Making Real Money on Apps.

[tvn300]

Most apps on the market are selling for a few dollars at best. You need to sell a bucket-full to make any money. Want to make some real money? Develop apps for the business world, such as a Quickbooks companion. I paid $150 for a palm-based solution which was a little on the clunky side, but it worked and it saved me from sitting in front of the TV each nite, recording transactions that I did during the day because I could enter them on the phone. And I would pay it again (and I know many others would, as well!) for an app that would sync with Quickbooks and do the following:

-enter daily transactions (purchase of job materials, for example)
-send an estimate or an invoice via email
-record a new customer name, address etc.
-make deposits at the bank

Programs such as easy money or mint will not do it. It has to interface with Quickbooks. There are literally MILLIONS of small-to-medium sized businesses that use quickbooks. What percentage of them would you have to get to make this effort worthwhile?

So how do-able is this on an Android?
Any takers?

Tom

 

[LordQuackstar]

Already done

Calling all Android users! QuickBooks Online

And for time tracking

https://intuitlabs.com/experiments/timecatcher-android

 

[tvn300]

I appreciate the Quickbooks online functionality, but, for the small business person (I'm a one-man show), the 30 dollars per month for the online app is simply prohibitive. Especially when the desktop app only costs $100, and then you own it, period.

Intuit (makers of Quickbooks) has a lousy reputation for customer support. They just severed their relationship with Landware software, which made a quicken app for smart phones. I'm sure the intention was to force customers to use Mint. And Mint is a very cool app if all you need to do is keep track of spending and know what your account balances are.

What I (and I'm sure many others) need is the functionality of Quickbooks in my pocket. But I'm not going to spend $360 bucks a year for it.

Even if you figure that every couple years, they force you to upgrade because of new operating systems, or new versions, etc., you can usually get three years or so from any given program. I'm still quite happy with Quickbooks 2008. So 3 years @ 30/month is over $1000. It would be cheaper to buy a laptop and it STILL wouldn't fit in my pocket.

Sorry about the rant, I just can't believe nobody has developed something yet...I only wish I knew how to program...

 

[golfsmart]

As a small business owner (one person) I would gladly pay $150 to own my own app that would sync up without allowing Intuit to continue to drain my resources on a monthly basis. The reason I use quickbooks is to allow an efficient cost effective way to keep up with the things I do.

I know there are tens of thousands of similarly situated owners and it would be great for a app to emerge from the mist, but I am not holding my breath!!!

 

[Aselby]

So I know this is old but I was really wondering if this is still true ...

I have made a time clock for quickbooks that talks to "my server" that then talks directly to quickbooks ... it only works on windows mobile 6.5 right now ... but if there is really interest for something like this on android I could port it over

But It requires a internet accessible web server ... for the phone and quickbooks to interact with, I would be able to do offer that server for a monthly fee (5 dollars a month ?) or a flat fee (200 dollars)

Just wanted to get anyones idea and see if that would do what you wanted ?