GoldenSeal OSX Business Management Software Version 3.9
– For Construction and Small Business
Reviewed by Robert Pritchett
Introduction
“Goldenseal is business management
software for anyone who needs to control
expenses, give estimates, keep inventory, manage projects or properties, or
keep track of customers. It's a simple software package for accounting and many
other business functions.
Goldenseal is used by many
remodelers, construction contractors, architects, property owners, retailers,
service businesses, professionals and small manufacturers. It's ideal for small
businesses who have outgrown QuickBooks, and who want a program that handles
more than just basic accounting.”
This is a cross-platform C++ app written in CodeWarrior Pro.
Getting Started
Goldenseal is one of
the few, if not the only, construction estimating software designed to work
with Mac OS X. It has plenty of competition on non-Mac systems, however and we
linked to those reviews above.
Some things Goldenseal doesn’t do directly right now is
integrating directly with Computer-Aided Design applications. That may change
as they are actively doing fee-based updates. “Three-pack” updates (next three)
cost $90. Turtle Creek Software offsets that with free phone and Email support
for as long as you use their product.
In construction, time is money and Goldenseal provides
templates for general construction, framing, painting and drywall in the Basic
version. The app also offers cost estimating, scheduling, contract writing,
project and business management modules.
The full version as shown above, also covers job costing,
general accounting, payroll, project billing, customer billing and inventory
tracking.
Goldenseal’s power is in being able to provide on-site
estimates – something I was looking for as we deeper into the Ever-Green
Renewable Energy Resource Center project.
The 177-page Estimating and Project Management manual Covers
the basics for doing dimensions, allowances and bids, contracts, bill of
materials and takeoffs, customer and project setup, project management itself,
cost categories, locations and items, assemblies, updates and backups, company
info, printing layouts and reports, templates, exporting and importing text
files, and setting things up. The occasional hints at humor are refreshing.
The 208-page Accounting manual is basically a book on how to
successfully run your own company and starts with page 201 as a continuation of
the Estimating manual. The Index is in the estimating manual and interestingly
enough, I receive the manual for Windows instead of for the Mac. The PDF
versions make no such distinctions.
The Accounting portion of the program and page examples appear
to be FileMaker or Hyperlink-based.
Both manuals also comes as PDFs and are dated from 2004 with
2 columns, so take up half as much page space as the spiral-bound manuals. That
said, there are additional files in Excel format that cover Canadian province
payroll structures as well as US state-by-state payroll structures for 2007. By
the way, they opened just fine in iWork ‘08 Numbers.
If you do not want to start from scratch and desire to
import QuickBook files, you may do so. However, there are starter files
generated in 2006 for Basic, Architect, Construction, Developer, Drywall,
Framing, Metric, Paint, Property Management, Retail and Service Biz.
Conclusion
If you are into using your Mac for the construction trades,
Turtle Creek Software has provided the tools for doing the job for the Mac.
Recommendation
You can download a demo version and see if this will meet
your needs. I have not located other estimating software that runs under Mac OS
X yet. Turtle Creek Software has been in business for many years and they stand
behind their product.
Feedback on this article:
Thanks for the great review! We do updates 3 to 4 times a year,
so it's always a moving target.
Actually, we no longer do the "three pack" system of updates on CD--
I'm doing a search of the website now to see if there are any remaining
mentions of that.
Currently, new users get 6 months of free new-version downloads from
our website (at http://www.turtlesoft.com/updates.html) After that it's
$60 for a year, or $100 for two years. Updates are optional. We list
what's in each new version on the updates page.
We're currently doing a total rewrite of the manuals, and when that's
done we will also have more 'flavors' with different feature sets.
That will take us about a year.
Thanks,
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
Turtle Creek Software
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