The following lists are some ideas that you can try to customized your business software. These are in no way complete lists. There are many more customizations that can be made.
Easier stuff that you can do yourself:
• Word Templates – create a blank document that you use a lot and save it as “.DOT”
• Word – use Mail Merge for letters, etc
• Learn shortcut keys: Try selecting a sentence in Word and hit Shift-F3 repeatedly
• Customize you Word/Outlook, etc. I have “Thesaurus” and “Grow Font 1 PT” on custom buttons in Word
• Customize you accounting package – you get to include specific terms and make your invoices/statements look more professional.
• Create Distribution Lists in Outlook
• Use Outlook’s Phone Dialler when phoning contacts
• Make use of TASKS in Outlook for your To Do’s
• Keep your contacts/prospects in anything – Notebook, Excel, Act, Maximizer, or Outlook Business Contact Manager
• Automate Backups/antivirus –I will always harp on people who don’t backup
• Excel Macros allow you to do steps repeatedly – learn using “Record New Macro”
• Access Databases – organize your information with databases from very simple to extremely elaborate
Custom stuff by a programmer:
• If you have any tedious repeated task done with a computer – automate it.
• One client spent 12 hours every month gathering Simply Accounting data into an Excel spreadsheet – now it takes a few seconds.
• CCS has created a utility to get information out of Simply Accounting quicker than SA can – SA-Utilities
• Interface any 2 business application systems together – One client has their POS interfaced with Simply Accounting
• One client has an extensive client database and had CCS create an “Artificial Intelligence” system to select prospects
• One client had branch offices that needed to send daily sales reports back to head office electronically – with minimal complexity
• Mass email created from databases outside of Outlook
• Most of these custom programs were inexpensive to develop
Many business users make use of only 5% of the capabilities of their software
This article was authored by Andy Butler of Compatible Computer Services; (902) 420-1212. CCS provides sales and service support for PCs and Restaurant & Retail Point of Sales systems and develops client-specific custom-built business software applications.