CRM & Invoicing

What it is

A CRM and invoicing system for a small business. Clients, invoices, recurring payments, expenses and bank statements all live in one place, and it creates proper PDF invoices. It’s connected to Stripe for payments, Gmail for email, and Todoist for the follow-ups that would otherwise get forgotten.

Why it exists

It replaces Zoho’s accounts and CRM tools. Zoho does a lot, and that’s partly the problem. For a small business most of it is noise, and having clients in one system and the money in another meant a fair bit of jumping between the two to answer simple questions like “has this client paid?”

Building it myself meant it only does the things I actually need, works the way I actually work, and doesn’t come with a monthly bill for features I never touch.

What the work looks like

• Clients and contacts in one place, with their invoices, payments and history alongside them
• Invoices as PDFs, generated from the same data rather than typed up separately
• Recurring payments through Stripe, so regular work gets billed and paid without me remembering to send anything
• Gmail connected, so emails go out from a normal inbox and sit with the client they relate to
• Todoist connected, so follow-ups and chasers end up on the same to-do list as everything else
• Bank statement imports to match payments against invoices and log what’s gone out
• Expenses tracked alongside income, so there’s one place to look when it comes to doing the books

Decisions

• Only build what’s needed. Zoho has hundreds of features; this has the handful I use every week.
• Hook into the tools already in use (Stripe, Gmail, Todoist) rather than rebuilding email or task lists badly inside the app.
• Bank statement imports rather than a live bank feed. Simpler, and no extra third party sitting between the app and the bank account.

Status

Built and replacing Zoho. Bits get added as new needs turn up, which is rather the point of owning it.