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Setup

Since Clients & Profits was designed especially for the advertising industry, you'll probably feel familiar with it after only a few days. It's made to move you smoothly through the steps that every job goes through: estimating, trafficking, costing, and billing -- the same steps you go through now. But instead of using a manual system of job jackets and forms, everything will be in Clients & Profits.


Contents


Users, Access & Passwords Clients & Profits features a sophisticated user-based password system to keep your database secure. The system tracks who's using the database based on user initials. Access privileges to different parts of the system can be made available -- or disabled -- for individual users.

Staff The Staff file contains the company's employees. Staff records are used by time cards and time sheets. Anyone whose time is tracked is added as a staff member. The staff window contains information about each staff member, including name, address, department, billing rates, and a personal photograph.

Vendors Vendors are suppliers from whom you purchase goods and services through Accounts Payable.The vendor file contains every vendor you'll ever do business with, including account number, name, address, and some account information.

Chart of Accounts

Web Access Clients & Profits’s web-based time card allows any staff member to track their hours worked from any internet-connected web browser. It offers real-time access to the shop’s database of clients, jobs, and tasks. The time they entered on their web-based time card appears on job reports instantly, just like the standard C&P X time card.

Status Table Status codes group, sort, and manage jobs on windows, job lists, traffic reports, cost summaries, and billing worksheets. The status code is the single most important tool you have for managing jobs. Status codes are the basis for the daily and weekly job lists and traffic reports.

Task Table Tasks are the basis for estimating, scheduling, job costing, billing, and job profitability reports. Since they serve so many functions, they're very important. Your tasks are completely customizable. The tasks you add to your Task Table reflect the diversity of the work you do.

Groups Groups are used to sub-total tasks on estimates, invoices, and job summaries. They help arrange job tasks more clearly and logically for your clients. Groups can be based on the kind of work you're doing or how you're doing the work.

Job Types/Spec Sheets Spec sheets contain standard information about a particular type of job. They are used to automate adding jobs that are similar, since they produce the same kind of work. You can create dozens of different spec sheets for every type of job you do.

Order Templates Purchase order templates help automate adding routine purchase and insertion orders. Templates contain important, but generic, information about a kind of purchase. Purchase order templates help automate adding routine purchase and insertion orders. Templates contain important, but generic, information about a kind of purchase.

Departments In larger companies staff members are usually organized into departments, such as account service, production/traffic, media, accounting, and administration. Clients & Profits allows users to be grouped together into departments in the same way.

Agency Information Essential information about your organization is stored in Agency Information. Agency Information is the first record created when your database is started, and contains your company name and address. Every user gets a copy of the original Agency Information record, which is customized by Clients & Profits for their own use.

Highlights

The Information Center gives you a quick, convenient way to work through Clients & Profits. The Information Center window opens automatically whenever you start Clients & Profits. You can choose an Information Center that best fits the way you work: Production, Accounting, or both.

Estimates, Invoices, Insertion and Purchase Orders can each contain a small graphic logo. This logo appears at the top left side of the printed report. A graphic saved in PNG format can be copied from a graphic program, then pasted into the report options windows.

Estimate-only tasks keep off traffic reports A job task can be used for esti-mating and billing only, scheduling only, or for both functions. Estimate-only tasks don't appear on job schedules.


Tips

Numbering purchase orders vs. insertion orders
Since purchase orders and insertion orders share the same windows, it's important to number them distinctly. This way you'll easily tell POs from IOs just by looking at the order number. For example, purchase orders can be numbered starting from 1000 while insertion orders can be numbered starting from 50000. Both kinds of orders are numbered automatically using a user-defined number that's set in Preferences.

Insertion order disclaimer saves you time
If you need the same instructions printed on every media insertion order (i.e., "Please return all final artwork to agency" or "Do not place beside or opposite to competitor"), don't type them in each time. Instead, use the IO's disclaimer. (Choose Setup > Preferences > Insertion Orders.) Enter standard instructions, along with your disclaimer, in the Disclaimer field. The instructions are included on every new insertion order, whether it's created automatically from a media plan, a media estimate, or added manually.

Want more consistency in your life?
Enforce the use of job types.

Job types help make the process of adding new jobs more consistent and quicker, so you'd think everyone would use them! But sometimes people forget. Help them remember by requiring the use of job types when adding new jobs. (Choose Setup > Preferences. From the Preferences menu, choose Jobs. Click on the option to require "Job types on new job tickets.")