Cloudron Tech Stack for "Side Hustle" (a.k.a. Kleinunternehmer in German)
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I have a registered business in Germany (Kleinunternehmen) so I can provide IT services to companies/people that ask and provide them with an invoice, and to pay taxes.
Now I would consider myself a part time perfectionist, and would like to have the best experience for any potential customer (and myself) in regards to the formalities with invoices and payments etc.. But due to the extremely(!) low, if any, yearly revenue which I generate, it should be really low budget as well
I have tried Lexware Office, which was OK, but the price of 13€/Month was needlessly high. I am thinking about using Apps available on Cloudron (which I want to use anyway for private projects) for this (and more).
Ideal features would be:
- Ticketing/Request-System from which an offer/invoice can be triggered by mail, which provides direkt payment options for the customer, and marks the invoice automatically as paid
- Customer Portal which lists past projects with invoices etc. and potentially allow mail to ticket for new requests.
I looked into InvoiceNinja and Espo CRM, and Espo looks promising but their Sales Pack (for invoicing/payment method) costs ~20€/Month...
Instead of reinventing the wheel, does anybody have experience (positive or negative) with certain apps for the described usage scenario?
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Based on your needs, I think Perfex CRM should do everything you are looking for. It has in-built ticketing and a portal for your customers. It's not free (US$ 65.00) but there are no monthly costs if you don't need support and it can be installed in the LAMP app.
Not advertising, I use it myself (similar situation, also §19 UStG).
Careful: I see a German company is charging 49 Euros / month for a hosted version. This is not what you are looking for.
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I have a registered business in Germany (Kleinunternehmen) so I can provide IT services to companies/people that ask and provide them with an invoice, and to pay taxes.
Now I would consider myself a part time perfectionist, and would like to have the best experience for any potential customer (and myself) in regards to the formalities with invoices and payments etc.. But due to the extremely(!) low, if any, yearly revenue which I generate, it should be really low budget as well
I have tried Lexware Office, which was OK, but the price of 13€/Month was needlessly high. I am thinking about using Apps available on Cloudron (which I want to use anyway for private projects) for this (and more).
Ideal features would be:
- Ticketing/Request-System from which an offer/invoice can be triggered by mail, which provides direkt payment options for the customer, and marks the invoice automatically as paid
- Customer Portal which lists past projects with invoices etc. and potentially allow mail to ticket for new requests.
I looked into InvoiceNinja and Espo CRM, and Espo looks promising but their Sales Pack (for invoicing/payment method) costs ~20€/Month...
Instead of reinventing the wheel, does anybody have experience (positive or negative) with certain apps for the described usage scenario?
@chmod777 In my opinion, you should start with InvoiceNinja. A white label licence is available for only $30 per year.
However, there is no "mail to ticket for new requests" option in the customer portal. The good old Cloudron email server is the simplest option for this. Alternatively, you can set up Freescout, a kind of helpdesk. Perhaps there is an n8n integration for Freescout and InvoiceNinja.
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Based on your needs, I think Perfex CRM should do everything you are looking for. It has in-built ticketing and a portal for your customers. It's not free (US$ 65.00) but there are no monthly costs if you don't need support and it can be installed in the LAMP app.
Not advertising, I use it myself (similar situation, also §19 UStG).
Careful: I see a German company is charging 49 Euros / month for a hosted version. This is not what you are looking for.
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@chmod777 In my opinion, you should start with InvoiceNinja. A white label licence is available for only $30 per year.
However, there is no "mail to ticket for new requests" option in the customer portal. The good old Cloudron email server is the simplest option for this. Alternatively, you can set up Freescout, a kind of helpdesk. Perhaps there is an n8n integration for Freescout and InvoiceNinja. -
I always feel invoicing is inevitably bound to accounting, and any decent accounting system should be configurable for invoice formats which can include support links.
Maybe I’m not following the train of thought of requirements b -
I always feel invoicing is inevitably bound to accounting, and any decent accounting system should be configurable for invoice formats which can include support links.
Maybe I’m not following the train of thought of requirements b@timconsidine to specify: my goal is having the support system with projects/tickets directly integrated with the invoicing.
Then I don't have to switch between systems and manually copy/paste data from one to the other, and the customer has the option to login to one portal and see everything.
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@timconsidine to specify: my goal is having the support system with projects/tickets directly integrated with the invoicing.
Then I don't have to switch between systems and manually copy/paste data from one to the other, and the customer has the option to login to one portal and see everything.
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@timconsidine Important point, though for the so-called Kleinunternehmer in Germany there are no formal accounting requirements so it is sufficient to have a record of invoices, payments received and expenses when it comes to entering the figures in the tax return. Most decent billing software does reporting.
@chmod777 Let us know what you decide to go with.
