Consultants - How do you track Billable Time?

[stsanford]

Hello,
I was an extremely happy user of BillRate by Two Peaks software. However, sadly, they have stopped development on that product, and do not provide support. (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=24005&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20)
It was the perfect product for my needs.

I've demoed and ruled out a number of products such as:
BillQuick software (way too complicated)
Desktop Time Biller from fannsoftware.com (closest, but it requires MSDE and cannot have the database stored on a remote drive, I need to have the database accessible from my desktop as well as on a server where my bookkeeper can access the data.
Standard Time (bought it, but it's just a bit too un-friendly for my tastes...)
TimeTTracker (again, not networkable, okay, but not great)
Anyone have other recommendations?
I'm really looking for something that's task based more than project based, has provision for clients and billing types (rates).

Thanks in advance,
STS

[SteveHoward999]

I go the easy way - I keep an excel spreadsheet. Nice and easy, and I don't have to deal with yet another piece of software that shoves its tendrils where I don't want them.

[stsanford]

I'm getting to that point myself, but I'd like the excel spreadsheet to be a bit more user-friendly than the one I have created so far. You don't happen to have any templates do you?

What I'm stuck on is entering a rate code and having it calculate the # of hours times what that Rate code equals.

To be even more fancy, I'd like there to be a Consultant's entry tab and a Bookkeeper's View tab so that if I'm making notes at a client site, it wouldn't be awkward for a client to see my costs and charges.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer,
STS

[tregnier]

I use BillRate as well...or at least I used to. I wish I could find a good product as well. I have the same PC/PPC needs as well.

[stsanford]

Truly one of the best designed pieces of software. I would even use it on my WM2003 device except that the database seems to corrupt every 3 or 4 entries.

Simple, clean, logical, cannot for the life of me understand why they stopped developing it. I offered to pay 3X as much to have a reliable version.

I have the Excel spreadsheet working somewhat, however, the issue is what if I make changes and my bookkeeper makes changes, it's one or the other, no merges, that is what I loved about BillRate.