[3R1C]

I have an idea for an app for use by tipped employess such as servers, valets etc.

Heres the deal. I'm a waiter as well as a developer. As a server, all of my income is derived from my tips. I like to keep track of what I make every night on my calander on my wall. I also keep track how much I have made thus far that week as a running total each day. There are many other little statistics I would to be able to keep track of. Like say, how much do I average on tuesdays? This month? This Year? Or from the first time I recorded a tip? What did I make the first week of April? What is the date of my best day? My Worst? Whats my average days tip? You get the idea.

Anyway I was thinking about excel when i thought maybe I'd make a dedicated app instead. What are ya'lls thoughts? Any other server/devs here?

[Wafflestomper]

sounds like a cool idea, would any other tip driven people find this useful?

[hayesk]

Excel can do stuff like that but it's clumsy. I agree that you should stay away from it. I think a database is a better option. If I were a server/valet, I'd probably do it in FileMaker Pro, unless I wanted an exercise in Programming Cocoa. In FileMaker it's very quick to add new reports, statistics, etc. and put it in a usable interface that isn't clumsy like Excel.

If you have FileMaker or the money to buy it, I recommend it. If you don't want to buy it, then yes, invest the time in doing a Cocoa app over excel. Just keep in mind, it will take more time.

Right now, I am converting a FileMaker database (a shopping list app) to a Cocoa application, just for the Cocoa practice. The Cocoa app will look a lot nicer and polished when it is finished, but it's taking a lot more time and code to do it. I probably won't do it again. I have a few FileMaker based shareware products. In the future, I will continue to use FileMaker for database-oriented applications, and Cocoa for the others.

[Endeavor]

I was in the same boat over the past few summers and did the same thing, put together a little tip counting app. I had trouble getting some of the cocoa/obj-c functionality together, but I did manage to get most of it to work with applescript studio of all things.