Keeping paper work of customers

I use Microsoft Access to keep track of what work we have done for which customer...

I also keep track of what we have ordered for the customer and I even have in their what the customer is interested in  that way I can tell them about new items comming out in the market and see if they would be interested in it...

With access you can create forms and queries to get info...It takes a little time to set up but once you do it all you would need to do is upgrade it when you want to add something....

This system is great...It has helped my sales and my warrenty work...We had alot of people comming in to get work done then comming back to tell me that we messed up their car...When I started using this system I could keep track of what work we did on that car and see if they had tampered with it and added something that we didnt....If we broke something on their car we tell them about it and then put it in the system so they cant blame other broken items on us....I keep track of everything....It takes a lot of work but it is worth it....It also takes a lot of time to get the employees to understand why we do this and getting them to do it....

I second Access, if you learn how to use those programs in the office package, there is lots you can do!

We use a program called 'Dynamite' where I work, it serves the same general purpose.

Access is good if you are on a budget and have a lot of time on hand.  You can go to the local library and get an access book and create a data base and update it as needed.  You can also down load a few ready made databases and autocalculating invoices from microsoft. 

You can go to your local college and talk to one of the professors their and see if they can help.  They can assign a project of creating a database to one of their students for a grade.  This would 8 out of ten be a free service to you.  The student is looking for a grade and the professor is looking for new and challenging assignments for the students and you are looking for some help.  Remember this is a student and tend to think out of the box alot if they are looking for the best grade.  You can end up with a world class program.

We use a program called TSS. It is advertised in alot of car audio mags... It can handle alot of things like inventory, scheduling, and customer databases. You can look up jobs by numerous ways suchs as last name, invoice number, and vehicle make. I think it works real well and it can do much more then what we use it for... You can track installers labor rates... and such only from when i've played with it we don't actually use it (Good thing ahhaha)