accounting

We are using Customer Manager, to build out customer database. We all submit customer contacts names, titles, phone numbers, and e-mail address. We have not experienced any of the bugs the other have mentioned. One thing is Intuit provides automatic update to the software in the same fashion as it does for Quickbooks. Meaning, as corrections are made you get them uploaded.

I periodically take my copy of the database file, and update our Quickbooks file.

Like Quickbooks only 5 users can share one database "file". But Unlike Quicbooks, the database file called the "depot.file" is a community file which each user syncs and updates to in order to get the other community memember additions; one at a time.

You can also use Customer Manager to set-up To-do's and set assignments and for other users. It track of open and closed jobs, set deadlines, provide alerts etc.

You can customize the data your keep by adding fields to track customer by.

You can also group what you are managing, just not customers. You can group by customer, vendor, supplier, employee, etc.

For the price it worth exploring.

The feature which allows one to sync between different running versions of Customer Manager is cumbersome and full of bugs. The software uses a 'sync depot' to share information. Each copy of Customer Manager shares any changes it made with the 'sync depot.' Each other version then receives any changes from the sync depot and sends its own changes back to the sync depot. Each sync must be initated manually, and it is a bit slow. Customer contact information often get corrupted via this sync depot, usually resulting in Customer Manager crashing. According to Intuit Customer Service, they are still working out the bugs in the sync system, and a new release won't be out until next year.

Customer Manager also allows you to keep track of 'projects.' However, it would be nice if these projects were imported from Quickbooks' Jobs list. Instead, one is left with double the work of typing project information.

There are many other quirks with this particular software, but they are too many to list here.

The idea behind this software has a lot of potential (i.e. sharing information with Quicbooks). However, it seems more like a beta release, and the programmers at Intuit have a lot more work ahead of them. I would steer clear of this one for now.

This product has great potential but nothing more.

It's basic to say the least and while the project management and notes-keeping capabilities are useful if you don't want something at the other end of the scale like Act! or Maximizer, it's probably going to serve your needs if you're running an even moderately busy business.

I bought Customer Manager because I found everything else I tried (see above) to be overkill and frankly cumbersome. Customer Manager seemed to be (from the product information on Intuit's site) exactly what I was looking for, a lightweight contacts database with the awesome bonus of synchronising with Quickbooks.

The reality is that the database leaves much to be desired as far as organising contacts and my version of Quickbooks Pro 2003 does NOT synchronise with it because it's the Canadian version. Intuit's Web Site still does not specify that only the US versions of Quickbooks are compatible and I have never even had the courtesy of a reply from Intuit about it, despite three very polite requests for an update.