Clients and Contacts

Currently SI 5 does not keep a database of your Client and Contact information. In fact, all that is stored in the Client list is the name. Information like address, phone, email, etc. is stored within each individual projects and cannot be readily “re-used” on other projects. Release 5.5 (coming soon) changes all that. Before I show a sneak peak of the interface, it is important to explain the difference between a Client and Contact.

A Client should be considered to be an entity like a company, organization, or even family (Mr. and Mrs. Garcia). A Contact should be considered to be an individual. Multiple Contacts can be assigned to a Client, one of which can be designated as the primary Contact.

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, here are some teasers. Clients and Contacts can be manually entered or you will be able to import Clients from Outlook or from QuickBooks. You can export a Client to QuickBooks or you can export a Contact to Outlook. You also have functions to email or create an appointment in Outlook directly in the interface. When you email a Client, the primary Contact for that client receives the email. Separate table are kept for Clients and Contacts so a Contact can be added to one or more Clients, e.g. an architect that works with more than one builder.

Clients can be assigned multiple addresses. You can easily manage the addresses and Contacts associated with a Client using the navigation buttons. The [Map] button will launch IE to display the Google Map for the selected address. The Notes tab is a memo field and has a spell check function.

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