If not sugar, then what?

[excess1973]

I have been using sugar for quite sometime, and I like it. The problem for me is that its bigger than I need and not as big as I need.

I'm running a service business, I have wrok orders, custoemers and time to track. Then I have some standard rates. I track them now in Sugar using added on fields in my sugar screens. It works fine to an extent. I use the email system to send out quotes, that works fine. But I have a problem with billing. Instead of generaritng a billing and let me review it... i have to go to cases and add them up, then go to email to make a bill. Usually I am going to word and then back and forth.
at the end of each month, I go to notes to make a note on what the balances are .. what a pain this is.

I have tried other things, like freshbooks, dotproject, sidejob track, and others. For one reason or another they can't be customized or are not suitable.

It's all very simple, I need to be able to generate a work order, assign out cases to staff, have them track their time, keep a customer list, and bill the client for the time we spent working on their cases. I want the billing to be done via html email. I'd love it if my customer could interface and make their own workorder, but okay maybe I'm asking too much.
The other tasks are simple, are they not?

I've heard talk that sugar is not built for this....

What software do I need? If not sugar than what.?

[Proware]

Check TSM - The Service Manager from www.theservicemanager.com

We are the developers and sell it around the world.

We also use it inhouse for our own help desk AND we also use Sugar.

We will be releasing a Sugar Link by years end - check out the documentation on the GoldMine link on our web site to get some idea of the type of functionality to expect.

Sorry for the blatant plug for our product but it really is a great program, having been developed by user requests over 20 years.

[excess1973]

...and at what cost?

[Proware]

Why does everything always come down to cost and not value to the business (obviously I am not a salesman)

We sell TSM to SMB busienss for about $1000 per user (plus about $200 per year in annual maintenance). TSM uses a concurrent user model - 10 users with 5 licenses is fine as long as only 5 are in TSM at once.

Have you looked at the walkthru yet?

Let me know if you want someone to call you to discuss.