QuickBooks Online is an incredibly powerful tool to manage your business' accounting - and it's free.

Well, the 'Free' version is free - there's also the 'Basic' and 'Plus' versions of the online software suite. More than likely, you will be able to use the 'Free' version of the software for some time. One of the largest restrictions the 'Free' version has is the inability to utilize more than 20 clients (yes, there's a loophole where you delete old clients), but if you want to actually save more than 20 clients, you may want to bump up to one of the paid options.

So that's essentially the mini-interview QuickBooks Online gives you after you start it up for the first time. If you want to change something it didn't ask you at this time, you can always delve into the preferences section of the software and customize it.

Notice how it asked you if you charge sales tax? Big question, really big question. Don't mess that one up. Remember, in most cases, if you deliver your materials through electronic means (meaning there is no physical or tangible exchange of products), then you are providing a service, and services are not subject to sales tax in most states. Be sure to check with your state's tax office, but more than likely, you won't have to charge sales tax.

There's a sample invoice - I have my fictitious setup to show the date the service was provided (if you are billing a firm, as opposed to an individual agent, you want to let them know which date the service was provided on to help keep the records straight), the agent's name, the address of the listing, then the amount. You can then save it, print it, or even have QuickBooks Online email it (A topic we'll go into further below). Pretty neat for free, eh?

If you do decide to print it to mail or hand-deliver, this is what the invoice winds up looking like. Nice and clean if you ask me.

Another great feature of QuickBooks Online (this isn't unique, most accounting software does this for you) is the ability to run reports on just about everything under the sun. Here's a quick look at profits and losses, year-to-date. It's very simple to run these reports, as well as create presets to run specific reports that you find yourself running frequently.

This screen will give you a run-down of all or your transactions by date. Since this is all made-up stuff, there's nothing more than the sample invoice. Yours will mostly look like a bunch of invoices with a whole lot of small purchases here and there.

This screen allows you to customize the automated message your clients receive when you have QuickBooks Online email it for you. Change the message to whatever you want, check the box 'Copy me', and you're probably set to do paperless business.

One gripe I have with Quickbooks Online is it's incompatibility with certain browsers, even it's incompatibility with browsers it supposedly supports. For example - Safari 4 was in beta for quite some time before it became an official release. Well, many mac users were left in the dark when they 'upgraded' to Safari 4 because QuickBooks Online didn't support it. If you were sly enough to change the user-agent on your browser, it didn't matter, it honestly didn't support Safari 4. Certain links were inaccessible, things displayed incorrectly. It was a mess. Even today, when Apple updates Safari 4, if you update, you may experience problems.

You may be asking yourself, why not just use Firefox? Well, guess what, Firefox isn't supported on the mac - not yet anyway. I know, it's a pain, it really is, but you just have to play with the cards you're dealt, especially when you're playing for free. I imagine Firefox will eventually be supported for the mac, but in the meantime, you have to use Safari and cross your fingers when you update.

There are plenty of features QuickBooks Online has, I just didn't get to them in this brief look at the online software suite. Just go to the site, sign up (you need a credit card, even though it won't bill you anything), and try it out.

One of the largest advantages of QuickBooks Online is the fact that your data is in the cloud. Some may be a bit weary of having all that sensitive data 'out there', but really, it's as secure as your email or making a purchase online. The fact that it's in the cloud means that you can access your accounting records from your computer, your phone, or even someone else's computer if you are away from yours. Also, if you computer ever crashes (more like, 'when'), all that data is still accessible. One less thing to have a heart-attack about, right?

Visit QuickBooks Online here. 

Lighting-Essentials had a great post about failing at photography as a career. 'Fail' is a harsh word, but it needs to be said. Now that it's out there, read the article and learn about the many pitfalls people fall - and gripe about - when things don't work out for them in their photographic career.

My two favorites are #1 and #8, Gear and Time.

Gear: I've said it before and I'll say it again - I don't have the 'best' gear known to mani (I openly admit I shoot with one of least expensive wide-angle lenses on the market) - and guess what - it makes virtually no difference in my workflow or my results. Buying a $5,000 camera and $2,000 lens won't make my work any easier - it'll most likely just make me feel more nervous when I lock my car door when I stop somewhere for lunch. 'Better' gear doesn't ≠ better photos. Better technique, yes. Better use of light, yes. But 'better' gear - sounds like an excuse to buy something new and shiny.

Time: Give your business a fighting chance. It can take a good long while, even only making calculated and responsible purchases, to make your truly livable salary. Many people want their numbers to work out in their favor in a month or two - the simple truth is that it's not likely to work out that way. Set reasonable goals and achieve them with your business. Plant your name in your community, live up to it, and give it time.

Check out the complete article here.

HDRIBlog just posted a quick and dirty roundup of various makes and models of DSLR's and their AEB abilities (or lack-thereof in some cases).

