Software for small home office/business

[misterduck]

I am trying to organize a firend of mines computer information in a way that will allow them to easily access their records. It is a small architectural business with multiple duties that they perform. What I am looking for is a program that will help to organize their mess. I would like for it to be job number based with each new job coming in having its own unique job number. If it was configurable, as far as, information in the job number, that would be nice too. I'll give you an example.

04-01-M-001

First number is this year
Second number is client number
third letter is job type
last number is job number

I would like to be able to have databases for invoicing purposes.
Any ideas?

Thanks
Chris

[mikeky]

Most accounting programs like Quickbooks Pro (what I use) and Peachtree will allow tracking projects and items as well as invoicing based on those, plus perform many other functions such as timekeeping, etc. Certainly you could use Item/Job numbers like the example you gave to track projects.

[ravital]

MS-Access will generate the unique job numbers like you describe, but I'm sure there are a lot more factors and requirements involved before you can settle on a software tool.

I don't know if this is a factor, but being an ODBC-aware Database (and an MS product), it will interface very nicely with Excel and Word.