Product Reviews

Most businesses have customer data littered across a variety of applications. Customer Manager is designed to combat this problem by collating contact information into one place. It can import and amalgamate existing data from all editions of QuickBooks 2004, although not previous versions, and from Microsoft Outlook 2000/2003 and Outlook Express 5.5/6.

When you first create a new file you are invited to explore the sample database. This reveals that Customer Manager does more that simply store name and address details. It also provides time management features including to-do lists and a calendar that lets you view appointments in a variety of convenient ways, linked to projects and to key contacts.

As a relational database it enables you to manage multiple projects that link to multiple contacts, both clients and vendors. You can even view contact information and customer history, including transactions recorded in QuickBooks, in a single screen.

When you are ready to continue to create your own database you return to the start of the five-step setup, starting with the question: "What do you want to get out of Customer Manager?" There are four boxes to tick: Make my work easier, Stay on top of tasks and projects,

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Communicate better with my customers and Organise my scattered customer data. Although these options don't customise the features installed, they do determine the help you are offered in the Guide to Using QuickBooks Customer Manager screen that appears once you have created your database.

The default option at the next step is to create a new database from QuickBooks data. As this has to be from a version of QuickBooks 2004, this may be an impetus to upgrade if you have an earlier version. We tested this using real data stored in successive versions of QuickBooks over almost nine years, initially created with QuickBooks 3. The result was that over 400 names of customers and suppliers were recorded.

The next step is to introduce contact details from other applications. In the case of Outlook or Outlook Express this is an automatic process and all that is required is that application to be running.

During the import procedure you will see a table of field assignments that show how field names used in Outlook correspond to those used by QuickBooks Customer Manager. If you have contact data in Excel, Access or other applications you will need to create CSV files and deal with mapping field assignments yourself.

One strange option is that Customer Manager can use Outlook's calendar for scheduling to make up for its less sophisticated set of facilities, such as a lack of repeating appointments. It might seem better, therefore, just to stick with Outlook. However, Customer Manager lets you see a history of recent QuickBooks transactions, so you can switch between financial and non-financial records without having to launch a separate application.

Like other QuickBooks products, Customer Manager makes big-business tools available to small businesses to offer a more efficient way of working.