Shared with gratitude from our friends at ActToday

Date Posted September 15, 2015
Written by Cate Dempsey

Integrating your small business software applications can revolutionise the way your small business works. By creating seamless integration between Act! and your back-office accounting software, you will gain the benefits of a fully integrated CRM application without the need for an expensive enterprise solution.

There are AddOns that integrate Act! CRM with popular accounting software packages such as MYOB, Quickbooks and Xero. In this article, we’ll explain ten benefits of integrating Act! with your accounting software in order to optimise team performance and enhance customer service within your business.

1. Eliminate duplicate data entry

It’s easy to start using Act! and your accounting software together. Install the appropriate AddOn for your accounting software and use it to import your customers and/or vendors into Act!. This eliminates double-entry of contact information (which saves time and avoids a difference in data-entry between systems). Additionally, it automatically establishes a link between the two. If you already have records in both systems, the AddOn will allow you to link all existing records matching on company name or contact name; and/or manually select records to link. You can also link multiple Act! contacts to one account customer or vendor record.

If you have contacts in Act! that aren’t in your accounting software, you can create a new customer or vendor account records from an Act! contact record and automatically establish a link for easy access to information. This way your data is always accurate.

A lack of duplicates in your data raises employees’ confidence that they are accessing the correct version of the information they are looking for.

2. Get a 360 degree view of all customer and vendor interactions

By linking Act! to MYOB, Quickbooks and Xero, you can view the accounts receivable and payable information for history and details of every transaction with that customer or vendor. This includes Invoices, Estimates, Payments, and Sales information, which can be filtered by date range or transaction type to view the most pertinent information. Need to know the items on the Invoice? Simply drill-down on the invoice in Act! to view the details.

From within Act!, you can also view a snapshot of the customer’s status. View balance due information and know whether the customer is in good standing, as well as the dates of the customer’s last purchase and last payment. Review a complete history of what your customer has purchased and call when it’s time to reorder.

3. Increase productivity

Using an accounting link increases your staff productivity. Contact data only needs to be entered once into Act! since the data is transferred to your accounting package. All vital accounting information is available to sales staff who would otherwise have to ask accounts people for detailed sales or credit history. If you are on the phone, taking an order, that is the precise time you want to check sales history, credit worthiness or simply update a customer’s account card details directly from within Act!

Additionally, users save time by not having to continuously switch between the accounting and Act! applications…it is all done within Act!

4. Easier updates

Synchronisation between Act! and MYOB, Quickbooks or Xero allows you to always keep customer and vendor information current in both applications with just one click. You have the ability to choose the direction of each update for one or many contacts — Act! to accounting software, accounting software to Act!, or two-way. When the two-way update is selected, an updated contact in one program automatically generates an update for the other program too.

5. Take action using real-time information

With information current in both databases and the ability to view complete customer information, you can take immediate action. Activities can be scheduled in Act! (for you or any Act! user in your company) to take action on account transactions (ie. Estimate, Invoice, Sale, Payment) and set an alarm as a reminder. This allows you to easily follow up on an estimate sent or a completed sale.

While you’re on the phone with a customer, you can easily create an estimate or invoice in Act!. That estimate or invoice will use the “Next Available” sequential reference number generated by your accounting software. Once the estimate has been approved or the deal closes, you can quickly convert the estimate into an invoice while still in Act.

Some links copy across summary accounts information to the Act! contact fields. Using this data, you can send a bulk text message[1] or email to all clients with invoices over 30/60/90 days. This message can be personalised by merging the name and outstanding amount into the message. Or you could include a client’s first or last purchase date in a promotional e-mail.

6. Business intelligence

Merging contact data with accounting information can help users gain insight about past trends and help them create a more accurate forecast for the future. In many cases reporting on accounting data from within Act! enables an Act! Lookup to be created so immediately you have identified the customers in a convenient list so you can make contact or review.

7. Cost savings

By implementing an accounting link, you save money on the expense of additional accounting software licenses and implementation costs. Some AddOns do not require installation of a local copy of the accounting application as they access the accounting data directly from the server. In some cases,  the AddOn itself requires just one licence of your accounting software to make it available to all Act! users.

8. Streamlined account setup

In most businesses the customer appears in the CRM first (it’s a lead or opportunity) and then at some stage (either when an account is requested or the first sale made) it needs to be sent to the accounting system.   By linking Act! to MYOB, Quickbooks or Xero, the transfer can be performed with a single click – no waiting for accounts and no need to give the sales team access to your accounting software.

9. Targeted Marketing

Using the data from your accounting system opens up a whole array of possibilities for targeted marketing. Act! can easily track your customer interests and needs to refine your target market list. Additionally, an accounting link can then expand on this information. For example, from within Act! you can find all the people who bought X but not Y and send them a message using  Act! e-marketing or SMS4Act!.

10. Sync your accounting Data with your Handheld Contact

For even greater mobile access to customer account data, use Handheld Contact to sync essential data offline to their phones or tablets. HHC supports syncing up to 50 custom fields, and in most cases ten fields is more than enough to capture the critical accounting details sales people need on the road. Read more about this integration HERE.

From around $100*, an Accounting Link is a great investment for your business. For more information on how the Accounting Links integrate with Act! call 1800-857-0558 or email us at Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser..