Company Management System

Every small business needs an efficient method to track clients, work, payments, and other key business data.  The nature and type of the data that needs tracked is dependent on your business of course, and that’s where a customized system can come into play.  All this data needs to be entered, reported against and navigated with a simple as possible navigation system.

For my own business of consulting and application development, I created a system to manage:

• Client contact data
• Project information and billing data
• Action items and status for each project
• Time and mileage data for the project, billable or non
• Invoices sent to clients
• Payments against the sent invoices
• Locations of all files related to the project

For a service based company, Aura Skin, a similar system was needed, but more focused on turning large amounts of clientele and managing marketing activities.  This system was designed to offer this functionality

• Client contact data
• Client purchase and service history
• Product inventory and purchase information
• Detailed contact notes for clients
• Automated e-mailing capabilities to send marketing updates to a selectable list of clients
• Integration with Outlook calendar and contacts lists

An Engineering Firm with multiple employees adds additional layers of required information.  The goal in this application is to provide a total picture of company performance and consolidate time management, reporting, approvals, and expenses management.  For this application, the core functionality includes:

• User security controls to determine who has access to the system and what they can do
• Client contact data at a top level company level with multiple person contacts within the company
• Logging of contact history
• Outlook address book integration for all client contacts
• Detailed project setups including assignment of standardized tasks, phases, and entering of estimated times required for completion
• Individual time sheets in an easy to use grid that allows all employees to enter hours against any project and task
• Approval processes for submitting time sheets to managers
• Entry of expenses against any project, with approval processes
• Management of subcontractor work associated with any project
• Creation of invoices for clients using multiple billing models
• Management of Business overhead data such as payroll, benefits, and other items needed to determine the health of the company
• Detailed reporting on the health of the company and any specific project