SOHO BRM [Small Office Home Offece] [Business Relations Manager]...

quote:
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Originally posted by Jeff Barrett/MacMedics:
Well, we can agree to disagree. There's precious little for us Mac users in Canada for accounting software. MYOB is non-existent, Quickbooks has very poor Canadian support on the Mac side, Daylite uses Open Base, Billings uses a different system etc...so not even MC's own apps talk to each other.

I think better support 3rd party apps would be great for those who want it. I also think having some built-in invoicing/accounting would be extremely useful for the reasons I already mentioned in a previous post. I'm not talking about a heavy-duty add-on, but something simple and useful for small businesses and individuals.
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Hello, I am glad to see discussion posts by Jeff Barrett, J. Scott Anderson, Steve Smith on accounting [products/services/]... under Merlin & Daylite - Exploratory Discussion by AJ...

I am still on WIN but I will be moving to MAC and Daylite soon... congratulations AJ on your product... am trying to see if I can adopt it in my SOHO business... on one hand I do cash sales of products to households [about TWO sales per evening]... and during daily work I do Marketing [Projects]... meetings, conversations, proposals to commercial accounts, to sale my Power Control Units [they reduce electricity consumption in fluorescent lamps] - I need to by parts from suppliers, assemble my PCUs... and then sell them...

I trust most of the functionality in Daylite, with a little bit of work, can be made as in SugarCRM... and... if Daylite would include the basic functions of receiving and recording Payments against Invoiced Accounts... and pay Vendors against the issued POs... we would have a very simple way of tracking the coming in, and out, dollars... hope this could be graphed as well...

This "accounting" is quite nicely done in one product called My-CRM... they as well track expenses and more... have a look http://www.my-crm.co.uk/ ... and AJ... let us, the Daylite crowd, know if you can do it... and if yes, when...?

I am still learning and discovering the works of Daylite and... will appreciate some input from the Daylite team as well from the community at large on this... thanks! Walt

THE QUEST FOR A PERFECT CRM... with Daylite in mind...

One more thing... AJ, I know your team is researching “what’s new” in the world of CRM and... maybe what I have done on my own is already known to you, or maybe some aspects are not... so, to the benefit of Daylite and all the people here... I would like to share with you my search/quest for the perfect CRM... and what I have found...

I started with ACT! when it first showed up on the MAC platform... and have followed it to PC [when MAC version was dropped]...

ACT!6 [2002] that I have, is still a benchmark of the ease-of-use among all CRMs out there [GoldMine, Maximizer, SugarCRM, etc]... ie.: ACT!6 Monthly Calendar... anything can be recorded there... drag-and-drop any item from one day to the other... right-click on the item, select contact and you are on the contact screen... live note input is available right there [no need to click through a number of pop-up screens to finally get to the one that will allow you write something down]...

I looked at ACT!9 [2007]... it is, as ACT!7 and 8, a slow and unstable disaster... so ACT!6 is what is left from the easy to use and fast environment... my CRM, needs to grow up and I decided to search the World for a solution... MAC & PC... about SIX weeks of intensive search and demo tests...

The possible contender is the new MS Outlook 2007 with BCM 2007... MS guys do their do-diligence and... if they take all the best from ACT!, GoldMine and Maximizer... they may have a pretty useful product... however,

Yes... however... there is this one young company in England that came up with a SOHO business CRM which may answer a dream of millions of small businesses around the World [take notice AJ, millions could be Daylite users]... it has almost everything a SOHO business person would want... this CRM though, at V.2.5 is still immature and has a number of items that need to be improved... I will come back to it in a moment...

For now, please look at some features of a “wish list” for a perfect CRM... or a BRM [Business Relations Manager]

INTERFACE/FUNCTIONALITY: Quick Links...

[1] Maximizer’s Contacts Window – you can see and access “all” from this one window – very convenient [similar in Daylite]... but this window is the only ONE easy part of Maximizer... the underpinning of its setup, about 80% of it, are tones of HEAVY and complicated tasks that create quite a Big Headache for a SOHO Business person... same, it is difficult to set up and get going with... and, it does not have Products/Services functionality... or basic accounting... view the on-line demo...
http://www.maximizer.com/solutions/maximizer/contact-manager.html#

[2] This one moves with a grace of prima ballerina, a free basic Open Source CRM http://demo.sugarondemand.com/sugarcrm_os/index.php?action=index&module=Home ... its older sibling, SugarCRM.com Pro has Product/Service functionality, but the cost is prohibitive...

[3] Also free, but with a very rigid structure... and almost no customization options... a basic Open Source CRM http://www.zoho.com/crm/ [it has though a potential to grow]...

[4] On the WIN side... a promising .Net technology from Australia...
have a look at the interface...
http://www.exchangewise.com/Products/MXContact_Net/overview.htm

[5] Implementation of Sales Assistant such as in Profet [it automatically generates follow up "keep in touch" emails from templates set for the future dates] see demo at...
http://www.avidian.com/prophet_contact_manager.aspx

But above all in this marketplace... the most features attractive and promising CRM / BRM... is the young My-CRM from England... it has all and more, what this discussion group is talking about and is asking for... and with the next V.3 it may be "it"... next Daylite should have "it" as well... BTW: I hope 2007 Quickbooks or MYOB will have what we need here in Canada [I believe the US versions can import our Canadian tax tables]...

Let’s hope, folks at Microsoft did not get the wind of it yet... and their 2007 product will not have My-CRM’s functionality...

So here we are... we have a potential opening for Daylite... AJ, see what My-CRM has built in... and implement these features into Daylite... make Daylite become the #1 SOHO choice of people around the World... the "it" in Daylite could remove final obstacles, that prevent WIN SOHO business people from moving to MAC...

View on line demos...
http://www.my-crm.co.uk/tour.html

MAY THE "IT" BE IN DAYLITE... - Walt

And again... AJ, I think I may be contributing something to Daylite development, but I may be not... you and your team may be already into it...

I cmame accross this...
http://www.servoy.com/

Why is Servoy faster and easier?

With Servoy, you can program 5 to 10 times faster compared to .Net or Java-based environments. Servoy uses drag-and-drop, automatic data-binding, and a built-in script library -- including an extensive 100% Java-based API that can be used for external integration; thin client/server processes; access to local client machines; and more. By using Java WebStart, Servoy offers a zero-deployment method to push the software to each client. And, you can deploy using our rich Java client (as a thin client/server application) or our web client (100% HTML) -- all from a single code base. One code base, multiple deployment strategies. ZERO re-coding!

and now, I am out of here... -Walt