Prospective User Questions

[Rich Shepard <..hidden..>]

  I've used SL for about 9 years, but it's started to get squirrelly on me;
it's just not working as well as it used to. Unfortunately, Dieter's taken a
bad approach to his user community by shutting down the mail list (there's
now a Web-based forum but the quality of help there is very low). A nice
fellow in India makes his living hosting and supporting SL. But, the
application seems to be more broken with each update.

  If I can migrate the CoA, lists of vendors and clients, and similar
background, I can re-create this year's transactions from scratch within
LSMB. I believe there should be better support here.

  My business is service, not products, manufacturing, distribution, or
retail so my needs are different from that of many folks. Most projects now
are paid in advance on an invoice so that's a simple transaction. Most
others are on a retainer basis (fixed fee per month) so those are simple
transactions, too. However, I have one project now where I receive a monthly
retainer, but need to send a statement showing details of hours billed
against amounts received.

  Supposedly, SL should let me enter cash receipts not credited to an
sales invoice. Then, in the time card module I enter times for each period
spent on the project and, at the end of the month, generate a report and
sales invoice from those time cards. The application should then apply the
amount(s) received against the total time(s) expended and show either a
credit or balance due. Will LSMB do this, too?

Thanks,

Rich