What is the best tech support software designed for computer services businesses?

[MrUnknown]

QB won't maintain the job in the course of the work. However, I can see in my invoice history for a particular client, what problems they have had and which computer it was as the invoices I keep have all this information put on them. This is probably the most requested feature in management software.

For maintaining flow, I have forms I made up and fill out. When I pickup the computer, the client signs my Terms and I can leave a "pickup" slip that shows I picked up a specific computer if they desire to have one. My terms authorizes me to work on their computer and repair any issues they tell me about. They know the final price before I do anything.

When I return, I have a slip that is essentially my invoice to them, but I have it labeled as "Work Order" and it describes the problem they told me about, what I did to fix it, and all the charges to fix it. They sign it stating they will pay it, have received all their stuff back and are happy with the work.

I know this is backwards and I am making a new form, a "real" workorder for authorizing me to do the work and showing some sort of estimated amount that they automatically agree to pay up to for the work to be performed. If they decide to argue it in court, then I wouldn't have anything stating how much they said they would pay.

All the other in-between stuff is just memory or post-it notes on the computer. It isn't too hard to keep track of a few computers without some sort of special software. All the forms TSMan and Commit have can be done in Word templates. It is just nice to have everything in one spot relating to a customer without having to kinda work-around ways to get it in QB. I am currently writing my own software to manage my stuff for this reason.

 

[Larry Sabo]

I know I can transfer the tables over to base, but the forms and reports do not transfer. Unless there is some way that I don't know of.

I was referring to opening an MS Word document used to produce a report from the Access mdb. If you use one, you can open it in OOo and change the field references and produce the report. Haven't tried OOo Base to use reports created in Access, but will try to see if there is a way, when I find time. I was also speaking of opening the Access mdb using OOo Base, not actually converting the mdb to a OOo database. I think that would be a bit of a challenge.

 

[C.Quill]

I keep it simple, Freshbooks linked up to outright.
I can keep track of my funds, invoices, and clients using these two awesome systems!

 

[markr]

CommitCRM and its integration with QuickBooks does a great job for us.

 

[BostonGeek1]

bahahaha connectwise

I have my whole company reading connectwise material and videos and taking the classes, and its still not deployed after 3 months.......its horribly complicated requires a major investment and internal organization and company maturity to deploy and to reap the benefits. Don't bother unless you have strong sales projections, have at least 3-4 staff members, people billing out under YOUR name whose profitability you have figured out, etc.......its really a major deal.

I would use something like Tsman, or Commit, they're both good offerings. Worst case, get ACT! for contact managements, and log appointments as activities, and use quickbooks.

We use quickbase to have a custom service portal which works amazingly well, but its pricey - 200+ a month.