Forum Message

Newbie Questions

I'm currently running the trial version with a view to buying. I've got a number of questions:

Customer names - Any plans to support First Name, Surname as separate fields. I'd like to be able to view my customers by surname. As a photographer I have a few hundred customers, most of whom I deal with as families I think of them by family name - so that is how I want to view them in the customer list eg "Smith, John & Mary" but if I enter the name that way it doesn't look good on invoices, or delivery notes where the name really should displayed as "Mr & Mrs J Smith" or at least "John & Mary Smith". Other packages I've looked at solve the problem by EITHER having surname/forename as separate fields OR by having a sort by field (which defaults to the same as the display field). Also searching customers - if the only solution is to enter the name as "John & Mary Smith" is there a way to search for a customer name that contains "smith" ?

Recurring Invoices - I have a number of customers that I have to invoice on an annual basis (all on different dates/ time of year). I note that recurring payments is now possible. How can I set up recurring invoices? (Because they are annual I keep forgetting when they are due).

Products and price lists. I have lot of different price lists for different sizes of prints, different finishes, and even different fields of work command different price structures. The list is to too long to remember. I know product lists aren't currently supported but are there any plans to add that facility?

I like what I have seen of Solar Account but these items are pretty important to me - and they could be a big problem in the long term.


Posted by Ian M Butterfield on Sep 21, 2010 12:20 AM BST

Hello Ian,

Regarding the customer names, one option is to enter the surname into the 'Contact' field. You can then sort the customer by surname by clicking on the 'Contact' column header in the Customers list. There is no direct facility to search the main Customers list by surname, although you could export to a spreadsheet and use the search feature of Excel.

Unfortunately we don't support recurring invoices or product lists, but Solar Accounts will remember descriptions you previously used to populate the description drop-list.

I will note each of your suggestions as feature requests, but I'm afraid we cannot promise that we will add these features in future. I don't like to say this, but if Solar Accounts in it's current form is missing features you need it's probably best to look for an alternative product which has those features.

Regards,


Posted by Mark McLaren (Solar Accounts) on Sep 21, 2010 9:06 AM BST