Business management software

[Bowhunter01]

What programs are you all using to keep track of customers, jobs, invoicing, purchases, etc? Quickbooks, groundskeeper, excel spreadsheet, etc? Trying to decide which to purchase.

 

[pdqdl]

Contact management software. Don't go into a service business without it.

Act! or Goldmine come to mind; I'm sure there are others. Network versions cost a bunch.

Act! combines nicely with Peachtree accounting, and is probably what I will use when I am forced to give up on my favorite.

I use a dinosaur program that was one of the first (and the best): Telemagic. Unfortunately, it is a dead and gone company, and my software is without support or updates.

You can call me on the phone today, and within 3 minutes I will know if we ever did anything at the address you gave me. I can even find your neighbors that I have done work for. If you have called us before, I'll have a record of it. If you were a deadbeat in 1992, I'll have it in writing.

And if you were a great customer that I forgot about 5 years ago, I will be prompted with all the details of the work we did before, I will check and see if your work phone is XXX-XXXX, and before the call is over, the customer feels pretty good about themselves because I didn't forget about them at all.

If this is a referral call, I make a note in the referring customers record. Sometimes we will do something special for the customers that give us a good lead. Free Fall bulbs work great, 'cause we are usually without work before christmas, and the flowers come up in the spring, reminding them to call us first.

 

[Ghillie]

I just started using Quickbooks premier contractor edition. The contractor edition allows you to do a cost analysis per job to evaluate your estimating skills. That feature is what sold me.

I have never looked into contact management software but I think Quickbooks does a pretty good job of maintaing a customer list.

I also just signed up for advanced payroll through Quickbooks. I haven't had achance to go through all the details of that but it allows you to pay up to 3 employees a month and keeps up to date with all the current tax laws.

 

[Mike Cantolina]

I just started using Quickbooks premier contractor edition. The contractor edition allows you to do a cost analysis per job to evaluate your estimating skills. That feature is what sold me.

I have never looked into contact management software but I think Quickbooks does a pretty good job of maintaing a customer list.

+1

I used Quicken Home & Business before that

 

[Barnie]

Does anyone have any experience with Simply Accounting, how do you like it??

 

[pdqdl]

The value of contact management software is in the ability to keep detailed notes about the history of the customer, and the ability to sort and find those details when needed.

A list of thousands of customers is nearly useless unless you have the ability to easily use it to get the information you need. Contact management software does that for you.

For example: My office assistant has a daily obligation to run three reports, and keep the details current. If I tell Joe Cool that I will contact him next month, it pops up on the report and reminds me, when the time comes. I can schedule things for five minutes from now, or 5 years.

It takes about 15 seconds to run that report. The daily list is about 30-50 lines of text, and it is my assistants job to keep that list short by getting things done, not ignored.

 

[Ghillie]

PDQDL, I took a look at the customer section of Quickbooks.

There is a notes section attached to each customer, in that notes section you can add a to-do that will pop up a reminder on the date you set.

You can also search your customer list by partial name or anyting you enter into the contact info.

I'm not saying a contact mgmt program isn't good, I am just trying to find out what more it does than Quickbooks.

 

[Bowhunter01]

Thank you all for the info. I had not thought of the term "customer management software" before. I put it in google, and a lot of links came up. There is one upgrade to quickbooks, specifically for customer maintenance. I'll spend some time checking the different programs out. Always good to hear what others in the same industry are using.

 

[pdqdl]

PDQDL, I took a look at the customer section of Quickbooks.

There is a notes section attached to each customer, in that notes section you can add a to-do that will pop up a reminder on the date you set.

You can also search your customer list by partial name or anyting you enter into the contact info.

I'm not saying a contact mgmt program isn't good, I am just trying to find out what more it does than Quickbooks.

Heck, I don't know. I've never seen Quickbooks. For all I know, it includes contact management features. The real point is to find and use something that does the job for you better than a cardfile and 10,000 3x5 index cards with scribbled notes.

 

[billadam]

Supply Chain Management
For organizations that want to help automate their sales fulfillment process, our supply chain management (SCM) features provide simple and straightforward capabilities for almost any small business. By embracing SCM technology, your business will be able to reduce data errors, increase efficiency in distribution operations and more effectively collaborate with customers and vendors for a smoother running operation.

 

[outdoor images]

Heck, I don't know. I've never seen Quickbooks. For all I know, it includes contact management features. The real point is to find and use something that does the job for you better than a cardfile and 10,000 3x5 index cards with scribbled notes.

i use a program called invoice and estimates delux it is great and i also have delorime 2008 street atlas with them boath i can create an estimate then if the customer wants the job done with the click of a b utton i can create work order and put them in customer list it also has all the reports you could ever want with customer notes and all that jazz invintory and automaticly adds tax to your price well its all i need and after they are in my customer list i can import them to delorme map and have my customer list on a map with a gps moniter on my laptop ican have all my customers and info fight with me so if im driving to an estimate i will be able to see all the people i did work for as i drive its verry cool helps me alot in sales and customer management

 

[outofmytree]

MYOB

I am terrible at bookwork so my bookkeeper set it up just the way he and my accountant like it and all I do is fill in the blanks. I asked both of them before buying the software and I suggest you do the same.

