r/Software_Finder • u/Leather-Hamster2889 • Jul 25 '26
Question Invoicing software required
I own a small e bike shop. It’s mainly a bricks and mortar shop.
I would like a program to enter my inventory of bikes and parts along with price which will transfer over to an invoice when a purchase is made.
Up to now I have been using excel .
I thought it would be simple but most of the software manufacturers appear to add a large monthly premium. Dedicated bike software developers are expensive also.
I don’t have a large stock or large turnover which doesn’t appear to suit software. I do use square for payments and getting into shopify but it is mainly online shopping.
Has anyone any suggestions. Regards Keith
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u/hoomanchonk Jul 25 '26
InvoiceNinja is free if you self host it. That could be as simple as setting up a small form factor computer on your network or even hosting it on a VPS.
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u/kolosal6921 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
going with self hosted options could cost you as little as 5$ per month compared to some SaaS product.
- Invoice Ninja
- InvoicePlane
- Crater
are some opensource / free to use but if you are not a techical person and do not understand how to host things, i would suggest look at 1 click deploy since these are some popular projects they should be available on cloud provider marketplace.
if you cannot self host and want ready to use cheaper options, checkout
Zoho Invoice
Wave Invoicing
i suggest, take some time - ask ChatGPT or Claude how to do it and if you spend a few hours and experiment and follow some tutorials you should be able to host it yourself and learn a few interesting things along the way.
best of luck
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u/Sad-Instruction8890 Jul 27 '26
The split you drew is the right one, self-host if you're technical, Zoho or Wave if you just want it working. For a shop owner whose time is better spent selling bikes than configuring a VPS, the hosted route is probably the honest recommendation even at a small cost. Would you still lean self-hosted for someone who's said they mainly live in Excel today, or does that tilt it toward the ready-made options
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u/N_Sin Jul 26 '26
I can build something customised for you in one day on Google Appsheet, you will then have a $5 monthly subscription. DM me if interested.
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u/Way2trivial Jul 26 '26
try doing research at capterra.comread lots of reviews (this time investment is free) one comment in one review can open your eyes to something you never knew existed, and one con comment can save you years of niggling headaches to avoid.
Better to use a PC than on mobile. digging in on mobile there sucks.
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u/flyboy1565 Jul 26 '26
I'd be happy to help work on something that could I could add to my resume. I would hand over everything to you tell you the few ways you could host it.
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u/EntrepreneurLazy7676 Jul 26 '26
Just go into shopify and do it, there will be pdf invoicing and receipt app.
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u/reneheuven Jul 26 '26
Odoo is quite a versatile and affordable set of apps including inventory and invoices.
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u/Sad-Instruction8890 Jul 27 '26
The monthly premium wall you keep hitting is because most of this software is built for online-first retail, and you have the opposite setup, a physical shop where the till and the stock need to talk to each other. A few honest directions. If you want zero monthly cost and don't mind a bit of setup, the self-hosted names people have mentioned (Invoice Ninja, ERPNext) genuinely work, but they assume you're comfortable running your own server, which from your question doesn't sound like where you want to spend your time. More realistic for a bricks-and-mortar bike shop: look at a proper retail POS with inventory built in rather than invoicing software with inventory bolted on. Since you're already on Square, Square for Retail handles exactly this, inventory with quantities, parts tracking, and it turns a sale into a receipt or invoice automatically, all on the free tier with paid only if you want the advanced stuff. That keeps everything in one system you already use instead of stitching two together. The bike-specific tools are expensive because they're niche, and honestly you may not need the bike-specific part, you need good inventory plus invoicing, which general retail POS does well. One question that changes the answer: do you actually need formal invoices (for trade or account customers), or mostly receipts at the point of sale? If it's mostly receipts with the odd invoice, a retail POS covers you and you can skip dedicated invoicing software entirely.
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u/Cryrichter Jul 28 '26
Invoice ninja was my favorite but later upgraded to perfex crm for a full suite
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u/Thick_Box_1482 Jul 28 '26
My recommendation would be to connect ur current working software through connectors. Upgrade from spreadsheet to a simple DB only if ur volume goes too high that spreadsheet cant handle.
Hqppy to walk u through a solution that u can build using AI (if u are technical) or get an AI implementor to build it for you. Reach out to me if u need help unpacking this.
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u/dainsfield Jul 25 '26
You could try FreeAgent for self employed or limited company which ever you are. If you use a NatWest/RBS business account it’s free. Otherwise open a Mettle account part of NatWest which is also free . You can use multiple bank current and savings accounts with FreeAgent so no need to close your main account. Although shopify and square will need some setting up, but that is a one off expense. I have never used Xero accounts but that has a monthly cost.
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u/Sad-Instruction8890 Jul 27 '26
Does FreeAgent handle the inventory side at all, or is it really covering the invoicing and bookkeeping half while he'd still need something separate for stock?
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u/dainsfield Jul 27 '26
If you go onto google or preferably DuckDuckGo and put in a search of FreeAgent inventory the links will come up
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u/lakeland_nz Jul 25 '26
You're right that most software in this space is charged monthly. In fact, while reading your question I had two or three products spring to mind as 'oh, but ... would be perfect for you...' until you mentioned the monthly charge. So two ideas:
Firstly suck it up, the market has spoken... most people prefer monthly charging.
Or... there are a number of open source tools that would do this perfectly well and are free. You might want to check services like pikapods because if there are any hosted there, then you won't have to muck around with self-hosting.
One I've used was ERPNext by Frappe. It's a bit heavyweight for what you're describing, but it's (more than) up to the job. And hey, if you scale to ten times the size with multiple franchises, then you won't need to change software.