Report for client details

Is there a way of obtaining all relevant details for a client and being able to place those into a letter or similar document that could then be emailed or posted to them? I am thinking of all known data such as name/contact, telephone, email, address,default payment dates, etc. It would be really useful to be able extract any client contact data to send to clients to confirm their current information and ensure that records are up to date. I know there is some data that can be extracted into CSV format, but I’m thinking of some thing a bit more sophisticated.

Regards

Jonathan

Sorry, and just following this up, I know we can extract the data from the client ledger file in the data backup, but I was looking at something a bit more interactive - and quicker - with the letter writer within QuickFile.

Regards

Jonathan

There isn’t anything where you can extract all client data etc as such yet. You could send them a statement which would contain their address and all their invoices?

May also be worth looking at the letter feature. Not sure if you can pull the default payment terms etc through, but it may help accomplish what you’re trying to achieve.

I haven’t looked closely at this but something like the custom CSS coupled with the statements, and/or build a letter with the custom CSS could be a route to achieving this.

Are you looking for mail merge functionality with the letter writing tool in QuickFile? I.e. so you can produce a letter in QuickFile and reference client related fields like @FirstName@, @AccountNumber@ etc that will get auto-populated?

Thank you all for your responses. Glenn, yes I guess something like that - basically a letter that lists any data we might hold such as first name, surname, account number, address, telephone fax, email, default payment terms etc. Basically a data check sheet that we can send from within QuickFile. I did look at the letter option but couldn’t work out what fields to put in and how to format them so that the data was picked up. Are you suggesting a possible solution to this?

I’m just trying to understand the scenario at this stage.

Having some mail merge available to letters would be nice but we need to be careful we don’t start building a full CRM system, as this is not our area. Mail Merge and Batch Sending letters is really pushing us into CRM territory.

I think the best option is to extend the Client Ledger CSV which we deliver as part of the backup. Then you can import into a dedicated tool like Google Apps or Office 365. Take a look at the client ledger backup, if there’s anything missing there we can look at getting it added.

Glenn, quite understand re being mindful of how much additional functionality one adds to the accounts system, and at what point it then becomes a bigger beast. I thought it would be helpful to have an ability to prepare a letter from data within QuickFile. The alternative being a “report” that could list the same data. All I was after was a quick way of getting a snapshot of client details to be able to send to clients periodically with a list of what we have on file about them.

That said, I have looked at the Client Ledger and I suppose this could be used - I was trying to think of a way of making it seamless without having to open, export and merge data into another application.

If adjustments to the Client Ledger are easily done, I’d like company number, fax and average time to pay to be added if possible (the latter one is a wish, simply because it would amuse me to let some clients know how long it takes them to pay!)

How does anyone else feel on this?

Regards

Jonathan

We can easily get the Fax and Company Number added, that will be available by the time we push out the next release.

The “time to pay” is tricky as this is calculated dynamically on the client detail screen and there’s a lot of computation going on there (as far as I know). Including that in the backup means running that calculation potentially 1,000s of times in a short period which would put a lot of strain on the database and slow everything down.