Creative Pro Office: Free Software on the Web

Here's a free software program for service people like developers, designers, webmasters - basically, anyone who bills by the hour and keeps track of clients. Creative Pro Office is a very classy free software application, and it's web-based so it doesn't take up space on your hard drive.

CPO features Project Tracking, Invoicing and Expense Tracking, along with a Customer File. There are lots of drop-down boxes to select from, making input a breeze. You can be as abbreviated or specific as you choose in filling out the forms.

Invoices can be printed, emailed or downloaded in PDF format. The invoice I printed was professional in appearance. What distressed me was that I had to go back into the project section to get the hours I was billing and price I was billing at - the timesheets did not automatically transfer to the invoice. Of course, Creative Pro Office is still in beta and this could change.

I find the program worth watching. My main complaint was that I had to fill out the url, phone # and tags more than once when registering a client. If you try this program (and I hope you do) use Firefox as your browser, there are issues with IE 6&7 and also with Safari. The developer is at a crossroads right now (see CPO's blog) and he pays attention to the comments. Go and open a free account (while it's still free) and give it a try. Don't doubt for a minute that your comments won't go to the top.