I just had a nice discussion with Daniel Webb about iBiz and Studiometry. He originally used Studiometry, but abandoned it for iBiz and didn’t want me to make the same mistake. This initially was kind of confusing to me because I thought my mistake was using iBiz.

Studiometry
Mr. Webb had used Studiometry for several years, and remarked that he was initially a huge fan of it. However, he noted in his comment on my post, Studiometry began to slow down as clients were added. So much that he recalled it taking 8 minutes to launch. This has been echoed by other users at MacUpdate and Version Tracker. He also pointed out that the networking, doesn’t always work right either, something that iBiz has gotten right for the most part. None of this comes as a big surprise to me given the amount of bugs I’ve logged in the past few weeks while trying to set up Studiometry. I’ve felt like more of a beta tester then an actual end user. It puts a whole new meaning on term Trial Software.

I’m not willing to hand over more money to a program I can’t be certain about. It’s not like I’m unwilling to work through the resolution of certain flaws, that is if the developer is willing to help. It doesn’t seem that way with Studiometry. My tickets often get closed with no resolution posted, or just completely unanswered. Here are some of them: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12.

iBiz
iBiz, as I’ve noted in length, has a great number of bugs, but there is something to be said for at least knowing what they are. So as Mr. Webb pointed out to me, iBiz, when treated gingerly, can be used to accomplish something. A lot of my gripes have stemmed from the limited representation of unique employees and how it seems to butcher my invoices.

I attempted to use job event groups (folders) to represent employees, which as Mr. Webb pointed out, is a feature, but not one that should be used. What I’ve noticed is that when they are collapsed the invoices are incorrectly generated. I’m still unsure why a visual representation can create this sort of problem.

Supposedly if I create expense types for each employee I can get pseudo employee level tracking. This is something I had resisted because it clutters up the expense types. If it dissolves my reliance on job event groups, then I might just be able to get out accurate invoices and reporting. The only issue that remains is the event timers being inaccurate. To work around this Mr. Webb uses a 3rd party application, but I think I may try to see if the developer is willing to improve the implementation in iBiz.

In The End
It’s really a case of choosing the lesser of two evils. Studiometry could be a more accurate, but it hasn’t inspired any confidence and who wants to march into uncharted territory. Now that I know some ways to work around the inherent problems in iBiz, I should be better equipped at using it until something better comes along or the developer gets through a laundry list of issues.

Suggestions are welcome.