They point out that Canon, for the most part, is lacking on the AEB features on many of cameras - from consumer to prosumer. Nikon's fine, as well as a bunch of the other manufacturers - which leads to the question: why in the world is this feature an afterthought? Seriously, it is a matter of a few lines of code. The camera already knows how to meter the light and can adjust in the intervals you want it to - why can't they just allow you to do that in AEB, to the degree that you want to? Eh? If the answer is simply to get you to buy the 'better' camera, then 'thanks, but no thanks.' Come on people, get with the program. Real Estate Photographers eat up AEB, and pushing people away from the Canon line-up (from the 50D all the way up to the 5D Mk II) is ridiculous, and I'm not even a Canon shooter.

One last thought - 3 isn't enough, but 9 is plenty. This isn't really a message to the manufacturers, but rather to the photographers. If you want to spend your whole day shooting and your entire night processing, be my guest. If they come out with 21 exposures, I would suggest skipping that one as your computer, no matter what one you have, is going to choke and your productivity will more than likely diminish. Exporting 20+ full-res TIFF files, combining them, then processing them will probably be your end. More than 3, less than 21 - that's the expression, right?

Check out the complete post here.

I'm a huge fan of Gizmodo (as well as many others) for gadget news. They are your go-to site for up-to-the-minute gadget releases, commentary, and an overall humorous slant on the world of consumer electronics. That being said, I don't tend to look to them for articles about photography. The following article that popped up today that caught my attention - it gave a quality overview of various types of lenses (zooms, primes, wide-angle, etc.).

Here's a clip about wide-angle lenses:
"Why is this? Film is flat, so light can come in at any angle, and the film will mostly record it. But camera sensor pixels are concave, and don't do well with light coming in from the side. Think of the pixels as little water glasses, says Sigma's Dave Metz. "You can fill them up with water by pouring it in from above, but try shooting it in from the side with a garden hose, and it's going to go all over the place." A telephoto by definition is pulling in light from directly in front of it, whereas a wide angle by definition is bringing in light from the sides, too. Hence the trouble, and the added expense."

The article is lengthy and may seem overwhelming to those just wrapping their minds around this information.

Check out the complete article here.

MacWorld posted a quick summary of some accounting programs for Macs. I know that not everyone out there uses Apple products, but half of the article was geared towards web-based solutions as well - so I figured the post was worthwhile.

One of my favorites is QuickBooks Online. Here's what they have to say about it:
"Intuit’s online version of QuickBooks offers a lot of options, even at the free level. All versions provide you with the ability to create and send invoices, charge sales tax, track payments, print checks, and track expenses, for example. Some of the more sophisticated features, like creating estimates, time-tracking and billing by customer, and importing data from the desktop version of QuickBooks are limited to the $35 per month QuickBooks Online Plus product. It’s also accessible on smartphones including BlackBerry devices and iPhones." 

Check out the complete article here.

onOne software released version 1.1 of their software a few days back and it's beginning to get some much deserved appreciation. Basically, if you have a DSLR and can connect it to a wifi network (if you have your laptop with you, you can create a network), just use your iPhone or iPod Touch to fire it remotely. For real estate photographers, this means it can add to your already complex PAP setup, and it just might simplify things a bit - depending on your workflow, of course. Anyway, this update now supports Nikon cameras (prior to this update, it only supported Canon) - a feature that was many had been begging for - and that's only the start of the improvements.

Check out onOne's page for the application here.

Check out DSLR Remote in the App Store here.

Here's a good roundup of a bunch of LowePro bags including the Orion Trekker, Magnum AW, Nature Trekker, Sideline Shooter, and the Omni Trekker. They have about a zillion other bags, so make sure to check out their site here.

Read the complete roundup here.

David Hobby posted a new assignment today revolving real estate photography. He even includes a bit about his own personal experience in the field:
"The result was an insane amount of buyer traffic from the moment the house hit the market. We basically could not go home except to sleep there. I am absolutely convinced the photos generated much of the traffic, as there was a huge inventory of houses in our price range on the market.

Shortly after that, I shot real estate pics for some good friends of ours, too. Their house also sold very quickly, for close to the asking price. In this market, that's a pretty big coincidence if the photos had no effect."

Read the complete posting here.

Here's a very good article about creating and presenting functional slideshows online. The best part for real estate photographers is the 'How to Make a Good Slideshow' section. Tips like providing buttons, making it automatic or manual, not overdoing it, are all great points to be made.

Check it out here.

Great article from Photopreneur.

Opening Clip:
"The recession might be bad news for banks and terrible news for Realtors but it’s been good news for at least one group of professionals. Real estate photographers have reported a rise in demand for their services – and at least some of those photographers are responding with higher rates."

Read the complete article here.