Management Software

If you were to design your own studio management software, what are some key things you would want it to do? Here are some of the obvious things in my mind:

1) Basic client information (address, phone, email, newsletter option, etc.)

2) Client's children and their ages

3) Client sessions and their orders

4) Referrals (how a customer found the studio and who they eventually refer)

5) Costs of goods sold and product pricing

6) Income and expense reports as well as various other reports to track what types of sessions / products sell best, etc.

While things are a little slow, I have decided to finish creating my own management software. I know there are some great programs already out there, and I had been using one for a while. However, I'm just not 100% happy with it.

Sounds cool. Keep me updated. You could always make some money selling it if its any good.

Sounds like a good idea as the only programs of this type on the market tend to be very expensive. The only problem is that if you want to eventually sell it you will have to provide a user guide support and will probably get pestered with questions. If you do it would be good to make it flexible for international phone numbers, zip codes and currencies.

Good luck and keep us updated.

I certainly understand about the user guide and support, I've done this before. Before deciding to be a full time photographer, I was a full time programmer. If there was an interest in a web-based program (which is my specialty) from my fellow photographers, I would be more than happy to offer this at a very low cost. As for international use, the biggest problem I've had in the past was not phone numbers or currency, but language and date formats

Sounds like you need simply accounting ; that's what I use and it does about 3/4 of what you described there.

I had used some software that was geared toward photographers, however, I felt even though it was specialized for photographers, it was lacking in a few areas. The basic data collection is really the same for all the programs, it is the reporting that makes a program strong. If you can't run good reports to tell you where you stand, your data is just sitting there, useless.

I think fotoquote might have something like this but I failed to research it
www.fotoquote.com

what weren't you happy with the solutions you tried?

Well, the data entry part was not as user friendly as it could have been. And there were so many options when managing sessions and orders that if you didn't select all the right ones, they wouldn't show up in reports. Something as simple as reporting average sales per session would be wrong. Guess I dont need all the bells and whistles of that program and just looking to create something that could keep me in touch with the heart of my business.

Making a program like this would interest me. A web-based application I would also be interested in tinkering with.

ACT? You can customize it to do almost anything. You could start from scratch and create your own Access database with some VB functionality, but why? Lots of hours and your aren't going to sell it. Software business is a nightmare of bug fixes and upgrades.

ACT is cheap and customizable in a matter of hours from the standpoint of zero knowledge.

C-Shuler wrote in post #9426856
... As for international use, the biggest problem I've had in the past was not phone numbers or currency, but language and date formats

Best way to handle dates is to use International date format everywhere: yyyy/mm/dd. I have found this to work everywhere and no one gets confused.

So what is the main software on mac if possible are you guys using for client info and invoices and calender sync??

I've been working on a Mac solution for this, mainly due to the existing solutions being so expensive.

The main things I decided it required were:

- Client Details

• Name Address
  
• Address
  
• Linked Contacts
  
• Mailing list
  
• View of all photo shoots involving client
  

• Name
  
• Preferred contact method (phone/email/post)
  
• Follow Up date
  
• How they found us
  
• Referrer
  

• Dates & times (& Schedule)
  
• Location
  
• Shot List
  
• Tasks
  
• History of key points (quote sent, contact sent, payment received etc.)
  

• Quotes for various different (customisable) packages
  
• Ability to print a personalised quote/invoice
  
• Payments received
  

• Since mine is for a Mac it syncs with an address book group (easy sync with other devices)
  

• Shoot dates
  
• Task deadlines
  
• Enquiry Follow up dates etc.
  
• Since mine is for a Mac it syncs with an iCal calendar group (easy sync with other devices)
  

Link us when you do ^