As you might expect, the Contacts file holds the names and addresses of the people you work with: Customers, Vendors and Prospects.
A contact may or may not be assigned to a particular customer or vendor. You may also have record or not, as need be, and you may have an unlimited number of contacts assigned to each customer or Vendor simply by assigning each the same Customer ID or Vendor ID.
When you need to, a contact may also be converted to a customer or a vendor with a single keystroke.
Special Buttons
Since there are two browse boxes within the Contacts Browse, there are two sets of buttons and tabs: One for displaying and selecting Contacts, and a second which shows the last few Activities linked to the selected Contact.
| [Convert] | This keystroke allows you to convert a contact to a customer or vendor from within the edit screen. To do this, you must assign this contact to a new Customer or Vendor ID. Once the record is converted, the contact still remains in the system, but all matching fields (address, categories, etc…) are copied to the new customer or vendor record.
The new Customer ID or Vendor ID cannot be already in use with Simple Accounting. |
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| [find] | Use the Query Window to locate a record while in the current tab. The first record in the browse with a matching value is located.
Remember that the first match may not be the only match. You may need to press [Find] more than once until you locate the precise record you are looking for. |
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| [Print] |  |
Lets you print the following:
Export You may also export the records in the selected browse tab to another type of data format using theExport] choice. You can easily print mailing labels and envelopes for a list of Contacts from the Mailing List Browse. |
| [Query] |  |
This lets you use a query to create or select a list of contacts, ordered and filtered to your taste. You can freely move between the normal alphabetical view (which includes all contacts) and the query list simply by switching tabs.
This button is only available under the Query Tab. |
| [Search] (for text) | Press this button to call up a window to search for text in the Description or Notes fields of the Linked Activities. You can choose to limit your search to only the selected Contacts Activities, or search Activities for all Contacts.
A successful search locates the most recent matching record. If a match is found, the button text changes to [Search Again]. In that case, you can press the button again to find previous records which contain the text you are searching for. Search Options [Search Where?] Select to search either the DESCRIPTION or the NOTES field for each activity. [Only Current Contact?] Search only the currently selected contact or all contacts activities for the desired text. [Case Sensitive?] If not checked, the text is found even if the capitalization does not match. For example: Brother would match with BROTHER. Check this box to find only exact matches. |
Tabs
There are three available tabs in the Contacts Browse.
| All | This is always the default tab for this browse box. |
| Query | |
| User | Display only Contacts which are defined as On-Line Users.
This tab is only visible if you are using WebSAFE or Ollie. |
Right Mouse Popup
There are three available tabs in the Contacts Browse.
| On-Line Reports | Lets you edit which Reports are viewable in WebSAFE and Ollie for this User. | |
| Alternate Addresses | Manage a list of Alternate Addresses for this Contact. Every time you edit an Address, Simple Accounting can save your changes as an Alternate Address. This lets you keep track of a Contact which may change address many times. | |
| Sales Orders | Displays Sales Orders linked to this Contact. | |
| Vendor Bills | Display Vendor Bills which are linked to this User ID.
Applies only to users of WebSAFE or Ollie. |
Activities Mini-Browse
The lower half of the window contains a browse box listing Activities assigned to this contact. Activities are displayed in reverse chronological order (most recent at the top)
Buttons are provided to allow you to Add and Edit new activities which are then automatically linked with the selected Contact.
Custom Search
The last columns on this browse box contain user-defined data for quickly locating contacts. Unlike a Query, which needs to be built every time you wish to use it, the Custom Search Columns will Locate and re-sort instaneously.
The defaults for these are:
- Contact Phone Number
- Contact First Name
- Contact Last Name
However, you are free to change these to any valid expression based on Contact field names. The heading determines the label of the column.
Custom Search Columns are edited in Setup|Contact Management Options.
