Dave Courvoisier's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘invoicing’

A few days ago, I blogged about a “Sublime Predicament“.  The predicament being that I had no efficient way of cohesively keeping my work records (jobs, invoices, pay-dates); and sublime because I AM getting jobs, and sending invoices, and receiving payment.

One of the early responses I got to my quandary was from Brian Vermeire, the CEO of Holdon Log.  I’ve long known of the various services Brian’s company provides to the acting business, and have even blogged about them, but didn’t think to consider one of their products as the solution to my ‘sublime predicament’.

Vermeire contacted me.  After some back ‘n’ forth emails, and an online demo, I’ve decided to give Brian’s PERFORMER TRACK online software solution a try.  So far it’s a thumbs-up.

Making a good product

Brian’s company has developed, listened to it’s subscribers (mostly actors), then responded by augmenting, changing, and building a solution for keeping track of your business that is top-notch.  Even since I signed-up a couple of weeks ago, they’ve made some small improvements.  The online software package is “in the cloud” so it’s accessible from any computer, anytime.  It’s deep…broad…well-conceived…and it’s especially designed for the needs of actors.

Secret Ingredient:  YOU

Like any other record-keeping solution, though…it DOES take some time to set up, and there is a constant input of information IFF you want it to really work for you.  For instance, I no longer record my auditions, send them, and turn off the light in my studio.  After sending the audition, I log onto Performer Track, and enter the date and time of my audition.  I input the KIND of audition it was (commercial, industrial, cable, etc.), who sent me the lead, the nature of the spot, the copy involved, whether it deserves a follow-up, the price quoted, and even more if I needed to.

With actual jobs completed, I note the date an invoice was sent, enter contact information, enter the day and the amount of payment, and almost every other conceivable sort of contingency has already been thought-of and offered in drop-down lists as options.

Pudding (The proof is in the)

The real pay-off will be in a few months, when I can collate all that information into an analysis report…and yes, Performer Track does that too.

For all the questions I raised in my previous blog about record-keeping for my acting business Brian’s Performer Track solution seems to have an answer.  Nice going Brian!

In six months, I’ll let you know how things worked out, and whether I’ll be re-upping for the better-value year-long subscription.

CourVO

Surprisingly — and despite serious threadjacking attempts — a recent voice-over forum thread on Invoicing had real legs.

I'm going to re-cap the hilites here, and to protect the innocent, I'll leave out the names…but you know who you are!

Original post:

Just curious…what program do you use for invoicing?  I've used my own concoction which has proven woefully inadequate. Lately I've been using Simple Start from Quick Books, but I'm frustrated with the lack of ability to reconfigure (I guess that's what you get for free!) I'm close to purchasing the Quick Books upgrade but I wanted to check to see if there were any other recommendations.

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