ACT! Software Tips & Insights

Many years ago I attended a business luncheon and the speaker, who was in the computer industry, said something I’ll never forget – “If you are disorganized before you get a computer, you’ll be disorganized after you get a computer.”

ACT! is a great way to become organized and efficient, but it takes some effort.

When I work with my ACT! clients one of the first things I look at is how they utilize the ID Status field (I use the ID Status field to categorize every single contact in ACT!).  I usually find that people either don’t use the field at all, or they have so many options that it becomes more work then it’s worth.  My experience is that if you limit the options to about six items, it will be easier to keep track of your contacts.  These are the fields I usually suggest:

1.)   Customer or Client

2.)   Prospect

3.)   Vendor

4.)   Employee

5.)   Friend

6.)   Other

Because all of the choices start with a different first letter, all you have to do is touch the letter C to have the field populated with customer, for example.  This makes data entry just that much easier and is a good strategy for all fields.  If you have more than one person entering data, I would suggest that you limit the choices that can be used by limiting the options to just these few (under edit | define fields; call me if you need help here).  In addition, you can quickly look up all of your customers if you need to do a mailing or send an e-mail.

Many of my clients say they need more categories. I caution them that if they get to complicated they could waste time managing data and not selling or running their business.  There is a fine line between organization and chaos.

If you do need more of a breakdown, customize a second field to give you more options.  There are some great add-on products for ACT! that can be helpful here as well.  Feel free to contact me with any and all questions.