Which CRM?

[damian_s]

Hello all,

I'm brand new to CRM and trying to work out what would be best for me to use. The main options I'm thinking of are SugarCRM, vtiger and ACT. It seems very hard to know the actual difference between all of these versions without going through the process of putting your data into them and seeing how well you can configure it.

My hope is that if I tell you what I'm currently using and what I hope to gain from a CRM then someone on here could advise me on my options.

My preference is generally for Open Source software. That said, I know that the cost of open source is often time, so setting up something completely new which is unfamiliar to me may be easier with a paid option?

I am an entertainer in the UK and get gigs via work of mouth, advertisements and the internet.

I currently use Sunbird to store all of the dates of gigs and potential gigs.
I use an Open Office spreadsheet to store contact details of all of my enquiries and bookings
I use Open Office writer to manually create deposit and final invoices (which sometimes need VAT adding and sometimes have VAT included) when I then email out as PDF's.
I use Thunderbird for all email exchanges.
I have signed up to MailChimp for newsletter creation, but haven't used it yet.
For things like to do lists, I use various text files. Used to be into GTD, but found the process laborious and unhelpful, so I now do my own much simplified version. I understand that some CRM packages (all?) can be used for reminding you about tasks that need to be done etc. If that was the case, I'd probably have any client related task in the CRM system and keep everything else in my own system.
It would be useful to have reminders which tell me to do X a few days before a gig and Y a few hours before, but I've never worked out how to do this in Sunbird or anything else. Maybe CRM could help here?
I also store venue information in my spreadsheets. If I could put them into the CRM system and simply select a client and a venue to produce an invoice, that would be great.
I try to track where people have heard from me in the spreadsheets, but it's not the easiest thing to do.
I often find myself suddenly adding a field to the spreadsheet to account for a new piece of information I want to keep track of. In a spreadsheet, that's as easy as inserting a column to give all entries the new section. Is it easy to manipulate CRM setups after the initial setup?

At the moment, the process from enquiry through to invoice is a pain as I'm putting information in so many different places. I'm also shoe horning types of information into spreadsheets that shouldn't really be there (i.e., using colour coded cells because you can't use on off type toggles).

My system of chasing up potential gigs works OK as I use different calendars within Sunbird, so I can call my 'potential gigs' when I want by just looking at that calendar and then move them over to 'confirmed gigs' once confirmed.

I'd love to streamline lots of this, but am a bit daunted by the amount of setting up I'd have to do with any system.

Can all of the CRM packages do all of the above? Can they all do invoicing? If so, how does that work, would I create a template in Open Office or something?

In terms of hosting for the CRM. I think my first choice would be local file on my home computer system (which I could then synchronise between computers. My second choice, which I'm comfortable with as long as it's set up securely, would be hosting it myself either in my webspace or on an 'always on' machine (my Ubuntu server). I don't want to host my files on someone else’s servers and have to pay monthly for the privilege.

I've probably asked enough there to go on. Looking forward to hearing any responses.

Thanks
Damian

[eitrix]

Hello Damian,

i have just read your post and i would like to comment out few things about SugarCRM. First of all SugarCRM can satisfy most of the things you mentioned but that won't be out-of-box solution. What a system will allow you is to separate diffrent things you need to be saved in modules which can have relationships between them. That said you can look at this example:

Module accounts -> represents a club
Module contacts -> represents a club manager and he is in relationship with account

custom module gigs with data like datetime,type,number of vip visitors, etc. -> represents the info for a gig and then you will make relationship with account

This way you will allways be able to see what gigs and when u had in that club and any info for it.

You can use other modules also, like calls,notes etc. and make relationships between modules.

As for calendar, you can like make meetings(means gigs) and assign them on appropriate time and then when you look at calendar you will see when you have gigs etc.

As for invoice, well this is where you will need to customize a sugar and would be great to have a bit of php knowledge otherwise your in problem.

As for expanding modules to keep more info later, that is no problem, when you add new field it will automatically be added to all other records from that module.

As for hosting i suggest you use your Ubuntu server. Hosting locale then sync-ing with other computers will be crap, and you need to sync then db also, so better this way.

All in all, sugar will allow you to store a lot of info and tie it together with relationships between modules. It doesn't have invoicing built in but hey, it sure allows you to build that.

I hope it works out, if you need more info, you can contact me over mail at eontek.rs

[AlexAv]

I recommend use SugarCRM CE and customize it.

[robertbmirth]

The one hesitance I would have about using SugarCE is that it doesn't come with an invoice/quotes module (but SugarPro does, not that I'm trying to get you to buy it). There are a few packages out there that try to mimic this functionality for CE, but I don't know how good they are. From what I've seen and given the business model you described, they should be decent enough, but again I don't know. Its probably something you'd have to download and try. You can find these on sugarforge (the one in particular that i looked at is http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/sagilityopensal/).

[AlexAv]

Our company can develop what you want. So, you will pay only once.
http://letrium.com

[damian_s]

Hello all,

First of all, I've very impressed with SugarCRM's forum response times compared to the others. I'm still waiting to hear anything in the vtiger and Act forums that I posted in at the same time.

eitrix,
I wasn't very clear about the type of entertainment I do. If I can clarify it slightly, could you tell me if your module system still works/applies?

I'm a close-up magician, which means that my venues may be a hotel, a customers house, a golf club, a conference centre etc.
My customers may be private individuals, restaurant owners, companies etc.
My gig could be weddings, birthday parties, charity gigs, festivals, corporate hospitality etc.
I currently keep contact information (in spreadsheets) for customers and for venues (ideally with a specific contact at a venue, but that often comes later after performing there a few times).

The invoicing bit makes me nervous. I know nothing about PHP.

I guess it's almost time to dive in and try SugarCRM to get a feel for what all this module stuff is all about. I'd like to go down the Pro route really if that has all the invoicing and everything I'd need, but I'm not planning on spending that kind of money at the moment.

Does anyone know if vtiger or ACT have invoicing easier to to use?

I'm also not keen on the CE version having a different UI to the Pro version. That doesn't feel very in keeping with Open Source karma.

Hmm, lots to think about. Thanks a lot for the feedback.

robertbmirth,
Thankd for the link. I'll take a look

AlexAv,
How much would you be charging to set something like this up?

Thanks again all
Damian

[damian_s]

PS

Is it easy to remove sections/areas of SugarCRM?

I'm pretty much a one man band. My wife my get involved at some point, and potentially an employee somewhere down the line. However, I assume SugarCRM is designed to work for huge teams so I'd probably want to peal a few layers of complexity away.

Thanks again
Damian

[robertbmirth]

my company is currently in the move away from vTiger to SugarCRM, so I know that vTiger does indeed have quotes/invoices (and those modules, i think, are a little better than the ones in Pro even). I don't have much experience with vTiger except looking at what sections of the database I've been needing to convert over, but my general impression between the two CRMs is this: vTiger will be able to control less of your process but it will be able do to what it can as well as or better than Sugar.

That being said, if you familiarize yourself with the module loader, studio, and other admin settings and with a bit of luck about finding packages on sugarforge, you may not need to ever look at the PHP. Now, if you take that route, there probably will be one or two things about Sugar that is going to bug you that you're not going to be able to fix, but that's going to be the same thing with vTiger.

What I would do is just download both of them, try to do a dry run of everything that you'll be using them for, and then finding out which one you like better out of the box. If you're not planning on getting into the PHP that's essentially how you'll be working with what you're working with, so it will give you a good idea.

[Yaletown]

Have you looked at info@hand? Sugar base with invoicing and quotes done well - and only a one-time license fee. http://www.infoathand.com