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.)

Table of Contents:

• Data Fields
• Classification Fields
• User defined fields
• Handy Functions
• Drill-Down to other data
• Reports
• Configuration Options
• Security

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)

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
• Place details on clipboard (for pasting into a letter)
• Produce mail-merge files for personalised form letters or email (using Office XP or other email software), and/or print address labels
• 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

Drill down to other data

From the address book, you can very easily view 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.

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