Make SBA truly link to Outlook Business Contact Manager

[RJ Walters]

I have been told that I can export SBA accounts/Clients to Outlook Business
Contact Manager but not the other way around. As mentioned in other threads,
I also always have a contact in BCM first before it goes into my accounting
package. The first contact with a potential customer is almost never to
purchase a piece of my custom made furniture but instead to ask questions or
wanting more info. So, it doesn't make sense to require a contact to first be
in SBA before it can be in BCM.

For that matter I should not have to import/export at all! There should be a
link between these two packages so that any new or changed items are
automatically sent to the other program. I realize there is some conflict
resolution necessary in this approach but that is certainly managable. I am
doing this now with a couple of tables between a couple of MS Access
developed programs that I designed. Why can't this be done between SBA and
BCM. They are both in-house Microsoft developed software and the techniques
are already there. It would make us small business owners who are
contemplating using SBA lives a little easier.
--
RJ Walters

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[Chris Schatte]

RJ Walters,
We are somewhat the same here, projects we do for our customers require
planning so we enter customers as accounts in BCM first, then use the link to
accounting function to add them as a new customer in SBA. This way we can
link our opportunity data to a quote, sales order or invoice. As well,
calendar appointments can be linked to accounts, these can be referrenced for
pertinent data. Our employees enter information that is relevant to the job,
update on hourly time scheduled, products used that may be different than
what was allocated, etc...
When we were using QB there was no real easy way to have our opportunities
and calendar appointments included in our customer financial history for
future marketing.
I would like to mention that the current way that accounts are setup in BCM
is basically for businesses, wish that this would change to reflect
individuals as an option. 60% of our business are individuals or consumers,
but accounts can be setup the way you use them.