Quickbooks Premier--Accounting
Act! Ver8--Customer Manager.
Everybody knows QB.
ACT, I don't know many that use it. It is honestly the most powerful tool you could employ for your business. It is ULTRA COMPLEX, however. I took the advice of a guy in my More Floods class and hired an ACT consultant to come in and set it up the way I wanted it. ($125 an hour--took him about 6 hours) It can be customized to do anything.
Some of the things I use it for.
1. Scheduling--all jobs.
2. Referral Tracking--sweet reports.
3. Customer Follow-ups-- QC calls, 6 month reminder cards, etc. etc.
4. Marketing--This is hands down the most beneficial aspect of the program. It took me ALOT of hours to get it right...Still working on some things.
Basically, take the time to develope a WRITTEN marketing plan for given timeframes. A specific executable plan; you can then input it into the ACT program. Then as the dates come up for mailers, calls, etc. Your directions are clear on what you need to do that day. (Or set reminders for the upcoming "event" or task. Say reminder to call printer on 4th--mailers go out on 11th. On 11th, task list tells you mail "piece x" to these people.) You can break your database into groups--I have groups like Residential, Commercial, Real Estate Agents, etc. Specific marketing to the individual groups.
There are task sequences--For ex.
Mrs P. books job.
Task Sequence:
Carpet Cleaning--on the schedule
Thank you/Referral Program letter prints when you clear/complete the job.
QC call set for 2 days later
6 month reminder postcard prints 6 months later
12 month, etc.
These follow ups are scheduled automatically when you schedule the cleaning.
Attach documents to customer files. Pictures. whatever.
The more you know about the customer, the more you could do.
I am MAYBE utilizing 10% of its features.
You need alot of RAM to run it. My laptop has 2 gigs of RAM and does fine. Right now--in windows task manager processes window--says act8 memory usage 96,477k. I think that is alot, dunno really.
It also has a QB add-on (I do not have it). ACT uses tabs on the contact record page. It adds a QB tab and shows balances etc. Only real benefit to the add-on (that I see anyway) is no more entering new client info to QB and then re-typing into ACT.
Oh and the opportunities tab--probability wieghtings for closing deals, etc. This is the area I am exploring next.
Insanely powerful, but will require ALOT of time.
As my favorite saying goes...if was easy; everybody would be doin' it.
Take Care--WISE