A little bit about me
Hi, I have been dreaming of starting my own business since I was young. My dad was and still is a Software developer. When I was very young he brought over 5 broken computers home from work one day. He sat me down and taught me how to build my own computer. We took the computers apart and put them together. We found all the parts that didn't work and we swapped them for ones that did. After an exciting afternoon I had my very first computer! I loved it! I played Tomb Raider on it, the original Red Alert and many other games.
When I was no older than 8 years old, the class computer stopped working. I got out of my seat and I wondered over the computer and fixed it. I wasn't the best student, loud, talkative, class clown as it were. But come parent teacher day, it's all my teacher would talk about. My Dad was very proud.
At the age of 12 I was getting into programming, I was using batch scripts. I loved the idea of telling the computer to do stuff. Just silly things like getting the command prompt to write "Hello!" and adding 2 numbers together. When I showed my Dad, he sat me down once again and we made a calculator together using C#. He taught me the basics and I loved it. I then wrote a program to track how much money I spent on my car in Need for Speed Underground.
When I was 14 - 15 years old I started up a computer shop with my Dad and my brother. We called it Yorkshire Computers. We had a bungalow in the back yard so me and my brother would sit in the bungalow and build computers and put them on eBay. We didn't sell much, just a couple of computers to the locals. My Dad became very busy at work, I was starting VCE soon so eventually the momentum died.
My 16th birthday came around and I was hired as a Junior Developer at a company called Disprax. My Dad put in a recommendation and I went in for an interview and luckily they accepted me. I loved it there! I learn't about servers, databases, old technology and new technology, they gave me a Y60 terminal to play with at home, I was working on warehouse scanners and a massive business management software package called TIMMS. I met some great people and it was the most exciting time of my life.
18 years old. I met my beautiful girlfriend Samantha, she used to work at a cafe and I would come and pick her up after work. One time I came a little early as I finished work early and I got chatting with her boss. He was telling me how stressful MYOB is to use and how it's overly complicated. He said "I just want to select my employees, add them to a payroll and then print my payslips! I shouldn't have to spend ages doing the payroll". There it was, the start of the Simple Payroll. I told him I'll make it for him and I'll give it to him on a USB when I was done. I spent nearly every night after work at my computer writing the Payroll.
Here is the payroll complete:

19 years old, I handed the Payroll software and he was more than pleased. He requested that I show him how to use it. I said "now double click on the icon here... Ok, now you want to add some employees.". "Ahh yes" he said. Once he entered a couple of employees he went to the payroll, he hovered over the 'New Payroll' button and said "Click here?", I just watched him go through and create a payroll and start printing payslips without a single hick up. He moved over to the 'summery' page, clicked the drop down and saw his payroll, he smiled, clicked 'Show' and said "Yay! That's my payroll, that was so easy!". At that moment I decided I was going to create a business management that is simple, easy to use and you don't have to be a fully qualified accountant to use it!
I went home and started making some improvements. I registered my business 'Creative Development Studios', I setup an office up stairs, I asked a friend of mine if he would help me start a business, he know how to create websites so next thing I know, I have a makeshift office, a web developer and a perfect software. I left my job at Disprax as I wanted to be 100% dedicated to my business and now I'm working 6 days a week 15 hours a day and I love it!
The Project
All I need now is a group of small businesses and start ups to realise how great and easy to use this software is. It is and always will be affordable, as well as being easy to use. We have only developed the Payroll Software but we need funding to develop the other features. If you want an application or module, that will become a priority and we will get developed as soon as possible.
The Simple Payroll Software automatically updates the tax tables, it prints PAYG documents filled out and ready to be given to your employees.
Here is a screenshot of the updated Payroll Software:
Visit our website at www.creativedevstudios.com for a demo of the Payroll software.
Our goal is to create a software package that has to same idea behind the Payroll software, but applied to other applications such as:
Contacts
This application will store your important contacts, notes and can be linked to the Scheduler.
Scheduler
Here you can organise your time, set meetings, add project dead lines with direct links to the Job if you are using Job Tracking.
Asset Management
Track your assets and depreciation.
Bill Tracking
Make sure you have enough cash to pay your bills on time. Here you can add bills, how often they arrive and the software will calculate an estimate bill amount. It will also alert you of any bills that are going over the due date.
Financial Reporting
Financial Reporting is a report that is used throughout the package, it will show you exactly where your money is going.
Sale Reporting
This report will show you what you sell, your popular items, your unpopular items and show you any sales that are causing you a loss in profit.
Income and Expense Management
This application will store all your incomes and expenses.
Inventory and Smart Purchase Ordering
This will track your stock levels as well as when you have sold stock. The smart purchase ordering will work out how much you should purchase based on the different bulk prices and how popular that item is. It will also take into account the expiry date. For example, you don't want to buy 1000L of milk when you only sell 3L a day. You will end up with a smelly warehouse.
Another example could be Laptops. You don't want to by 100 laptops, when you sell 10 a month. Within 6 months that laptop is out dated and you could lose money on trying to sell that stock.
This will calculate a perfect medium and suggest purchasing quantities for you.
Job Tracking
Keep track of any jobs and due dates. This is essential for businesses that offer services.
Point of Sale
We will develop a diverse and quick point of sale program, to get your customers served as soon as possible and without your employees always looking confused when putting a sale through. You will be able to categories all your stock, select what order the categories will be displayed. You will be able to link this to the Inventory application too. So it will pick up your stock automatically.
Modules
Applications can be purchased individually as well as being organised into modules such as:
Assistant
- Contacts
- Scheduler
Accountant
- Payroll
- Assets
- Bill Tracking
- Financial Reporting
- Expense Claim Management
Warehouse Manager
- Inventory Management
- Smart Purchase Ordering
Project Manager
- Job Tracking
- Income Management
- Financial Reporting
- Sale Reporting
Retail
- Point of Sale
- Sale Reporting