A program for recalling customer information

[Cassix]

I'd really like a way to pull up job information on previous clients...

Let's say a customer walks into the business. They're a return customer, but it's been years since the job we did for them. I'd like to enter their name into a program and pull up all our past transactions. Currently, I'm sifting through years of paper invoices to get the details I'm needing. I'm certain there's programs that do exactly this, but what are they?

[Harold Mansfield]

Are you using any kind of Point of Sale or business software now?
Also what kind of computers does your business use? Macs? PCs?
Is everything on paper?

Give us a little more info on your record keeping and sales process now.

[Cassix]

I have Microsoft Office 2013, but that's all at the moment. Absolutely everything is on paper. I just bought this laptop (pc running win 8.1) and it's the only one for the business. All previous work has been done on paper and I'd like to convert it all.

[Harold Mansfield]

And what kind of business is it? Retail? Services?

[Cassix]

Flooring installation. If a customer from two years ago comes back and wants to know something like the color of grout used in their installation, I want a quick and easy way to recall that information, instead of sifting through old invoices.

[Harold Mansfield]

Flooring installation. If a customer from two years ago comes back and wants to know something like the color of grout used in their installation, I want a quick and easy way to recall that information, instead of sifting through old invoices.

The easy answer is to use Quickbooks. You can create customer profiles, proposals, estimates, invoices and it's all searchable so that you can easily bring up all the information per customer. For previous customers you'd have to input the info...probably be a pain to recreate the entire paper trail, but you can at least create profiles for them and make notations of past work that is still on paper. I'm thinking you can probably scan in old documents and attach them, I'm not 100% sure.

Going forward it will be easier to keep track of new customers and the paper trail on all work orders.

It's a learning curve as with everything, but it does what you need and you can get started with either the online version or buy an installation disk.
It has many versions specific to certain types of businesses.
QuickBooks Accounting for Professional and Field Services (http://quickbooks.intuit.com/business-type/project/)

We have a resident Quick Books expert around here, hopefully she'll chime in for more info.

[Cassix]

I posted a reply, but it doesn't seem to be showing up for me, so I apologize if it shows up and I'm asking this question twice, but I see that Quickbooks charges a monthly fee for their program. Is there an alternative that can be purchased for a single price? ..or just alternatives, in general

[Harold Mansfield]

Yes, you can still buy Quickbooks as a stand alone software. I got mine on Amazon. I recommend getting the actual disc and not merely the digital download.

[Fulcrum]

I use binders in addition to electronic copies. Any job, for any customer, as well as all pertinent information, is stored in these binders/files. I can pull up a job the previous owner of my business did from 10 years ago and still have accurate info.