 

[ChiHD]

Contact management software. Don't go into a service business without it.

Act! or Goldmine come to mind; I'm sure there are others. Network versions cost a bunch.

Act! combines nicely with Peachtree accounting, and is probably what I will use when I am forced to give up on my favorite.

I use a dinosaur program that was one of the first (and the best): Telemagic. Unfortunately, it is a dead and gone company, and my software is without support or updates.

You can call me on the phone today, and within 3 minutes I will know if we ever did anything at the address you gave me. I can even find your neighbors that I have done work for. If you have called us before, I'll have a record of it. If you were a deadbeat in 1992, I'll have it in writing.

And if you were a great customer that I forgot about 5 years ago, I will be prompted with all the details of the work we did before, I will check and see if your work phone is XXX-XXXX, and before the call is over, the customer feels pretty good about themselves because I didn't forget about them at all.

If this is a referral call, I make a note in the referring customers record. Sometimes we will do something special for the customers that give us a good lead. Free Fall bulbs work great, 'cause we are usually without work before christmas, and the flowers come up in the spring, reminding them to call us first.

wow I just learned some great stuff!

 

[tgillmore]

contact management software

I use amphis customer, great search facilities, instant access to customer history, quotes, invoices etc. can email my quotes as pdf files, I also store customer emails that I send/receive within the app and I've got some email templates set up for standard replies.

http://www.amphis-software.com

 

[Lennart]

TeleMagic is NOT dead

Contact management software. Don't go into a service business without it.

Act! or Goldmine come to mind; I'm sure there are others. Network versions cost a bunch.

Act! combines nicely with Peachtree accounting, and is probably what I will use when I am forced to give up on my favorite.

I use a dinosaur program that was one of the first (and the best): Telemagic. Unfortunately, it is a dead and gone company, and my software is without support or updates.

You can call me on the phone today, and within 3 minutes I will know if we ever did anything at the address you gave me. I can even find your neighbors that I have done work for. If you have called us before, I'll have a record of it. If you were a deadbeat in 1992, I'll have it in writing.

And if you were a great customer that I forgot about 5 years ago, I will be prompted with all the details of the work we did before, I will check and see if your work phone is XXX-XXXX, and before the call is over, the customer feels pretty good about themselves because I didn't forget about them at all.

If this is a referral call, I make a note in the referring customers record. Sometimes we will do something special for the customers that give us a good lead. Free Fall bulbs work great, 'cause we are usually without work before christmas, and the flowers come up in the spring, reminding them to call us first.

It is right that there will be no more upgrades from TeleMagic, but there are still a lot of TeleMagic resellers out there selling and installing new licenses. TeleMagic V5 is a very stable version so there is no need for any updates.
Lennart Johansson
Zoft 80 AB
www.zoft80.com

 

[lawnmowertech37]

What programs are you all using to keep track of customers, jobs, invoicing, purchases, etc? Quickbooks, groundskeeper, excel spreadsheet, etc? Trying to decide which to purchase.

spreadsheet is also included in microsoft works program which is almost on all pc's for free

quickbooks 2009 is what i have but im holding out on using it till i get back in business

 

[Buckettruckbabe]

We use Quickbooks Pro for all of our accounting and invoicing. (reports) We have a purchasing module for keeping track of parts.

Our CMS is Salesforce, where we set up all customers with their complete information. What's great about it is that all sales information, invoices, etc. can be scanned and uploaded from Outlook and attached to the customer account. Since our customers may or may not be repeat buyers it's a great way to track leads and keep a historical record.

As a tree service company where you may be repeating annual upkeep, pruning, maintenance and spray for a client, Salesforce could be integrated with your accounting and invoicing.

In our case it's not necessary

 

[TreeClimber57]

We use ArborGold.. does the contact management, quotes, sales, integrates with QuickBooks.

Can also have a telephone integration so pulls up record when customer calls - but we do not have hardware to do that yet.

Can also be accessed while on road if you want to.. but costs extra for that feature.

 

[timjones]

I use Amphis CRM as well, the reminders are fantastic... who to call, who to email, quotes to create, invoices that are due, not to mention tasks and appointments. and it all works with Outlook too so you can get an Outlook reminder too if you want it. comes with mail merge, customer notes, payment reminders at the click of a button. also tracks my invoices so I know who is late paying. highly recommend it.

Tim.

 

[mburnsny]

This is great. Nice to hear what others are using out there, especially in regards to some of the newer software and how it integrates with our industry.