JM_BILL  My thoughts...

I was looking for a basic, cheap application to generate a couple of invoices every month with the ability to store them so I can easily review who has paid and look back at what I previously charged for projects. While Involer is cheap (even cheaper if you buy it today through MacZot) it does have some big draw backs:

- The user interface, while pretty, is a nightmare. Some elements of the window you cannot resize like the companies listing. I only work for one company (me) so why does over 200px of screen have to be lost to a list of company names?

- No where in the invoice to tell a customer how long you spent on part of a project. So it is useless for any projects where you charge an hourly rate. Yes, you can add this info in the Name/Description field but that kind of defeats the purpose of invoice software where everything should be presented to the client in a clean, tabular format.

- I've told it to remove tax from the invoice (from both the invoice attributes and preferences), but it still displays it on invoices I preview.

- Once an invoice is marked as paid, there does not seem to be a method to un-mark it as paid. So in the event of accidently marking an invoice as paid, it looks like you would have to delete it and prepare the invoice again.

It is a promising application, but unfortunately it's just got too many big holes in it at the moment to be a 'real' invoice application. I also fear that if you rely on an application like this, there does not appear to be a method to export invoices out into another application. So anything you do in Involer has to stay in Involer. Hopefully it will get improved. In the meantime I'm looking at other apps.  
(Version 1.2.2)

JM_BILL  After having Cha-ching crash and loose all of my financial data twice and waiting years for an update which still isn't ready for release, I decided to ditch Cha-ching and resort to an OpenOffice spreadsheet. That worked fine, but it's just not the same as using a 'real' accounting application...

I heard through Twitter that an application called Moneywell was available and decided to give it a test drive. I was expecting another over-hyped, buggy, clickity-click application, something with more eye-candy than functionality. I was very wrong though. Moneywell is quite simply the best finance application I've ever seen or used. I wouldn't say it is easy to use for a complete beginner, but it is very logical in the way you setup accounts and add transactions. So you quickly figure out how it all works. The Moneywell site and forums offer loads of useful information and tutorials.

After using it for two days in demo mode, I purchased a license for it without hesitation. Within a few hours I had imported all of my data, categorised it between 'buckets' and was well on my way to getting spending plans setup. I've now been using it for over a month and there is just nothing else that compares. Absolutely fantastic application and the developer is a really friendly chap. Moneywell ticks all the boxes for me.  
(Version 1.4.2)

JM_BILL  I helped the guys Beta test this application. It is very good in that it's relativity straightforward to use and much effort has been put into the interface and web integration with quicksnapper.

However, the price does seem very steep, especially considering 15% VAT is added onto the final total. You only get free updates to version 2.0. I'm going to have to wait and see on this one for now.

In the meantime, don't be surprised to see it discounted. RapidWeaver often gets discounted or offered as part of bundles.  
(Version 1.0)

JM_BILL  Couldn't get it to launch. Icon bounces in the dock twice and vanishes? No crash report or anything to say why it wont work. I've got plenty of other Java applications and these work fine.  
(Version 2.3.1)