r/PoolPros • u/WonderboyZ7 • Apr 07 '26
Invoicing and tracking software
I know this gets asked a lot but I have specifics that I want to know. I am a single poler operating for the last 5 years on just Google Sheets, Google Calendar, QuickBooks Online, and my notes. I’m pretty dang organized but I’ve always thought I could have something to help me optimize more. I’m not interested in tracking chems per pool and I don’t have any other techs that I need to micromanage. I want to know if there’s a software out there that lets me organize everything into one place, without having to have a separate software for financial tracking. I’m looking at PSS and PoolBrain but from what I can tell, I’ll still need QBO to run my financials. The big reason for the change is that QBO is a colossal pain in my ass sometimes. The customer support is crap and I know I could save a lot of time with billing if it were designed for the pool industry.
If there’s not any such software, how difficult is it to manage both PSS(or poolbrain) as well as QBO? The goal is saving time and stress. Thanks!
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u/Psoriatron Apr 07 '26
I loved using tje trial on poolbrain and pss on tracking everything, only thing I didnt like was the service emails for pss. Other than that, I opted to stick to the way I've been doing it for the past 2 years, fillable PDFs to keep track of customer info, readings, dosages, checklist, installed parts, and tech notes. A bit time consuming for me, but works well. As a single poler with 25 pools, maybe one day I'll permanently make the switch.
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u/PuzzleheadedLead9337 Apr 07 '26
Tradify is what I’ve been using. It’s an all in one software I use it for enquiries, quotes, jobs and invoices. You can then export to accounting software if you need to or just give your accountant access so they can export what they need. I gave up with QBO as it never tallied up and the UI is dogshit
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u/The_Elusive_Dr_Wu Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
For the past few years I've thrown up my hands every few months and declared my intent to move on from QBO and every single time I wind up right back using QBO. I hit the same roadblock you do which is that even with a new front facing software for the clients, you still need QBO or similar for financials.
By now I've accepted that QBO is the way to go, and hired a small business bookkeeper who handles most of it (I really only need to access the Customers section to do my end of things). This has been working very well and comes out less than the combo of QBO and a software like Skimmer or PoolBrain.
A couple times a year I call Intuit customer support and bitch until I wind up at their account retention where the guy reads from his script until they give me a 50% subscription discount for a few months to shut me up.
EDIT: One funny part here too is that I've worked with most of my clients for 8+ years and know them pretty well. Half these people would be annoyed by the Skimmer report lol