What database do you use to organise your stuff

[bustagasket]

Our bookkeeper used it when we first opened the garage and she would ask me to do the mundane imput stuff on it cos we have sooooooo much paper work from parts suppliers etc, then the accountant told us to ditch her as she was no good lol and said that i was already doing half her job so they would teach me the rest of it lol. So the lovely Jane came over and spent a day with me showing me the bank rec and vat stuff etc, with me making copious amounts of notes lol. So i have just grown into it.

[amazingbabe]

My OH set all that up for me and i can't be bothered!!!! Then when i ran out of chain the other night i got a big lecture about it " why did i set that up for you if you are not going to use it?? If you used that now you would'nt have run out (bla bla) for gods sake woman thats like having a ferrari and no bloody petrol " Well i fell around the place laughing

[Dano]

my organization system is open plan filing and storage, with much wandering around muttering "come on dan where the **** did you put it aargh" then vowing to organize the workshop a bit, then putting the kettle on and promptly forgetting about it.

works for me!

[EmmaRose]

Dano you are after my own heart LOL. Rubbish at at all that stuff!
Em

[mizgeorge]

Oh Dano and Em, you have made me feel better!
I was starting to feel very inadequate in the middle there somewhere

I'm quite impressed with myself today as my working space seems to have grown to about 6x4 inches. Which means I've either put a lot of stuff away or finished some stuff. Or it might just be that the pile of bits and pieces to one side is about to collapse all over me.

[kymbi]

I love your description of your working space George and it rings a very familiar bell - I see pics of other people's work benches and they are all organised and neat, but mine is disgraceful, full of half-finished pieces, with work mats piled on top of each other! I had a poor selling weekend over the bank holiday and the upside was that I had a little more free time during the week so tackled the desk head-on....and increased my scrap pot no-end

I won't comment on my organisation of paperwork as you would be horrified...I'm a fiend for keeping track of records - I was an accountant in my last life, nuff said

[agent_44]

Sounds a good idea. The banking software from Barclays (Quickbooks, that I haven't even loaded yet even thought I got it 4 months ago) is supposed to have a stock tracking facility on it, but I'm sure I will end up turning back to excel... You also NEED to keep a record of stock levels (raw material and manufactured goods) as you need to report their value at the end of the year in your tax return if you are running it as a business.

My brother is a web programmer and uses Quickbooks cos his accountant suggested it, but my brother hates it as a programme. Looks like you should persevere with your idea Agent.

I used to use Quickbooks, and I wasn't very impressed at all, and I disliked that I had dupication of data between all my spreadsheets and the Quickbooks data. That's why I thought I might do something myself.

[CyberPaddy66]

You have to go on courses to learn that stuff, don't you?

Only if you want to be qualified, the application comes with all the help you need in the assistant files but you may need to hunt then out on the disks

I used to set up Sage Line-50 for my customers when I was a Senior Network Engineer, I've never learned how to use the program but I found out pretty fast how it worked when things went wrong

I keep suggesting it to the Mrs but she's happy with our Excel Worksheet for now, maybe in the future we can upgrade so to speak :lol: