JCSM Shareware Collection 1993 November

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Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 1 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 3 Why Automate? 3 Surefire Contacts and Automation 3 Surefire Contacts Overview 4 Chapter 2: Getting Around 5 Getting Started 5 Surefire Contacts Main Menu 5 Surefire Contacts Screens 6 Using Buttons 6 Fields 6 System Windows and the Menubar 7 Useful Keys 7 Using the Zoom Key 9 Accessing Data 10 Using Other Surefire Features 11 Leaving Surefire Contacts 11 Chapter 3: The Profile 12 What is a Profile? 12 The Profile Data Screen 12 Adding a Profile Record 14 Keeping Notes 14 Adding a Note 15 Editing a Note 15 Searching for Profile Records 15 Updating a Profile Record 16 Removing a Profile Record 16 Other Profile Based Features 16 Chapter 4: Tracking Activities 17 What are Activities? 17 The Logged Activities Screen 17 Activity Data 18 Logging a New Activity 18 Editing an Existing Activity 19 Chapter 5: Keeping In Touch 20 Why Keep in Touch? 20 The Correspondence Menu 20 First Time Setup 21 Access Considerations 21 Printing Correspondence 22 Printing a Single Letter 22 Mail Merge 22 Building a Query 22 Autosizing Fields 22 Customizing the Correspondence Menu 23 Creating a New Letter 23 Accessing a Letter Directly 23 Adding a Letter to the Correspondence Menu 24 Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 2 Chapter 6: Scheduling In Surefire Contacts 25 Importance of a Schedule 25 The Agenda 25 Specifying the Date 25 Showing the Profile for an Appointment 27 The Schedule/Entry Screen 27 Scheduling an Appointment 28 Editing an Existing Activity/Appointment 28 Logging a Scheduled Activity/Appointment 28 Logging an Unscheduled Appointment 29 Using the Agenda for Long-term Goals 29 Chapter 7: Surefire Contacts Reports 30 Standard Reports 31 Account List (no address) 31 Account List with address 31 Activity/Call History 32 Follow-up List 32 Won/Lost Report 33 Printing a Report 33 Adding Your Own Reports 34 Chapter 8: Surefire Accounting 35 Accounting in Surefire Contacts 35 Travel Expenses 35 Profit and Loss and Cash Flow Statements 36 Profit and Loss Statement 36 Cash Flow Statement 36 Printing the P & L and Cash Flow 37 Chapter 9: Surefire Off Hours 38 Why Off-Hours? 38 Off-Hours Options 38 Dining Guide 38 Accommodations Guide 39 Entertainment Guide 39 Wise Words 39 Adding New Entries 39 Updating Entries 39 Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 3 Chapter 1 - Introduction Why Automate? During the past few years there have been incredible advances in the high-tech products available to both consumers and business users. VCRs and Compact discs have improved the quality of audio and visual entertainment in our homes. FAX machines, cellular phones, and computers are being used to speed the flow of information in the business sector. While contact management is still a very personal enterprise, those day to day chores such as tracking leads and prospects, correspondence and follow-ups, scheduling, weekly reporting, etc. take precious time away from other aspects of your business. Even more importantly, to be competitive, you need to spend your time talking to the right people. These are people who are most likely buy your product or service. The right contact management software will allow you to make more efficient use of your time by helping to target the most likely prospects from among the hundreds of leads you have. And, it will help with some of those tedious tasks as well. Surefire Contacts and Automation Surefire Contacts provides contact (i.e. People) and time (i.e. Your Time) management tools to address the strongest points for automation. Using the Surefire word processor, you can write a proposal (on the spot if you have a laptop). You can also generate those reports that allow you or your manager to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and to plan new strategies. And, you can keep your prospects, customers, and associates informed by sending timely product announcements and friendly follow-up letters. For general business management, Surefire Contacts offers documents for Profit and Loss and Cash Flow calculations and travel expense reporting. The best part of Surefire Contacts, is that general word processing, database management and spreadsheet features are available too. We wouldn't want you to change your methods to fit our idea of your business. Surefire Contacts can operate the way you do. What's more, this can be done a little at a time, as you become more comfortable with the easy concepts that make up Surefire Contacts. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 4 Surefire Contacts Overview Many features of Surefire Contacts revolve around the Profile. This is where the general information about leads, prospects, clients and associates are kept. You can note additional data in a freeform manner and keep a dated record of specific activities such as phone calls and visits. Letters and mailing labels can be generated for a specific profile or set of profile records. There are also features that are independent of the Profile. You can track and analyze travel and business expenses. In addition, the Off Hours Menu allows handy searches of Hotel, Dining and other databases that you might use while planning a business or pleasure trip. When you use Surefire Contacts, information is available at a glance, important follow-ups are not lost in the shuffle and you spend less time rummaging through poorly organized card files for key information on your clients. The following example shows how Surefire Contacts can fit into a typical selling day. Time Task Surefire Contacts 8:45 Check agenda for the day. Agenda Add dentist appointment for next week. Schedule 9:30 Review detailed info about 10 am client. Profile 10:00 Phone J. Jones. Enter new personal data Notes about J. Jones. Log the phone call and Activities schedule an on-site meeting at Jones Enterprises. 10:30 Review detailed info about R. Smith who Profile you will be seeing at 11:00. 11:00 Visit R. Smith. Demonstrate the new product line and prepare a written proposal Word Processor on-site. Log that demo and proposal given. Activity 12:30 Lunch Dining Guide 2:15 Write follow-up letters to clients. Correspondence 3:15 Review detailed notes for 3:30 call. Profile 3:30 Phone P. Gould. Enter background info on Notes Allied Pasteboard. Log the phone call; Activities automatic follow-up call scheduled: 2 weeks. 4:00 Prepare Travel Expenses for Boston trip. Travel Expense 4:30 Prepare and print Weekly Call Report. Reports 4:45 Meet with your sales manager. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 5 Chapter 2 - Getting Around ************************************************************************ NOTE: To use Surefire Contacts you must already have installed Surefire - The Smart Document processor. ************************************************************************ Getting Started Create a CONTACTS directory below your SUREFIRE directory. Unpack the file contacts.zip into this new directory and installation is complete. You must change directory (cd) to the CONTACTS directory before running Surefire Contacts. If the Surefire directory is in your PATH, you can run Surefire Contacts by typing at the DOS prompt: surefire contacts If the Surefire directory is not in your PATH, you run Surefire Contacts by typing at the DOS prompt: ..\surefire contacts Surefire Contacts Main Menu The first screen that you see when you enter Surefire Contacts is the Surefire Contacts Main menu. From here you may access all the features of Surefire Contacts. The following list summarizes the buttons that you can choose from the Main Menu. Profiles will display data screens that allow you to manage your Contact information. From here you can log activities, plan follow- ups and generate specific correspondence. Agenda will show your schedule for today as well as unfinished business from prior days. Use this to schedule appointments as well. Reports will generate reports such as Call reports, Win/Loss reports and Follow-up and Account Lists. Correspondence will enable you to send Letters, Memos or generate Mailing Labels. Accounting is used to track your Travel Expenses and generate company Financial Statements. Off-Hours will allow you to see and maintain Restaurant, Hotel and Entertainment information. You can also look up quotes and sayings in Wise Words. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 6 Starting from the Main Menu, you will quickly be able to use the many features of Surefire Contacts. In the remaining part of this chapter, we introduce those tasks that you will need to do most often. You will be able to use Surefire Contacts effectively, right away. Surefire Contacts Screens Surefire Contacts is made up of Smart Documents that fulfil specific needs. These Smart Documents are displayed as screens on your computer. The screens display existing information, allow you to enter new information, or allow you to get to other screens. For example, the first screen you see is the Surefire Contacts Main menu. Other screens include: the Profile Data screen, the Activities screens, and the Surefire Agenda. Buttons are used to move from one screen to another. Using Buttons Buttons are those highlighted words that are used to go to other screens or sometimes to perform specific actions. On screens like the Surefire Contacts main menu, buttons are placed vertically in the center of the screen. Profiles is an example of a button. When "pressed" the Profile Data screen is presented. On other screens, buttons are located along the top of the screen. For example, on the Profile Data screen, Notes and Activities are both buttons. You can move between buttons by using the (Home/End( keys or the arrow keys. Pressing the (Enter) key will activate the button on which the cursor is positioned. For example: 1) Press (End) 2 times to put the cursor on Correspondence 2) Press (Enter) now to "press" the Correspondence button. This will display a different menu showing various types of correspondence. 3) Press (Esc) to return to the Surefire Contacts Main Menu. The (Esc) key will always display the previous screen except when pressed at the Surefire Contacts Main menu. Here, it will do nothing and will not exit to DOS. To exit you must press the ALT key and X at the same time. This is often shown using the notation (ALT + X). Fields Fields are generally those areas of a screen that are underlined (on monochrome monitors) or a green color (on color monitors). Fields allow you to type in text, numbers or dates. Most fields are preceded by a field label. The label is short informative text followed by a colon (:). For example "Title:" indicates that there is a field just to the right which contains a title. The same fields may also be used to display information returned from a database As with buttons, you move from field to field by using (Home) and (End) or the arrow keys. After you type a value into a field, use (Enter) to display that value in the particular format associated with the field. For example, A numeric field with a format of "currency" Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 7 might look like $1,892.91, whereas a date field's format might cause the date to appear as 15-jan-90. When you move among buttons and fields with the (End) key, you follow the same pattern that your eyes follow when reading: from left to right and then down to the left side of the next line. Surefire will look for the next button or field in this way, skipping text on the screen until it finds a button or field. The cursor will be positioned at this location. (Home) will do the same in reverse, backing to the left and up until the cursor returns to the first button or field. The arrow keys, on the other hand, will only move you to a button or field that is directly up, down, left or right from where you are, depending upon the pictured arrow. When using the left or right arrow keys on a text or numeric field, you must be at the left-most or right-most character of the field to move to another field. When the cursor is at a field or button, that field or button will be highlighted as the current field. On a color monitor, the current field is shown in black. On a monochrome monitor it will be displayed in inverse video. System Windows and the Menubar For the most part, the screens of Surefire Contacts are used to accept and display sales and business related information. From time to time a system window will be displayed on top of the current screen. A system window is a rectangular area with a border around it that has text and fields which request or display information. For example, you would use the Print window to print your letter, the Format window to change page margins, and the Info window to show the current time. System windows are displayed when you choose operations from any of the seven pulldown menus on the Menubar at the very top of your screen. You press F10 followed by the arrow keys to explore these menus. By pressing (Esc), the cursor will return to your current screen. As you read this Guide, many of these pulldown menu operations and system windows will be discussed along with using a particular feature of Surefire Contacts. These menus and all system windows are explained in detail in the Surefire User's Guide. Useful Keys The chart on the next page is a summary of the keys that you will most often use to get around within Surefire Contacts. All of these keys have already been introduced except the Help keys, F1 and F2. These keys, when pressed, will open a window that tells you more about the screen or system window that you are currently looking at. You can see more help by repeatedly pressing the down arrow key or (Page Down). You can go back up in the Help window by using the up arrow key or (Page Up). Type (Esc) to put you back to where Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 8 you were before the Help window was opened. The chart explains the difference between these keys. ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │Key Function Description │ │ │ │F2 Help Press anytime to see specific │ │ information about the current screen. │ │ │ │F1 Help Press when a pulldown menu or System │ │ Window is open to see information │ │ about the features of that menu or │ │ window. Otherwise, you will see a │ │ summary of general Surefire and word- │ │ processing features. │ │ │ │F10 Menus Press to access the Menubar. Once here│ │ use the arrow keys to select and open │ │ the pulldown menus. │ │ │ │Shift + F10 Hints Press to see the Surefire keystroke │ │ Hint line at the bottom of the screen.│ │ Press again to remove the hint line. │ │ │ │Esc Return Return to the previous screen. │ │ │ │Enter Enter Activate a button, or enter a field │ │ value. │ │ │ │End Cursor Move the cursor to the next field or │ │ button. │ │ │ │Home Cursor Move the cursor to the previous field │ │ or button. │ │ │ │ALT + X Exit Exit from Surefire Contacts to DOS. │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Useful Keys Generally, words in this Guide that are in parentheses indicate the actual keyboard keys that are pressed. For example (Enter) and (End) indicate the Enter and End keys on your keyboard, respectively. Two words or characters separated by a plus sign (+) indicate that the two keyboard keys are to be held down at the same time. For example, (ALT + F) means to press the ALT key and then the letter "F" without removing your finger from ALT. Likewise, (Ctrl + K) indicates that you press the Ctrl key and the letter "K" at the same time. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 9 Using the Zoom Key In general, many text fields allow you to "Zoom" for a pop-list of words or phrases that are available for the field. Using this feature can avoid unnecessary typing and insures that phrasing and spelling is consistent for all related records. When the cursor is on one of the fields, a 'P' will appear at the right of the status line. Surefire Contacts has already provided many such fields. You can always add other selections that are specific to your needs. To use the Zoom feature: 1) Press (ALT + Z) while the cursor is on a field to see the pop- list of possible values for the field. 2) Use the up and down arrows to position the cursor on the desired choice. 3) Press (Enter) to put the chosen text into the field and close the pop-list. For example, one such field is the Title field on the Profile Data screen. Pressing (ALT + Z), will display such choices as "Manager", "President", "Technician", etc. You may, of course, simply type text directly into the field; perhaps "Chief Cook". You can change or add additional choices to any pop-list. These choices will then always be available for that field. To add a choice, follow these steps: 1) Press (CTRL + Z) on the field to see existing choices. 2) Use the up and down arrows to position the cursor on a blank line. 3) Type the new text on that line. 4) Press (Esc) to close the pop-list. If you do change a pop-list, you must save the current document screen so that Surefire remembers your changes for the next time that screen is displayed. If you don't, Surefire will remind you that there are unsaved changes before exiting or letting you read another document. This will give you a chance to save your changes before they are lost. You may make as many changes as needed before saving your screen. To save your document, follow these steps: 1) Press (ALT + F) to open the File menu. 2) Press S to open the Save File window. The current screen is part of the document shown after the label Name: 3) Press (End) to move the cursor to the OK button. 4) Press (Enter). The document will be updated to reflect the changes you made to the pop-list. Throughout this Guide, fields that have pop-lists available have an asterisk (*) preceding the field label. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 10 Accessing Data Suppose you had a stack of forms or index cards with client and prospect data on them. Each card would have the name of a different contact along with information about that contact. This would include his company, address, phone number, the type of business he is in, etc. A database, in its simplest form, is the storage of information on an index card by index card or record by record organization. Unlike its paper counterpart, the computer stored record allows you to use the full power of data processing. You may sort or group clients by city or zipcode, automatically merging his address into a standard follow-up letter. You may produce a paper listing or report of all contacts within a particular territory. You may even prioritize those contacts most likely to buy your products or services. Now, use the computer to display the contact records so you have their phone numbers at a glance. Many screens in Surefire Contacts are designed to accept and display data stored in a database. For example, the Profile Data Screen shows data about the people and companies with which you deal. At any one time you will see data about a specific profile. But, you can easily access the data for all other profiles. You do not need to worry about what a database looks like or how to create one. Surefire Contacts will take care of this for you. However, you do need to tell Surefire when to save or change data. And, since there are many ways to select and sort your data, you need to know how to tell Surefire the set of data in which you are interested. This table introduces some of the most often used database commands and the keys that invoke them. ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │Key Function Description │ │ │ │F8 Next Display the next record of the set. │ │ │ │F7 Previous Display the previous record of the set│ │ │ │ALT + A Add Add a new record to the current │ │ database which will contain the │ │ current values of the screen fields. │ │ │ │ALT + U Update Update the currently displayed record │ │ to have the current values of the │ │ screen fields. │ │ │ │ALT + S Search Start a database search. By default, │ │ if no query is defined, the search │ │ uses the value of the current numeric,│ │ date or text field to limit which │ │ records will be displayed. Press F8 to│ │ each record that was found. │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 11 Using Other Surefire Features For more information about getting around and using other features of the Surefire system, refer to the Surefire User's Guide. Leaving Surefire Contacts To leave Surefire Contacts, first press (Esc) to close any windows that are displayed. Then press (ALT + X). If you have not saved your changes, you will be warned with a message window. You can disregard the warning and exit anyway or remain in Surefire Contacts to do the save. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 12 Chapter 3 - The Profile What is a Profile? You probably collect a lot of information during the course of doing business with various companies and people. The profile is where the most general information about these companies and people is kept. It is a permanent record used to refresh your memory about everything from company address to sales potential to the buyer's personal likes and dislikes. The companies and people remembered in your profile can be your leads, prospects, customers, associates, suppliers, etc. You can retrieve and view this information very quickly, in many ways. First you enter whatever information you feel is relevant to the account. Later you can use Profile Notes to list little comments such as your contact's best time of day to call, birth date, spouse's name, directions to the office or plant, and so on. These things will help you add a personal touch to your sales calls and correspondence. The Profile Data Screen The profile data are the specific pieces of information that make up the profile. You enter information into the data fields of the Profile Data screen for each company with which you deal. Later you can use this information to select specific contacts. The following sections describe the use of each field. Buttons found across the top of the Profile Data screen access specific profile related features such as Correspondence and Activities. The use of Notes is described later in this chapter while subsequent chapters are devoted to discussing the remaining buttons. Profile Data is separated into 2 parts. Fields in the first part are mainly for address and directory purposes and are described below. Acct # - The account number field should contain a unique account number (or letter-number combination) to identify the profile. This allows Surefire Contacts to link each profile to other databases of the system. You may assign an account number according to methods used by your company or you may indicate that Surefire Contacts generate a number for you by "pressing" the Acct # button (see below). An account number should only be assigned once. Thereafter, you may change all other profile data. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 13 Acct # - This button is just to the left of the account number field. Pressing it will create a number for the profile that is actually a date stamp. This means that the account number is composed from the current date and time. Not only will this number be unique, but it will also indicate the date that the account was "opened". Client - This field contains the name of the company that the profile is about. For example, if you deal with John Smith at ABC Pharmaceutical, you will enter ABC Pharmaceutical here. In some cases, depending on the type of clients you have, this may be a person's name. Addr - The street or mailing address of client. City - Fill in appropriately. State - Fill in appropriately. This field may also be used for Province and/or Country. Zip Code - Fill in appropriately. Contact - The name of the person with whom you primarily deal. *Title - The title of Contact. Phone - The phone number (plus extension) of Contact. Alt Ph - An alternate phone or FAX number used to reach Contact. Dear - How will you address this Contact in correspondence. For example, John Smith may be addressed as "John" or "Mr. Smith". The second part of the Profile Data screen describes how the profile information was obtained, ways to gauge the importance of the profile and information about a secondary contact. Depending on your business, this information may or may not be especially useful and should be considered optional. Many of the fields here have Zoom choices available. These are indicated by an asterisk (*). Refer to the section "Using the Zoom Key" in Chapter 2. *Type - Is this the profile of a lead, customer, etc? As the sales cycle progresses, you would change this value. *Business - The client's main business. *Source - How was this client found; Trade Show, Referral... *Ref'd by - Name of person who referred this client. *Prob - Likelihood or receptiveness to buy; Cool, Warm, etc. Terr # - Number corresponding to the profile's territory Potential - Estimated maximum sales potential in dollars. Assigned To - Your initials or agent #, etc. Tag - An additional yes/no field that you may update to help select specific contacts for mailings, follow-ups, etc. Press (Spacebar) to change the value from 'N' to 'Y'. Alt Contact - Name of an alternate contact. *Title - Title of alternate contact. Phone - Phone number of alternate contact. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 14 Adding a Profile Record After all information has been entered for a profile, you should add the profile record to the database. If this is your first profile record, Surefire Contacts will create a database automatically. 1) Type in or select values for all appropriate fields. 2) Press (ALT + A) to add the record to the profile data base. The cursor will be placed on the account number field, ready for you to enter data for another profile. 3) To add another record, repeat steps 1 and 2. You may optionally use (ALT + Y) to clear the values in all fields prior to entering the new profile data. Keeping Notes From time to time you might want to jot down additional freeform information about the current profile. In Surefire Contacts, these are called profile notes. Use notes to track personal information about contacts, additional financial information, directions to the place of business, etc. A note will be stored along with the date on which it was noted. Choose the Notes button to display the Profile Notes screen. On this screen, notes for the current profile are displayed in reverse chronological order (i.e. the most recent note is at the top.) All of the notes for a particular profile may not fit on the screen. The first 7 notes can be seen but there may actually be more notes. In order to look down past the first screen, follow these steps: 1) Press F3 to "free the cursor" This tells Surefire that you don't want to be restricted to movement via menus and fields. Instead, you want to move freely around the screen. 2) Press the down arrow until you start forcing the cursor to go "below" the screen. This will cause the remaining notes to "scroll up" into view. Pressing the up arrow will cause the notes screen to scroll in the opposite direction. If there are many notes, you may move around more quickly by using (Page Down) and (Page Up) to scroll up and down through entire screens of notes. 3) Go back to the beginning of the Profile Notes screen using either the up arrow key or (Page Up). 4) Press F3. This will put you back on the nearest button or field. 5) You may press (Esc) to return to the Profile Data screen. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 15 You may choose one of the following buttons at the top of this screen: Add Notes to write a new note for this profile. Edit Notes to change or delete an existing note. Adding a Note After you press the Add Notes button, the New Note screen is displayed. To add a note for the current profile, enter information in the Date and Note fields and press (ALT + A). Do not change the account number or client information. Press (Esc) to return to the Profile Notes screen. Editing a Note After you press the Edit Notes button, the Edit Notes screen is displayed. Use F8 and F7 to display each note corresponding to the current profile. When the note that you wish to change is displayed, you may enter new information in the Date and Note fields. Do not change the account number or client information. Then, press (ALT + U) to update the note record. In this way, you may update any note that corresponds to the current profile. Press (Esc) to return to the Profile Notes screen. Searching for Profile Records Once you have entered profile records, you probably want to locate certain records depending on what you need at the moment. You may want to review information for the contact who has just called on the phone, send introductory letters to "Hot" leads, or phone clients in a given city. To do any of these you need to let Surefire know what to look for in the profile database. When Surefire displays the contact(s) of interest, you can update information, send correspondence, log an activity that just occurred, etc. The following are only a few of the most common ways that you can tell Surefire what to search for. To show all profile records in alphabetical order of client: 1) Move the cursor to the client field. 2) Press (CTRL + K) to clear the value of this field. This will not affect the currently displayed record. 3) Press (ALT + S) to start a database search. When the search is complete, the first record will be displayed. 4) Press F8 to display each record in turn. 5) Press F7 to display the previous record. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 16 To find the profile of a specific contact: 1) Enter the company name in the Client field. 2) Press (ALT + S). The profile will be displayed, if found. To find all leads with a "Hot" sales probability: 1) Enter 'Hot' in the Prob field and press (ALT + S) to do the search. 3) Press F8 to display each profile record. Note: Before searching, if an 'S' is in the status line, press (ALT + K) to clear the previous search. To do more complex searches, please read the Database chapters in the Surefire User's Guide. Updating a Profile Record Very often, information about the people and companies you deal with changes. For example, your prospect may become a customer, the company may move to a new location, or your primary contact may no longer be a decision maker for obtaining your product or service. To locate and make the necessary changes to the profile records: 1) Search for the desired profile record(s) to be modified, by the methods discussed above. 2) Enter the correct data in the appropriate fields. 3) Press (ALT + U) to update the profile in the data base. Removing a Profile Record Sometimes you might want to "remove" a profile record. For example, this may happen if the client company is no longer in business, or if you have been assigned to a different territory, etc. You can mark such a record so that it will be bypassed when Surefire searches your profile database. If you accidently delete the wrong record, you can remove the mark and thus recall the record. 1) Search for the desired record(s) to be deleted using above methods. 2) Press (ALT + F5) to delete the currently displayed record. Other Profile Based Features In addition to keeping specific information about contacts as well as freeform notes about them, you may choose one of these buttons for other operations pertaining to the currently displayed profile. Activities to see the history of activities logged for the contact or to schedule a follow-up action. (see Chapter 4) Correspondence to send a letter to this contact. (see Chapter 5) Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 17 Chapter 4 - Tracking Activities What are Activities? Activities are events that occur in connection with a client profile record. These may include phone or in-person calls that are made or received, demonstrations that you give, or the fact that a sale was closed. Each activity that is logged will by tagged with the current date. All logged activities will show up in your Call/Activity Report for the appropriate dates. See Chapter 7: Surefire Contacts Reports for more information on viewing your information in a report format. In addition, when you log the activity, you have the option of specifying that a follow-up event occur. For example, say you have just given a demonstration to Jo Brown at ABC Engineering. In three days you might want to send here a follow-up letter to make sure that you and your product are still in here mind. You can have Surefire Contacts remind you to send that important letter. If you generate a Call Report later, there will be a record of your demonstration to Jo Brown. If you generate a Follow-up Report, listing all future client appointments, you will see the date on which to send Jo Brown that letter. The Logged Activities Screen When you choose Activities from the Profile Data Screen, the Logged Activities screen will be displayed. This screen shows a history of activities, most recent first, for the current profile. For each activity the following items are displayed: the date that an activity was logged, the type of activity (i.e. was it a phone call, visit, demonstration, etc.), and a brief command about the activity. If the list of activities fills the screen, there may be more activities. You may use (Page Down) to look at more activities on one or more additional screens. Each press of (Page Down) will show another screen. You may then press (Page Up) as many times as needed to go back to the 1st screen. This is the screen with the buttons across the top, labeled Logged Activities. Press F3 to put cursor back on buttons. You may choose one of these buttons at the top of this screen: New Activity to log a new activity or follow-up for this contact. The New Activity screen will be displayed. Edit Activities to change or delete an existing activity. The Edit Activities screen will be displayed. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 18 Activity Data Whether you will log a new activity or edit an existing activity, there are various pieces of information that you can enter. Both the New Activity and Edit Activities screens contain the same fields. Those with pop-lists are preceded by an "*". Each screen is divided into two regions. The fields of the top region relate to the current activity that is being logged. For example, if you are talking on the phone with someone in your profile, you would be logging the fact that you made or received a phone call. The following fields describe the current activity: Date - Date the activity was logged. Default is today *Activity Type - Meeting, Phone call, etc.. Duration - How much time did it take in hours? Comment - Remarks about this activity. The fields at the bottom relate to the scheduling of a related follow-up activity. For example, you agree to send some product pricing information to the person with whom you are speaking. You would enter the fact that you need to send this information as a follow-up activity. Fields for noting follow-up information: Schedule Follow-up Action? - Toggle to Yes or No. A scheduled follow-up action will be seen in the agenda for that day. Date - Date to follow-up. Default is 2 weeks from the date of the logged activity. Time - Time to follow-up as hours:minutes. (ex. 10:15 am, 2:30 pm) *Action Type - An activity which will happen in the future. Phone, Send Letter, Make a Survey, etc.. Priority - 1 - 9 where 1 is highest priority. Comment - Remarks about the follow-up. You may choose the Agenda button at the top of either screen to see if there are conflicts with a desired follow-up date. Logging a New Activity To log a new activity, you must first choose Activities from Profile Data screen and then choose New Activity. When the New Activity screen is displayed, you may enter information about the activity in the fields provided. 1) Move the cursor between the various fields by pressing the (End) or (Home) keys. 2) Type in or choose the appropriate information for the current activity and any scheduled follow-up action 3) Press (ALT + A) to add the activity record. 4) Press (Esc) to return to the Logged Activities screen. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 19 Editing an Existing Activity To edit one or more logged activities for the current profile, you must first choose Activities from Profile Data screen and then choose Edit Activities. When the Edit Activities screen is displayed, you may change any information about the activity or its follow-up in the fields provided. 1) Press F8/F7 to see the information about each activity until a record that you want to modify is displayed. 2) Move the cursor between the various fields by pressing the (End) or (Home) keys. 3) Type in or choose the appropriate changes for the displayed activity or follow-up action. 4a) Press (ALT + U) to Update the activity record. 4b) (ALT + F5) to Delete the activity record. 5) You may repeat steps 1 through 4 as desired. 6) Press (Esc) to return to the Logged Activities screen. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 20 Chapter 5 - Keeping In Touch Why Keep in Touch? Every business person knows how important it is to keep in touch with his or her clients. First, it lets the client know that you care about him. Secondly, it keeps your name or the name of your business in the client's mind. Because of this, that client will most likely choose you over your competitor when the time comes to re-stock an item or purchase a new product. In addition, you can use correspondence to "touch" contacts who may not be familiar your company or product lines. This can have the advantage of helping you to begin a long working friendship with a new client. Surefire Contacts helps you to write timely, appropriate, correspondence quickly and painlessly. Addressing information from your Profile is merged automatically into a variety of correspondence formats and mailing labels. The Correspondence Menu The Surefire Correspondence menu can be accessed from the Surefire Contacts Main Menu or from the Profile Data screen. This menu contains choices for various letters, a memorandum, standard mailing labels and envelopes. You may add additional choices. The letters will contain text that is appropriate to your business and to the specific menu choice. Once this text is there, you can use the same letter over and over again, each time "sending" it to a different contact. You can make minor changes for certain contacts as needed and print the letter without changing your standard words. The memorandum is formatted for standard inter-office memos and is not associated with your client database. The mailing label format supports standard 3 1/2" by 1" tractor fed labels. When you first display the Correspondence menu of Surefire Contacts you will see the following buttons: New Letter - use to write a letter. Introductory Letter - use to introduce yourself to prospects. Follow-up Letter - use to follow-up a conversation or meeting. Thank-you Letter - use to thank valued customers. Past-due Letter - use to remind customers of overdue payments. Internal Memo - use to write a memo. Mailing Labels - use to compose standard 3-1/2" x 1" labels Envelopes - Link to your standard 9" x 4" #10 business envelopes document. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 21 First Time Setup Before you use any of the letters or memos provided on the Correspondence menu, you will want to personalize them with your company name, appropriate body text, and perhaps different margins. To achieve this personalization, you should access this menu from the Surefire Contacts Main menu. You will most likely be changing the text in the body of each letter as well as providing for an appropriate letterhead. New Letter, however is a choice to be used for creating ad-hoc letters as you need them. For New Letter, you will only need to provide an appropriate letterhead. Choose each letter in turn and follow these steps: 1) Press (ALT + O) to open the Operate menu, 2) Choose Document to allow you to edit the letter. 3) Edit the letterhead area. Type your company name and address in the area designated by <..>. You may clear this area if you will be printing on letterhead stationery. 4) Type appropriate text for the body of the letter. 5) If you wish to change the margins: Press (ALT + P) to open the Page menu Choose Format... to open the Format window. Change the values in the 4 margin fields Choose OK to set the new margins. 6) Open the File menu by pressing (ALT + F) 7) Open the Save File window by choosing Save... 8) Choose OK to save the letter. 9) Press (Esc) to return to the Correspondence Menu. 10) Choose another letter and repeat step 1. Access Considerations When Correspondence is accessed from the Profile Data screen, any item you select will automatically fill in data from the current profile. This is useful for sending letters to a specific client. When Correspondence is accessed from the Surefire Contacts Main menu, no information will be pre-filled. This is useful for setting up a database query to send letters or generate mailing labels for many clients at one time. See the discussion of Mail Merge, below, for more information. Printing Correspondence Provided that you have installed your printer according to instructions in the Surefire User's Guide and have chosen an appropriate font, you are ready to print one or more letters. Whether you will be printing one letter at a time or performing a Mail Merge operation, you must first display the desired letter. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 22 Printing a Single Letter To print a letter follow these steps: 1) Press (ALT + O) to open the Operate menu, 2) Choose Text. This will remove field attributes. 3) Press (ALT + F) to open the File menu, 4) Choose Print... to open the Print window, 5) Choose PRINT. Mail Merge To initiate a mail-merge, you should choose Correspondence from the Surefire Contacts Main menu. After choosing the desired item from this menu, you must indicate the persons or companies from the Profile with which you wish to correspond. You do this by building a query or selecting a named query. A query allows such things as selecting all records in a given zipcode or city; clients with expected sales potential in some dollar range who are also Warm prospects, etc. Building a Query 1) Position the cursor on any name or address field 2) Press (ALT + D) to open the Data menu. 3) Choose Build Query... to open the query window. Building queries may become quite complex. The on-line help, accessed via F1, will provide information on specifying the most common types of queries. Please refer to the Database chapters of the Surefire User's Guide for a complete explanation of this topic. Once a query is built or a named query has been selected, you may perform a merge operation to generate and print all letters, envelopes or mailing labels. 1) Press (ALT + F) to open the File menu, 2) Choose Print... to open the Print window. 3) Press SEARCH & PRINT. Autosizing Fields Often, fields are created to be large enough to hold the largest data value. For example, the address field can hold 2 lines of data though only one is usually needed. Also, the client field can contain up to 35 characters of text but most company names are much shorter. Undesirable extra spaces can show up in the salutation or the body of a letter that has fields associated with a database. To remove these extra spaces or blank lines from fields prior to printing follow the steps on the next page. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 23 1) Press (ALT + O) to open the Operate menu, 2) Choose Text. Now, print the letter or mailing label. 1) Press (ALT + F) to open the File menu, 2) Choose Print... to open the Print window. 3) Press PRINT. Customizing the Correspondence Menu In this section you will learn how to add your own letters to the Correspondence menu. Three sets of step-by-steps will walk you through the following tasks: creating a new standard letter, adding a button for the new letter, and setting the button's command to display the new letter when the button is chosen. Each of the operations discussed in the following steps are fully explained in the Surefire User's Guide. You may want to become familiar with the basics of word processing in Surefire before starting this procedure. Creating a New Letter To create a new standard letter: 1) Choose New Letter. 2) Press (ALT + O) to open the Operate menu, 3) Choose Document to allow you to edit the letter. 4) Press F3 to free up the cursor from fields 5) Type the desired text into the body of the letter 6) Save the document with a new name. Open the File menu by pressing (ALT + F) Open the Save File window by choosing Save... Type in the new name. Choose OK to save the letter. 7) Press (Esc) to return to Correspondence. Accessing a Letter Directly If the new letter will not be used very often, you may access the letter directly as needed. However, if this letter will be used fairly often, use the procedure at the top of the next page. When you access the letter directly, you must do a database search to fill the fields with the contact information from the Profile. Alternatively, you can always use the letter as a fill-in-the-blank form by typing in a name and address directly into the letter fields. To access the new letter directly: 1) Press (ALT + F) to open the File menu 2) Choose Get... to open the Get File window 3) Type in the name of the letter 4) Choose OK to read the letter Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 24 Adding a Letter to the Correspondence Menu To add a button that will allow you to choose the new letter from the Correspondence menu, you must edit the Correspondence document. While word processing operations are fairly simple, this type of customization requires the creation of a button and the entry of a button command. It is very important that you understand the basics of Surefire field and field command concepts before starting. You will need to know how to create the button and how to copy and paste a field command. Please read the sections of the Surefire User's Guide that correspond to field creation and field command editing. You can also get context help at any time by pressing F1. The steps that follow will give you a general approach but can not convey all the details. The steps preceded by an asterisk (*) indicate operations to which you should pay special attention. 1) Display the Correspondence menu. 2) Press (ALT + O) to open the Operate menu, 3) Choose Document to allow you to edit the menu. 4) Press F3 to free the cursor from the buttons 5) Position the cursor for the new button * 6) Create the new button. Press (ALT + I) to open the Field menu. Choose Create... to open the Field Create Window. Set the type to Button, enter the label you want and press OK. Press F1 for help on field creation. Once the button is there, you should copy the field command from the New Letter button. To do this: 1) Press (ALT + I) to open the Field menu. 2) Choose Commands... to open the Command window. Press F1 for help on copying and editing field commands. * 3) Copy the field command to the new button, * 4) Change the name in the @GODOC command to that of the new letter. 5) Press (Esc) to close the Command window. 6) Save the Correspondence document. Open the Save File window by pressing (ALT + F) (S). Choose OK to save. Your letter is now accessible from the Correspondence menu. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 25 Chapter 6 - Scheduling In Surefire Contacts Importance of a Schedule We all know that planning and scheduling is important. You probably know how invaluable your little black book day-timer is. Surefire Contacts provides an agenda and scheduling facility that will keep you on top of your appointments. Appointments may either be ones scheduled automatically as follow-ups to profile activities or you may schedule business or personal appointments as needed. The Agenda To display today's Agenda, choose Agenda from the Surefire Contacts main menu. You may also view the agenda for a possible follow-up date by choosing Agenda from the New Activity or Edit Activities screens. When you choose Agenda from any location, the Agenda screen will be displayed. You may use this screen for reviewing currently scheduled daily activities. These may be initial or follow-up appointments with clients, or other things such as staff meetings, a dentist appointment, car registration, etc. You will see appointments that have been scheduled through the Schedule Entry screen (see below) and through Activity screens. These screens are accessible respectively from the Surefire Agenda screen and from the Profile (discussed in the previous chapter). The following specific information is displayed on the Agenda in a report format. Date:, Time: The date and time of the appointment. Priority: The priority of the appointment. Client (Subject) The appointment concerns this contact profile or subject. A subject will be displayed if the appt. is unrelated to a contact or is personal. Type: The type of appointment; Meeting, Call, etc. Comment: Additional information about the appointment. You move from field to field in the Agenda by using the (Home) or (End) keys or the arrow keys. Specifying the Date Normally, when the Agenda is displayed, it shows the scheduled appointments for an already specified date. For example, when you choose Agenda from the Surefire Contacts Main menu, the agenda is usually shown for the current date ("today"). In this case, the Agenda will also show activities that were scheduled for a prior date that you have not yet logged as Completed or Canceled. Alternatively, when you choose Agenda from an Activity screen, the agenda will be shown for the related follow-up date of the Activity. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 26 Once the Agenda screen has been displayed with information for some known date (like today), you may wish to look at the agenda for some arbitrary date, Mar 4, Oct 21, etc. To specify this, type in the date in the date field. When you move the cursor off this field (with Home or End), the correct day of the week will then be displayed just to the left. For example, you have already displayed today's agenda by choosing Agenda from the Surefire Contacts main menu. Say you want to see what's scheduled for May 10: 1) Press (End) 5 times to place the cursor on the date field. 2) Type in the date. Type in F (to get February), Press right arrow (to get to day) Type in 10 Surefire will make sure that the date is valid. 3) Press (Home) 2 times to place the cursor on the Full Day button. 4) Press (Enter). The Full Day button will display the entire agenda for the currently displayed date. Other buttons on the Agenda screen allow you to call up the agendas for various dates without typing in an exact date. These are: Next Day to look at the day after the agenda date. Prev Day to look at the day before the agenda date. Next Week to look at the day one week after the agenda date. Prev Week to look at the day one week before the agenda date. This Week to look at the agenda for the seven day period starting at the displayed date. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 27 Showing the Profile for an Appointment You have immediate access to the profile information corresponding to any scheduled follow-up appointment. This means that you first see at a glance everyone you will be dealing with on a given day. Then, you can review each individual appointment displayed one at a time. At the press of a button you can get the full set of profile data including the contact's full name, phone number, purchase likelihood, etc. To access a profile corresponding to a scheduled appointment: 1) Choose Select. This allows you to browse through all appointment entries for this agenda date. 2) Use F8 (and F7) to display each appointment, one-at-a-time. Stop at the entry that interests you. 3) Choose Profile to view the profile associated with the chosen entry. All profile related features are available. 4) Press (Esc), from the Profile Data screen, to return to Agenda. The Schedule Entry Screen The Schedule Entry screen is the place where you can add a new appointment, edit an existing activity/appointment or log a scheduled activity/appointment as Completed or Canceled. An already scheduled activity will usually be a follow-up activity that you scheduled for a specific contact. To display this screen, choose Schedule/Edit Activity from the Agenda screen. When you choose this button, the Schedule Entry screen will display the appointments, if any that are scheduled for the current Agenda date. If there is nothing scheduled on that date, the fields other than the date will be empty. You may press (Esc) to return to the Agenda screen. The Schedule Entry screen has the following fields: Date: Date of the appointment. Day: Day of the week (filled in automatically) Scheduled? Will this appointment appear in the agenda? Should be 'Y'; Use 'N' for long-term goals. Time: Time of the appointment. The format for this field is hh:mm (am/pm) *Activity Type: Type of appointment: Meeting, Phone Call, etc. Priority: 1 - 9 where 1 is highest priority. Subject: What or who is this appointment about. Comment: More information about the appointment. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 28 Scheduling an Appointment Sometimes you may want to schedule something that is unrelated to a profile record, such as a staff meeting or doctor's visit. To do this follow these steps. 1) Enter the desired date in the date field of the Agenda. 2) Choose Schedule/Edit Activity from the Agenda screen. If the fields are empty, you are ready to enter information for the new appointment. Press (End) or (Home) to move between the fields and enter the new information. Skip to step 4. 3) If there is already something scheduled on that date, you will see the first scheduled appointment. Press F8 to see any other appointments/activities that have already been scheduled. If you can pick a non-conflicting time, change the field values appropriately for a new appointment. 4) Press (ALT + A) to schedule the new appointment. Editing an Existing Activity/Appointment If you need to make a change to some information about an already scheduled activity or appointment such as rescheduling the time or date, or adding a comment, follow these steps: 1) Enter the desired date in the date field of the Agenda if it is not already displayed. 2) Choose Schedule/Edit Activity from the Agenda screen. 3) Press F8 (and F7) to view each entry for that date and stop at the one that needs to be changed. 4) Enter the new information in the appropriate fields. 5) Press (ALT + U) to update the activity record. Logging a Scheduled Activity/Appointment Until you log the fact that a scheduled activity has actually taken place or has been canceled, Surefire assumes that the task still needs to be done. Once you choose Completed or Canceled from the Schedule Entry screen, the activity record will be updated. You will automatically have the chance to schedule a new activity via the New Activity screen. A completed activity will no longer be displayed in the Agenda but will be shown in the Call/Activity Report encompassing the date of the activity. If this activity is logged for a specific contact profile, it will now also be displayed in the Logged Activities screen for that profile. A canceled activity will not show up in the Agenda or in a standard report. You may search for canceled activities by using the Schedule Entry screen to search for an activity/appointment with a Status of "Canceled". Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 29 To log a scheduled activity/appointment as Completed or Canceled, follow these steps: 1) Enter the desired date in the date field of the Agenda if it is not already displayed. 2) Choose Schedule/Edit Activity from the Agenda screen. 3) Press F8 (and F7) to view each entry for that date and stop at the one that needs to be logged. 4) Choose Completed or Canceled for the displayed activity. 5) You may log a new activity and/or follow-up using the New Activity screen. 6) Press (Esc) to return to the Schedule Entry screen. Logging an Unscheduled Appointment If you want to log the fact that some unscheduled appointment or activity has taken place, choose the Log Activity button on the Agenda screen. The New Activity screen will be displayed. Log the appointment or activity as you would log one that relates to a Profile. See Chapter 4: Tracking Activities for more information on using the New Activity screen. Using the Agenda for Long-term Goals To use the Agenda to note your long-term goals, you will schedule an "appointment" as described earlier. This time, however, leave the date and time fields of the Schedule Entry screen blank and set the value of the Scheduled? field to 'N'. Later, you can generate a follow- up report looking for all non scheduled activities. This will be a reminder of your long-term goals. See Chapter 7: Surefire Contacts Reports for a complete discussion of generating a follow-up report. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 30 Chapter 7 - Surefire Contacts Reports The reporting features of Surefire Contacts enable you to analyze the data that you have stored in the various databases of Surefire Contacts. You can also use reporting to list information in different ways. For example, you may just want an alphabetized list of all your prospects or you may want a list of all accounts that are scheduled for some follow-up activity. Standard Reports You access the Surefire Contacts Reports menu by choosing Reports from the Surefire Contacts Main menu. Use this screen to access the reports that present or analyze your data. Each report that is supplied with Surefire Contacts will be described later in this chapter. Choose one of the following to see the reports: Account List (no address) to see an alphabetized listing of all of your contacts without their addresses. Account List with address to see an alphabetized listing of all of your contacts with their addresses. Activity/Call History to see a report of all activities noted for your contacts for four weeks prior to the current date. Follow-up List to see the follow-up dates for all contacts that have outstanding scheduled follow-up appointments. Won/Lost Report to see a report of closed versus unclosed sales. After generating a report as described in the following sections, use the Reset choice on the File menu to start over with empty report fields. For example, if you choose Reset after generating an Account List report, you may then move the cursor to the Client or Contact fields and initiate a search by pressing (ALT + S). This will produce your report alphabetized by Client or Contact name respectively. When looking at any of the reports that are longer than one screen, use (Page Down) to look at more of the report and (Ctrl + Page Up) to go back to the first screen. When you return to the first screen, Press F3 to put the cursor back on one of the buttons. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 31 Account List (no address) This account listing displays basic information from your Profile database. Each entry in this report helps you to quickly identify a particular contact. For each contact it shows from left to right, the name of the client, the name of your primary contact, and below, the type of business and the phone number of your contact. This can be used a your personal phone-book. When you choose this report, you will see empty fields in a report format. There are two buttons available that will generate different reports and two buttons that allow you to quickly access the full profile for a listing. Choose Business to see your profile accounts listed alphabetically by the type of business. For example, clients dealing in Farm Equipment will be listed before those involved in Hardware, and Hardware clients will be listed before Metallurgical manufacturers. Within a business segment, the client names will be alphabetized. Choose Alphabetically to produce an alphabetized list of your contacts (by company name). Choose Select Client to look at a single list item. Press F8 to see each item, then choose Profile to see the full profile for that contact. Choose Profile after Select Client to see full profile for contact. Account List with address This account listing displays more complete information from your Profile database. Each entry in this report shows the full address for a particular contact. You will see the name and address of the client, the name of your primary contact and the phone number of your contact. When you choose this report, you will see empty fields in a report format. There are two buttons available that will generate different reports and two buttons that allow you to quickly access the full profile for a listing. Choose Alphabetically to produce an alphabetized list of your contacts (by company name). Choose State to produce a contact list sorted by state. Choose Select Client to look at a single list item. Press F8 to see each item, then choose Profile to see the full profile for that contact. Choose Profile after Select Client to see full profile for contact. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 32 Activity/Call History The Activity/Call History report presents a list of dated calls or activities that you have logged. For each logged activity, you will see the date the activity was logged, the name of the associated client from the profile, a comment about the activity and the type of the activity. The activities listed in this report are shown in chronological order. When you choose this report, you will see empty fields in a report format. There is one button available that will generate a different report and two buttons that allow you to quickly access the full profile for a listing. Choose New Report to see a new report based on the current beginning and ending dates shown near the top of the report. Move to and change the beginning and ending dates before choosing this button. Choose Select Client to look at a single list item. Press F8 to see each item, then choose Profile to see the full profile for that contact. Choose Profile after Select Client to see full profile for contact. Follow-up List The Follow-up List displays a report of the activities that you have scheduled in the future which pertain to profile records. These are activities that you have not logged as Completed or Canceled. This report will not show appointments that you have scheduled through the Agenda that do not relate to a particular contact profile. For each activity, the date of the planned activity, the client's name, the priority that you have assigned to this activity and the type of activity are shown one per line. This listing is in chronological order and shows all follow-up activities from "today" onward. If more than one activity is scheduled for the same day, the one with the highest priority is displayed first. A priority of 1 has highest importance and 9 has the lowest importance. You may choose Select Client to display each scheduled follow-up record one-at-a-time. Then choose Profile to see the full profile for a particular entry. To return from the Profile Data screen, press (Esc). Finally you can choose List to once more view your Follow-up list in a report format. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 33 Won/Lost Report The Won/Lost Report will tell you about how many potential prospects you have "closed" and how many have either gone with a competitor or have not closed for some other reason. This report lists the name of the client and whether they have closed, gone to a competitor or simply not closed. These entries are dated by the date when you noted the closure or non-closure of a sale. To tell Surefire Contacts that a client has closed, purchased from a competitor or not-closed, you may log this specific type of activity when one of these three occurrences has happened. To do so, choose Activity from the Profile Data screen. Follow the steps laid out in the section Logging a New Activity in Chapter 4: Tracking Activities. Be sure to select "Closed", "Competitor" or "No Close" as the type of activity. Those clients who have closed are listed first, those going with a competitor are listed second and not closing for another reason are listed last. For each group of these clients, the report will show a count and a percentage of the number in the group out of the number in all three groups. For example, say you have taken 10 prospects through the sales cycle to the point of closing. Out of these, you were able to close 6 sales, one client went to a competitor and 3 clients did not close. The report will first show the 6 that closed and give a percentage of 6 out of 10 or 60%. Then, the report will show the one who purchased from a competitor and give a percentage of 10%. Lastly, the report will display the 3 clients that did not close and show this as 30%. As with the Follow-Up List above, you may choose Select Client to display each won/lost record one-at-a-time. Once you find a record of interest by repeatedly pressing F8, choose Profile to display the full Profile record for that contact. After pressing (Esc) to return to the report, you can choose List to once more view your Won/Lost data in a report format. Printing a Report Once a report has been generated, you may print it. This may be to keep a printed record of certain data on a periodic basis or to have a hard-copy available for your manager. 1) If desired, edit the text of the report. This may be to add some type of annotation. Press (ALT + O) and choose Text to allow edits and to remove the field attributes. 2) Press (ALT + F) to open the File menu, 3) Choose Print... to open the Print window. 4) With the cursor on PRINT, press (Enter). Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 34 Adding Your Own Reports You can create your own reports that reflect any of the data stored in a Surefire Contacts database. The major databases are for the profile, profile activities, and unrelated activities. Once you know the desired information, and how to reference it, a report is fairly simple to design. First, you must fully understand the database and reporting concepts of Surefire, paying special attention to projections and report formatting. Please read the chapters of the Surefire User's Guide relating to Databases and Reporting. Once you have created your new report, you may add a button that will allow you to choose your own report. To add this button to the Surefire Contacts Reports menu, you must edit the "reports" document. This type of customization requires the creation of a button and the entry of a button command. It is very important that you understand the basics of Surefire field and field command concepts before starting. Please read the chapters of the Surefire User's Guide that correspond to Field creation and Field Command editing. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 35 Chapter 8 - Surefire Accounting Accounting in Surefire Contacts The Surefire Accounting screen is displayed when you choose Accounting from the Surefire Contacts main menu. This screen leads to spreadsheet-like forms and documents that allow you to manage the financial state of your business. Additional menu items may be added to a track or calculate information specific to your business or accounting needs such as training expenses, etc. From this screen, you may choose one of the following: Travel Expenses to calculate current and to review past expenses. Financial Statements to generate Profit & Loss and Cash Flow statements. Travel Expenses The Travel Expense form keeps travel expense information for a given week on a daily basis in a printable form. By using database queries, you may analyze past travel expenses for any time period. This form has the following fields: Name: Your name. Purpose: The reason for the trip. Week Beginning: The date representing the Sunday that started the week of travel. Location: The city in which expenses are incurred. LODGING: Expenses for hotel, motel, etc for each day. MEALS: Expenses for each of 3 meals for a day. TRAVEL: Cost of the actual transportation by category. MISC. Other costs incurred during the trip. To print the expense report: 1) Press (ALT + O) and choose Text to remove field attributes. 2) Press (ALT + F) to open the File menu. 3) Choose Print... to display the Print window. 4) With the cursor on PRINT, press (Enter). Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 36 Profit and Loss and Cash Flow Statements The first screen presented is a Profit and Loss statement. It is used to calculate the profit and loss for your business on a twelve month basis. The Cash Flow statement, on the following page, allows the entry of information used to manage the cash flow of your business on a twelve month basis. Some fields in Cash Flow are automatically filled-in with data from the P & L. To the display Cash Flow statement when looking at the Profit and Loss statement, press (CTRL+Page Down). To display the Profit and Loss statement when looking at the Cash Flow statement, press (CTRL+Page Up). Profit and Loss Statement Each entry in the Profit and Loss statement is totaled downward for a month and across for the year. The following information may be entered for each month: Revenues: Revenue on a per-product basis. Total Revenues: Total revenues from all products. Cost of Sales: Cost on a per-product basis. Total Cost of Sales: Total costs from all products. Gross Profit: Total revenues - total costs Itemized Expenses: Salaries, insurance, advertising, phone, etc. Total Expenses: Total of itemized expenses Net profit: Gross profit - total expenses Cash Flow Statement Each entry in the Cash Flow statement is totaled downward for a month and across for the year. The following information may be entered for each month: Cash on Hand: Cash at the start of a month Cash Receipts: Revenue, credit cards, loans, etc. Total Cash Receipts: Total Cash Available: Cash on hand + total cash receipts Cash Paid Out: Cost of sales, expenses(from P&L), etc. Total Cash Paid Out: Cash Flow: Total cash available - total cash paid out Cash Position: Cash on hand - cash flow Other Essential Data: Sales volume, accounts receivable accounts payable, bad debt, inventory on hand, depreciation. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 37 Printing the P & L and Cash Flow Since this is an extra wide document, each visible page will be printed on 2 8½ x 11 sheets of paper that show the entire statement when placed side by side. In Surefire this type of formatting is called a Split Page. If you look at the top or bottom margins of the document, you will see parallel lines that indicate this. To print the Profit and Loss and Cash Flow statements: 1) Press (ALT + O) and choose Text to remove field attributes. 2) Press (ALT + F) to open the File menu. 3) Choose Print... to display the Print window. 4) With the cursor on PRINT, press (Enter). Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 38 Chapter 9 - Off Hours Why Off-Hours? We at Piaf believe that using computer software should be a comfortable and rewarding endeavor. To assist you with this, we have provided an Off-Hours screen. This screen allows you to have some fun with Surefire Contacts and yet learn important concepts used throughout the system. This is the place to come when you have made the big sale, when you need inspiration or when you are traveling to another city. You may display the Off-Hours screen by choosing Off-Hours from the Surefire Contacts Main menu. For Dining, Accommodations, Entertainment, and Wise Words, you may either enter your own information or import the data from other Surefire Contacts users. Except for Entertainment, the documents are already there. A database will be created automatically the first time you add an entry. Off-Hours Options You may choose one of the following buttons: Dining to see information on Restaurants, Pubs, etc. Accommodations to see information on Hotels, Motels, Inns, etc. Entertainment to see information on Attractions, Theater, and Clubs Wise Words to see a collection of Quotations for any occasion. The Dining Guide The Surefire Dining Guide screen contains these fields: Restaurant Name - name of restaurant. Address - address of the restaurant. City, State, Phone - city, state and phone number. *Type of cuisine - type of cuisine. *Rating - what is the rating of the restaurant. *Price Range - inexpensive, moderate, expensive, etc. *Ambiance - mellow, romantic, family, club, etc. Notes - comments about restaurant, recommended items, etc. Surefire Contacts User's Guide Page 39 The Accommodations Guide The Surefire Accommodations Guide screen contains these fields: Hotel Name - name of lodging establishment. Address - address of the accommodation. City, State, Phone - city, state and phone number. *Location - airport, downtown, country, resort, etc. *Type of lodging - type of lodging: hotel, motel, inn, B&B, etc. *Rating - what is the rating; Poor, Fair, Good, etc. *Price Range - inexpensive, moderate, expensive, luxury. *Ambiance - casual, formal, exotic, etc. Notes - comments about lodging, amenities, etc. The Entertainment Guide The Surefire Entertainment Guide screen is left for you to create as desired. Wise Words The Surefire Wise Words screen contains these fields: *Type - What type of saying or quote; Success, Motivational, Inspirational, etc. Author - who is the author of this wisdom Text - text of the saying or quote. Adding New Entries To add an entry to any of the above databases: 1) Press the (End) and (Home) keys to move between the fields on the screen 2) Enter the information in the fields provided. Press (ALT+Z) to choose from a pop-list for fields preceded by a '*', above. 3) Press (ALT + A) to add the record. Updating Entries To update an entry in any of the above databases: 1) Initiate a search of existing records based on some criteria such as the type of Food served or the City of interest for a hotel. 2) Press F8 (or F7) to view each record. Stop when the record of interest is displayed. 3) Press the (End) and (Home) keys to move between the fields on the screen. 4) Change the information in the fields provided. Press (ALT+Z) to choose from a pop-list for fields preceded by a '*', above. 5) Press (ALT + U) to update the record.