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FMSmallBusiness - Your Business Data on Steroids
Information | Videos & Screenshots | Frequently Asked Questions | History
FMSmallBusiness 1.5.2Your Business Data on Steroids. |
Licensing and Pricing are detailed the FAQ page.
Information
FMSmallBusiness (FMSB) is a complete solution for running a small business that tracks Contacts, Calendars, Schedules, Activities, Projects, Documents, Letters, Products, Invoices, and more. Think of it as a CRM (customer relationship manager) with more power.
FMSmallBusiness is a cross platform solution built using the award winning FileMaker Pro database platform. You can run it on Mac, Windows, or a combination of both. If that's not enough, portions work on the iPhone or most web browsers. We've designed it to work as either a single or multiple user solution on up to 250 workstations.
Look and Feel
Benefits
We developed FMSB to run our own business. In fact, we run the latest version ourselves as we believe in 'eating our own dog food'. Using this approach, we are able to make the product better simply by using it. We think FMSB is the best solution to run a small business. Here are a few benefits:
- Customizable - FMSB is built on FileMaker Pro and developed from the start with individual customizing in mind. FMSB has a 'main' file and a 'custom' file. The custom file is designed in an open fashion so that anyone with FileMaker experience can make changes or even add functionality.
- Shared Contacts - Access your Contacts in one centralized location. When you change the details for a contact, everyone in your company will benefit from the updated information.
- Shared Calendar - Calendar events function in a similar manner as Contacts. Whenever an event is edited, the changes are automatically made for everyone in your company.
- Projects & Activities - FMSB makes task management easy because it has the ability to store your activities with the option of assigning them to a project—Great when it’s billing time! Projects and Activities can be assigned to a contact and staff member It can also include billable items, such as labor, attached for later invoicing.
- Income Catching - Track your time and stop losing income by tracking your time and items using FMSB's built in Timers, Activities, and Events.
- Invoices & Products - FMSB has built in Invoicing as well as a Products modules which can help with reordering levels.
- Shared Documents - In many small businesses, you have documents that are related to your contacts and activities. FMSB has the same functionality. Each contact or activity can store as many documents and letters as you'd like--And they can be accessible to everyone in your company.
- Mail/Email Merging - Track all correspondence with your contacts. We've created easy to use Document generation and Merging assistants to make document storage simple.
- Data Availability - Access your data at your desk, on the road, or on your phone. Your data can be accessed via your computer anywhere in the world via the internet over a secure connection. Plus you can use your iPhone to access Contacts an Events.
- Desktop Integration - Easily update your contact and calendar data to Mac OS X's Address Book and iCal. FMSB can create a vCard for your contacts and iCal subscriptions for your calendars. Any application that support vCard and vCal files can use the data
There is much more that FMSB can do for you. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.
Key Features
| Contact Management Contact Groups vCard Importing & Exporting Activities & Project Tracking Invoicing Product Tracking |
Calendaring & Scheduling iCal Subscriptions of Calendar Events Event QuickAdds: '7/4 9p Fireworks' Letters and Forms Mail Merges |
Reviews
I am a Mac software consultant and have worked extensively with several CRMs. FMSB is a worthy contender, exemplary of the power and flexibility FileMaker offers.
There is a lot to like about FMSB. First off, it is a very polished application, rich with intuitive functionality, like out-of-the-box Skype dialing. You can check out their demo/training videos on their website, so I won't be a complete feature creature here. Let me just list some of the most standout aspects IMO:
Comprehensive and flexible groupware CRM functionality
Completely extensible, and the developers are more than willing to accommodate
Extremely robust searching, from quick find to advanced queries
Rock-solid FileMaker database engine
Integrated SMTP functionality (i.e., send e-mail directly from FMSB)
E-mail and letter merge
Integration with Gmail (very clever use of automated searching!)
Geo-tagging and Google maps plotting
Integrated invoicing with helpful un-billed activities reminders
iPhone webapp client (I haven't implemented this yet)
Concerns/areas for improvement:
Pricey comparative to other SMB CRM solutions, especially when you factor in FileMaker server licensing
Syncing with iCal and Address Book
More comprehensive Google Apps integration
Off-line sync (for multi-user environments)
To do list functionality could be separated from project-oriented activities and streamlined
All-in-all, FMSB is reliable and robust. It "just works." While I have actually rated other CRM software higher on this site in the past, I do think FMSB has some of the greatest potential. So my 4-star ratings here are not meant to suggest that this isn't a 5-star app. Rather, as great as it is, I think we're in for a lot more from this developer. And as far as voting with my feet goes, this is currently my CRM of choice.


