View Full Version : Managing clients of/online.
For a business - any business whats the best for managing clients off/online. A program i mean.
Ie clients details, notes on clients etc etc. Being able to add other feilds etc.
Also accoutance software - some realy good ones - anyone know?
Steve
What you are asking is a CRM or Cusomter Relationship Manager.
There are a great number of these and you need to way out what you feel that you need.
Some you might want to look into though:
www.saleforce.com
www.saleslogix.com
www.mysap.com
On the Microsoft site under business solutions they just came out with one as well. For one user with sales and service it is about $800, not to bad really. The total install would be around $2500 as quoted to me by the vendor in my area.
Do a search on google for CRM you will find a lot. Salesforce.com has a free one for like 30 days and then it is an ASP monthly solution.
Good Luck.
PS: We are going the MS route.
We use quickbooks offline and clientexec.com online... haven't quite figured out how to integrate them well yet but we're working on it :D
Originally posted by beley:
We use quickbooks offline and clientexec.com online... haven't quite figured out how to integrate them well yet but we're working on it :D
I've been pushing for Alberto to integrate them. :D
JeremyV
07-29-03, 05:10 AM
I use modernbill online, and quicken (soon upgraded to quickbooks) for offline management. There is a quickbooks import hack for modernbill, haven't tested it yet but would make things a lot easier.
But really, as long as you aren't processing 50 invoices a day, doing it manually isn't too much trouble. At the beginning and end of each business day I login to modernbill. Bring up new invoices. Then open up quicken, and create invoices. Recurring customers is extremely easy, since they are already in the system you can just click their name, click on what the product is, and you're done. Takes a few seconds. But it would be nice to just export a file and drop it into quicken/quickbooks :D
The main reason I like to use the quicken/books type software is because I can link up our bank account, credit, debt, and invoices all in one place and easily see where the cash is coming in and going.
Originally posted by JeremyV:
The main reason I like to use the quicken/books type software is because I can link up our bank account, credit, debt, and invoices all in one place and easily see where the cash is coming in and going.
What if you don't have cash? lol. j/k.
Yea we have Quickbooks Home and Business Premier. Right now it's setup that when you open it it says "HELLO, LET"S CREATE AN ACCOUNT" 'cause I have no clue how to use it.
Where can I find this MB/Quickbooks mod at? Thanks!
JeremyV
07-29-03, 07:46 AM
Check out the modernbill forums, and under the hacks area. I think they made it a sticky post in that forum so it should be near the top :)
quickbooks - I will take a look at this. Though is this for managing clients information, notes on certain clients etc and liek a time table/date table of such - or is it for accountance information I need software for accountacing etc as well!
There is a difference between an accounting package such as Quick Books Pro and a full blown CRM application.
What you are looking for is the CRM aspect.
Being able to input the clients info, the hardware they have, the last time you spoke to them, order fullfilment, lit fullfilment, marketing tracking, reports and reminders ect.
Quckbooks will do some of this but it was designed to do accounting not CRM.
Originally posted by tranz:
There is a difference between an accounting package such as Quick Books Pro and a full blown CRM application.
What you are looking for is the CRM aspect.
Being able to input the clients info, the hardware they have, the last time you spoke to them, order fullfilment, lit fullfilment, marketing tracking, reports and reminders ect.
Quckbooks will do some of this but it was designed to do accounting not CRM.
While it wasn't made to be a full blown CRM application, we use Modernbill to store information such as the last time we spoke to them about an issue, reasons why their account was terminated, company notes about them, etc.
As of right now, we store our profit/losses for each month in an excel document which does all the calculations for us.
yeah, I guess that can work.
I was used to coming from big corporations that used big apps.
We use www.rodapi.com for billing and MS CRM.
JeremyV
07-29-03, 06:06 PM
You may want to pick up the August edition of Entrepreneur magazine, as it has an article discussing CRM software. Here is a list of software they display:
www.bestofsoftware.com
www.frontrange.com
www.act.com
www.jdedwards.com
www.oncontact.com
www.netledger.com
www.oracle.com
www.peoplesoft.com
www.salesforce.com
www.sap.com
www.siebel.com
www.scmsql.com
www.upshot.com
Again, some of these may not be what you're looking for at all, but it is a good start to see what's out there.
Entrepreneur is a definate read anyway... excellent magazine with great articles. I've got a subscription and reccomend them to anyone.
tranz whats the name of the MS product?
Funny enough MS CRM they dont have a big name for it or anything. What I like about it is that it interfaces with Outlook. To me the best aspect is that when talking to a client and they ask for a quote, you give it to them. If they come back you can turn that quote into their order and then their monthly invoice without having to setup all of those independently from eachother.
felix220
08-10-03, 03:36 AM
if you seek the answer for web hosting accounts mangement.. and you are a serious business, not a hobby, then the only way to go is Ubersmith plus Netledger... API's, genuine accounting software and a raft of other features that make it a no brainer.. all the cheap scripts from WHN Billing to Modernbill have no chance of comparing..
i have used uebersmith from the client's perspective and didnt like it at all. bills due were unclear and past payment history was lumped in with something else, far as i can remember. not something i would use for my own clients. am i missing something?
paul
felix220
08-11-03, 06:09 AM
Originally posted by rusko:
i have used uebersmith from the client's perspective and didnt like it at all. bills due were unclear and past payment history was lumped in with something else, far as i can remember. not something i would use for my own clients. am i missing something?
paul
Typically, any software application only reflects information entered by a human, so if you had trouble with your bills being 'unclear' then I'd look to the person you owed the money to for the answer to that, not ubersmith.. which makes extremely clear both what is outstanding and what has been paid... payment history is not 'lumped in' with something else, unless you mean the event log.. and that wouldn't be the first place to look for payment history, as its shown on the first screen that appears when you log in as a customer..
Also, the screens that your customers see are totally customisable, from the actual information you display, to the colours, layout, branding etc... so once again, it's up to the company using the billing system to use it correctly.. so maybe thats what you're missing, and its a pity that you didn't have a good experience with it, because it is certainly the best tool for front line customer billing, unless money is no object for you.
And Netledger as the 'accounting' package with an API for relevant form data, is streets ahead of things like Quickbooks etc for web hosting .. probably any online business.. maybe offline too come to think of it.. maybe I should buy shares.. I like them so much..
ghpickjr
09-05-03, 03:28 PM
I don't have access to the MB forums, but we are currently evaluating several billing solutions, part of our decision process includes our ability to synchronize data between, say, MB and QB or whatever other app we choose. Could be ClientExec, PerlDesk, etc. Could someone get me a copy of the 'hack' for MB?
I am starting to intergrate EdgePanel for my own internal use to keep my servers and IPs straight.
There is no billing module and thus we cant use it for our end clients.
ghpickjr
09-05-03, 03:52 PM
I'm confused, your integrating edge panel with QuickBooks?
I will be. First we have to build the billing module for it, get it to work with Link Point. After that is done then we are going to write a module where it will give us the ability to export the data from the DB and then import it into another billing solution.
Once we have that getting the data to QB wouldnt be that hard.
Id recommend an open source CRM package, theres a few good ones.
ie)
http://www.anteil.com/
http://www.tmoby.com/
Billing could be a separate application. (If you wanted an integrated system, it wouldn't be too complicated to build a simple one or even modify and integrate the open source ERP package found @ www.ossuite.org)
We use anteil for managing our opportunities and customer events (email, phone calls, etc...)
Comes in handy with our call center, especially since it doesnt carry expensive lisence fees (like the microsoft products). Also, Open Source Apps tend to give you the flexibility of integrating and customizing that is lost in a "closed" microsoft solution.
Hope this helps
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