Software for billing/pricing a software project?

Hi,

I do a bit of freelance project-based software development as a side job, mainly for a few local businesses I've been working with for a few years. Very occasional, maybe I'll do 20 or 30 hours every few months. Since it's just a side-job, and I have established relationships with the companies, I've usually been very lax - oral contracts, flat hourly rate, pretty much just do some development, ask them how they like it, and get payment.

Recently I took on something that's turned into a mammoth project, plagued with endless requirements changes, etc. The normal stuff.

Can anyone recommend a package (preferably web-based, and I'd rather not spend the time writing my own) to take care of things like generating PDFs of quotes and invoices, keeping track of billable time, requirements changes, etc.?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

Jason, I'd recommend looking at QuoteWerks. It's not web based, but it will create PDF quotes and invoices for you automatically. It's pretty easy to use and inexpensive as far as software goes. It also has a small footprint (77MB). The website is just quotewerks dot com Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for the advice. I guess I should have mentioned:
1) I don't run Windows. Either Linux or Solaris (yes, on the desktop as well).
2) I really want something web-based. If I have to write it myself I will, but I can't be tied to any one computer.
3) Something that handles change requests, etc would be great.

Maybe, if I ever get around to it, I'll write something...

I am using WR Time Tracker (http://wrconsulting.com/cms/wrtimetracker/index.htm)

It is not generating PDF's. But it can make invoices, can store number of clients and projects/tasks and number of accounts for developers.

It is PHP, freeware.

jantman,

You might look at nuBuilder. Its an open source web based development tool that comes with a debtors module (that you'll probably need to tweek for what you want) and reporting that can create pdfs.
But its something you might use for your customers too, if they want web based business systems.

Steve

Thanks for the suggestions. At the moment I'm making due with something I wrote that just creates PDFs of raw data in a MySQL table (it does pull the customer contact information from SugarCRM, though I'm no longer using that). I'll look at WR Time Tracker, but it looks like by now I'm just going to make due with my custom system (I've started using my ticketing system to track time, so it's just a matter of how to mark those time entries as "billed", and how to handle the other forms and data that's needed).

Thanks again,
Jason