Best Software... to run business

Do you use any kind of customer management software?
Something to track clients, mailing list, leads, etc?

I use act for tracking customers and follow ups
Estimate works paint pro 4 is my latest toy

ProWallGuy said:

Do you use any kind of customer management software?
Something to track clients, mailing list, leads, etc?

Click to expand...

Only Quickbooks and Outlook

Hmmm...not sure it's the best, but I use QB's Customer Manager
It's a little more user friendly then say ACT (which I've also used)
It's a little more limited too if you go in deep, but ACTs harder to figure out and use so it's a trade-off

QBCM plays well with both QB and Outlook

New version of Office small business has a really nice business contact database in it now, worth looking into if you use outlook. I think it meshes with QB too, not sure I do not use QB.

It does NOT work with Quickbooks... Microsoft has Small Business Accounting Software that is almost identical to QB... Currently the MS software will not do the things that QB Premier will do like inventory...

Use Quickbooks and outlook.
Estimating I use On Screen Takeoff

I use Quickbooks too.

Quickbooks and PEP. Sometimes National Paint Estimator to kinda crosscheck.

No one using open source tools? There are alternatives to MS products which I think are way overpriced. There are too many to list here but I use open office, and gnu-cash to name a few.

Both are free as in they cost no money and they are free as in the code is open to peer review.

Couple that with the fact my business runs off of computers that were going to be thrown out .. (all p3's) running linux. Total cost is my time...

I have used a bit of Canadian software BS1 http://www.dbsonline.com for years now. Had a go with QB but there was too many bells & whistles, and too expensive. BS1 works well, has inventory, and the "Professional" version does time-billing so I can track and bill job/hours.

Quickbooks
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