Feature List for Address Book Module

The address book is used for storing information on clients, prospective clients, suppliers, and any other companies, organizations, or private individuals that you need to contact from time to time. We use the terminology "Client" very loosely in the following lists of features. (They could equally apply to suppliers and prospective clients - except that there may not be any secondary data that you can "drill down" to.)

Handy Functions

Type just the first part of the name or client ID to jump to a desired client
Fast typing to select a new client (e.g. "hen,wil" to jump to "Henderson, William")
Search for a client based on name, phone number, or a word / phrase in any text field. (This is great for saving the day when you get a message to "Phone Bob on ...." but you haven't a clue who "Bob" is, and want to be prepared before you ring him.)
Tabular view (and editing) of clients. You can apply filter criteria and view just the matching clients
Send an e-mail to the current client and/or selected contacts
Broadcast an e-mail message to a number of clients and/or contacts
Generate standard template driven letters or reports (automatically filed in the correct filing folder for the client concerned - if you are running our Document Admin module)
Produce mail-merge files for personalised form letters or email (using Microsoft Office or other email software), and/or print address labels
Place details on clipboard (for pasting into an ad hoc letter)

Drill down to other data

From the address book, you can very easily view all data associated with the client you are currently displaying. You can view jobs, timesheets, invoices, debtor balances, or notes with just two clicks of the mouse. The secondary windows displaying this data can be kept open simultaneously, and will all refresh if you move on to another client in the primary window.

Integration with Google Maps and Geo-Coding

If the Street Address is filled in for any client (or other Address Book entity) then, with a click of your mouse, you can launch Google Maps showing that address in a special page on our website. If you are planning a site visit, then you can easily use Street View to explore it before-hand.
With the 2014 version we have released a new "geo-coding" facility. Click here to read more about Geocoding.

Data Fields

Name (Company / Organization or surname and first name for private individuals)
Mailing name (if different from the primary name)
Client ID, debtor number, alpha-sort, or quick look up keyword
Primary addressee or contact person
Salutation (for use in letters e.g. Dear Fred)
Title and initials (for use with private individuals)
Postal addresses & Post / Zip code
Street address
State and country (optional fields)
Work phone number
Facsimile number
Mobile phone number
Home or after hours phone number
Primary E-mail address
Occupation or business activities
Free-form notes (limited in size only by disk space)

Classification Fields

Partner, principal, or "portfolio" for this client
Client type (you decide how you will use this - e.g. value to you (A, B, C type clients), industry group, etc.)
Client manager (staff member looking after this client)
Billing client and when the link should be applied (e.g. you send invoices to a branch office who authorize them and forward them to their head office for payment)
Date taken on
"Current" flag (i.e. are they currently an active client)

User Defined Fields

Up to 10 pages of additional user-defined data fields
Data types include character, numeric, logical (yes/no), date, user-defined list of values, memo field (unlimited text), and link to another entity in the address book
Templates to control formatting of data within fields
Automatic positioning of fields (centrally aligned), or manual positioning (to fit more data on the page)
Able to be used for filter criteria and specifying the sort order throughout the address book and other modules
Tabular editing of user-defined field data (especially valuable when you have just added a new field and want to fill in values for existing clients
Special user-defined field reports (including analysis of counts)

Contacts Database

Name, position, phone numbers, e-mail, notes, etc. of respective contact personnel for companies and organizations
Can be used for children of families
User-defined fields for any systematic additional information
Tabular viewing of just the contacts for the current client, or all contacts for all clients (in whatever sort order you like - very useful if you know a person's name but can't remember the company they work for)

Reports

The report wizard is very flexible and powerful. It allows you to specify the desired basic type of report, selection criteria, and sort / total preferences. Your settings can be saved as a named report definition for use again next time (perhaps with minor changes). Reports can be previewed on screen.

Single line client report
Wide client report (prints in landscape)
Telephone number last
Names, addresses, and telephone list
User-defined field listings
User-defined field content analysis
User-defined field count analysis
Standard and user defined address book fields can be used as selection and sort criteria for reports in other modules

Configuration Options

The options that are most commonly adjusted to suit your own preferences are:

The default principal / director / partner (can be left blank in bigger firms)
Do you want to also assign staff members as "client managers"
Do you want to have a Client ID ? If so you can specify a template for it (ensuring conformity to your scheme with regard to position of letters, digits, and special characters such as hyphens, slashes, decimal points, etc.
The length of the codes you are using to specify "Client Type"
Define your own list of client types

Security

The address book has fairly powerful security facilities.

You can prevent certain users from accessing the address book altogether
You can give certain users read-only access to address book data
You can prevent users from drilling down to secondary data
You can allow partners/directors and managers to edit just their own clients, and drill down to the associated secondary data. (You might also give them read-only access to other name and address data.)
You can control who is allowed to print reports of address book data

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Feature List for Address Book Module

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