I have been using Manager for over two years now and love it perfect for my small business.
Just wondering if any of Managers users could recommend a Customer Database package that has similar qualities to the Manager software (intuitive & clean).
What I would like it todo is store the customers information like Manager but then give a little more like being able for set appointments / reminders and maybe even be able to add extensive notes e.g. telephone conversations & emails sent / received. I have been using the notes section in customer on Manager for most things so far but feel I may need something more.
You could look at NCH Software. I reviewed their software about a month ago for an accounting package, but ultimately went with Manager as I found Manager better than NCH. But NCH was pretty good and they have a large variety of software, so you could look at their CRM program and see whether its any good. I have not used it but I was impressed with their gui for their accounting package, even though I preferred Manager’s gui.
I actually like your question, because I think that this is something that I need to research for myself for my own business, so I will be very interested in hearing what answers you come up with. Also try spiceworks - they are an excellent forum for this exact question. I would ask there first before trying any software.
I will look into NCH’s CRM as I have used some of there software previously and will jump onto spiceworks.
I maybe wrong but most CRM’s that I look at are based around tracking sales opportunities and only skimming over customer relationships. I could do with a system that skips over the whole sales part as I wouldn’t find much use for it.
Every piece of software I have looked at so far has been nothing like Manager with its simple GUI and intuitive features. Do you think @lubos in the future Manager will gain some more CRM / Customer Database properties (expand on the customers tab) or is Manager only for accounting and invoicing?
What I did as I also needed extra space to record more detail to customers is added extra custom fields to customers tab, you can also adjust size to suit.
May not give appointments / reminders but was just a thought.
I use Thunderbird email and lightning calendar. Maybe that will address the emails, appointments and reminders issue for you and you could look at some of the other thunderbird addons for creating notes etc. The problem with custom fields is that it is just another field like notes. Its not really a good way to attach notes to specific jobs etc! One addon I want to look at is gantt software for time management.
Its something that I have been meaning to look into but never got around to.
However, one thing that I have never found is a good way to store all word documents for a client and be able to view them from the client profile. There must be software like that, but not found any yet.
Just checked out Thunderbird & Lighting and they look solid. I could see myself integrating them into my business but I would much prefer it if they was all in one package including dedicated customer details / notes, I maybe asking to much!
I agree with you on the custom fields, its hard to speperate the notes for the customers into different jobs. I guess you could make a new field for each job e.g. Job 1, Job 2, Job 3 but there isn’t a way to print the notes.
Gantt is kinda like a project management style software which I have looked into and the best one of them I have found is one called Trello its simple but it works.
Yes adding files to a customers notes would be a big plus.
I have been using Thunderbird and Lightning for years. Very happy with the program. The advantage of Thunderbird is the fact that its so customisable. You add only the features that you want.
There are a lot of addons for thunderbird. there may be an addon that does what you want is what I meant. I agree with you, I would like a proper crm program but never found anything that did what I wanted it to do.
Thats why I dont like the suggestion for custom fields in this instance for the reason you mentioned above.
Ask on spiceworks and see what you get. I will also look around as I want something for myself
I just remembered that I had a website favourited of a program that I wanted to review. The software is called AskSam. I am not sure exactly where the developers website is, but you can google AskSam database software and you will get everything. I think that this program is what we both want!
I appreciate that you are intending to add non accounting modules and this specific request is actually quite useful for businesses, but be careful that you don’t end up with another program where it has all the features known to mankind and all the bloat as well. Thats why I am wary of suggesting that one add CRM to Manager as it would end up making manager harder to use because there are too many features and functions! Hard to balance features and still keep it simple and intuitive to use.
I think Manager is built to handle lots of different modules with out becoming over complicated, for example if you sell your product solely online you can easily turn off the “Delivery Note” tab. So if a company chose not to use the CRM tab they could simple turn it off and not have to worry about it.