to the project developer Derek Allard and I wish this project continued success.
Leave a Reply
Mar 13th 2011 • 21:03
by nikhil
hey please let me know how can i use it on my desktop i hav installed apache and PHP both but i dont know how to work on it
i want to use bamboo invoice please sort it out for me thanks
Nikhil, India
Apr 20th 2011 • 17:04
by billybob
This project is dead, it is another project that has been neglected under the excuse there is no time, the math in the program is not right, time always seems to be an excuse when someone reaches their level of understanding. Don’t waste your time on this product, free doesn’t have to mean it doesn’t work.
Give myclientbase a try at http://www.myclientbase.com/forums/index.php
Sep 25th 2011 • 01:09
by Ray Cassidy
I’ve had a look at both Bamboo Invoices and Simple Invoices. I ran into a bit of a brick wall with both of them when it comes to setting up the mysql database for each. Is there some clear simple instruction that deals with the mysql database structure that’s needed when using phpmyadmin on Wampserver to run the applications on your own machine?
Is there still active development of this offering?
May 24th 2009 • 18:05
by Anonymous
It really is a great product, and it made me get into Code Igniter also. If you are a PHP person try it out. Oh, and I think your link to Derek Allard is broken.