GrandTotal thoughts

I have been using GrandTotal for a few days and reached my conclusions: it is not for me. Let me explain.

My main gripe is around the interface, it reconfigures itself to much. The meaning of each pane switches very often. There are seven views: overview, clients, invoices, catalog, estimates, layouts and help/buy.

The overview has a pane on the left, which shows Invoices (and Reminders) in various categories. What happens in the right pane however depends on the category. Thus Recent (invoices) shows images of invoices.

The Invoices category shows a right hand side that is split into three parts: a table view with all the invoices (the table columns can be changed, deleted and moved), a view with an image of the invoice and a ‘totals’ view with bars and pie chart. I do like the totals view, but why here?

The Reminders category allows the user to send reminders for invoices. The right part consists a table view with contracts and an empty view (shouldn’t here be an image of the Reminder PDF).

The Reporting category allows me to see information (not just invoices) for multiple months. Thus one can see the payments, item groups, clients and a summary. I miss the totals here. And this would eb a great place to the bars and pie charts.

The Smartlists category can be used to select invoices based on certain criteria. It has three parts: a table view with invoices, an image of the invoice and a totals section with bars and pie chart. I do like this possibility.

The Client View shows a pane on the left with clients, number of invoices and estimate, outstanding balance. The right part shows either the Client Information or two panes with either invoices or drafts/estimates for a selected client. Each pane has its own columns.

The Invoices View shows three panes. The left pane shows the invoices, the other panes depend on the tab one selects: info shows the info of the invoice and and the right pane a client selector; the Items pane allows to build the invoice with the portfolio catalog on the right; the Preview tab shows an image of the PDF and a related thumbnail on the right; The documents tab shows related documents (Reminders).

Finally the Catalog View allows the user to edit and define his portfolio. It has two panes:L the left pane shows a list with portfolio items and has the possibility to search and filter the items. The right pane shows the content of a selected item.

All in all the interface is just weird and confuses me often. I get the feeling that this application is some port. It does not have the right feel. The menu is strange, the buttons are nothing more than view switchers, it is just not right.

If you finalise an Invoice or a Reminder you have to print or email it. Why? I do not want to do that. For me that is a separate process. So now I do a Preview of the Print and stop there.

I miss the possibility to create projects for clients. One can define a project related to an invoice. We however can have multiple projects for a single client and multiple invoices for a single project. There is no way to manage this well in GrandTotal.

I like the approach to the portfolio items and groups. This application is not geared around a time-based services portfolio. A big change from many other applications.

Another main gripe is around the speed of the application. Often it hangs a bit, because it has ‘to render PDF’s’. I never have seen an application where one has to ‘render’. There is just to much rendering at many places.

I did not discuss the possibility to layout your own templates. This works pretty good, but is not great. It did work for my invoices.

 

Computing •
PermaLink • (0) Comments • (0) View TrackBacks • Trackback URL

Trackbacks

Comments