There are 50 features listed in SUMMARY below. In order to see if any change is worth considering, please mark as follows:

Yes means this is something you:

  • want or need AND
  • do not currently have

No means any of these:

  • do not want
  • do not need
  • already have it in my current system

Create Your Own Unique ID - Up To 25 Numeric - i.e. first 3 digits of phone + mmddyyyy birthday, no / or -  *

Sales, Prospecting, Advertising, Production, Agencies, Email, Letters & Faxes All Linked *

All companies, ad agencies and advertising is built into SM4. Email may be stored in SM4 simultaneously with Outlook or other email programs. This is for email sent and received. Letters and Faxes are linked via your word processing or other software.

 

Y N   

Unlimited Notes For Each Company, Person and Advertisement *

For each company there are two unlimited* note fields, one is for sales activity and one is for private notes. For each person and each advertisement there is also an unlimited note field (about 1,000,000 screens of data for each note field)

 

Y N   

Query Follow Up Calls By Date Range/Sales Code/Call Priority OR User Defined Query *

Basic follow up is automatically set up for call backs scheduled for 01/01/1980 through and including today AND for your sales code. Optionally, you can enter a priority level to filter out the less important calls. Additionally, you can build a query, in English, from a menu for AND OR NOT, from any data in the system. This query may be saved and reused.

 

Y N   

Have System Remind You When Important/Key Data Is Missing *

You can set up SM4 to pop a message when any field that you feel is important to fill in is not filled it. The user may save without entering the data, but they will be reminded.

 

Y N   

Option To Validate Data Input In Key Fields *

For certain fields in SM4, you may want to restrict data entry to certain words or phrases. For example, if you wanted to limit Account Status to: Active, Prospect, Former Client, Dead you could. There are over a dozen such fields in SM4.

 

Y N   

Know What Data You Have And Where It Is From The Main Company View *

There can be 7 data screens for one record, if the client has a billing agency and a creative agency. SM4 identifies, from the company screen, whether there are multiple people listed at this company, what agencies exist, if there is active advertising or emails or letters stored online. You do NOT have to click to the screen to check.

 

Y N   

Link One Company To Two Agencies, Link Any Agency To Unlimited Companies *

Any client can link to two 'permanent' agencies. Any client can have any agency linked to a specific ad. Any ad agency can be linked to unlimited clients. The Ad Agency Report will show these links, and, optionally, all advertising placed by the Ad Agency.

 

Y N   

Instantly Find/Sort/Add Data From Same Location, By Company, Name, Email, Phone & More *

Quick find any data by ID, Company, Name, Email, Phone, Advertising, Category, Zip code. Query data by any field or combination.

 

Y N   

34 User Defined Fields That You Can Name And Rename *

17 fields for each company, 8 for each person and 9 for advertising/production. You can rename them to anything you want. That is how they will show on all screens and reports.

 

Y N   
Built In Data Backup/Restore *
Y N   

Link To Your Accounting System Or Internal Accounting *

We have already written links to Visual Accountmate, MAS 90, Peachtree and Quickbooks. There is no charge to add links to your accounting system.

 

Y N   

Generate Call/Activity Reports For Past Or Future Planned Calls *

You can filter this report by any combination range of companies, sales people, next call date, last call date, category, source, publication/media.

 

Y N   

Export Data For Computer Based Fax Or Mass Email System *

Data may be exported from a menu, which automates most of the procedure, or from the custom label exporter, which allows you to control what data is exported.

 

Y N   

Handle Single Or Split Sales Accounts *

Commissions for split accounts will be calculated according to the split.

 

Y N   

One Click Map Or Driving Directions *

We link to MapQuest. All driving directions are from publication home office.

 

Y N   

Ability To Copy Companies  *

If you sell multiple publications and have different sales people selling to the same company, this function is useful to save re typing and assuring that basic company information is identical where it should be identical.

 

Y N   

Full Control Over Who Can See And Edit What Records *

Sales People can be: restricted to their own records only, allowed to see all records but only edit their own, allowed to edit any record, but cannot change the sales code assigned. This applies to reports as well.

 

Y N   

One Click Copies Name, Title, Company & Address To Windows Clipboard *

Y N   
Every Update Gets An Automatic Time, Date, User Stamp *
Y N   

See Client And Up To Two Ad Agencies On Screen Simultaneously *

SM4 allows any agency to link to unlimited clients and any advertiser to link to two agencies. If you click on the agency button when the client screen is open, the agency record will open, with a different color background and jogged left and down. You can edit any record, in terchangeably.

 

Y N   

Send Advertising Confirmations And Invoices To Same Or Different People, Automatically *

You can assign which individual at a company gets billing type exports and which gets advertising confirmations. This applies to exporting invoices to your own accounting system, as well as report generated in SM4.

 

Y N   

Run Multiple Sessions Simultaneously *

The most common use for this is, one screen for a queried session (i.e. all call backs for today) and a second, unfiltered session. You would use the first to make follow up calls. However, if an outbound call comes in, or you need to reference a record not in today's call backs, the unfiltered session would have all the records. You would not need to close the query, get the unfiltered record and re start the query.

 

Y N   

Build/Rebuild SM4 Help To Suit Your Needs *

At any time you may tell SM4 to automatically: backup the entire system...destroy all the tables...rebuild all the tables...re import all the data. This would be used if you are having unfixable database problems, but no data corruption.

 

Y N   
Online (Internet) Manual Continually Updated *
Y N   

Import Data From Almost Any Source *

You create your own data map and can import from spreadsheet, delimited text or dbf files.

 

Y N   

Option To Have Customizations Added At Any Time *

You may need to pay for a customization, but we have no restrictions or problems adding anything you want to the system. If it makes sense universally, everyone will get it with the next upgrade (as you get everyone else's). If it is some that is only of value to you, no one else will see it.

 

Y N   

Sell Ads In Unlimited Media Types - i.e. Magazine, NewsPaper, Newsletter, Web *

Sell space in magazines, newspapers, web/internet, show booths -- simultaneously. Sell by pages, column inches, units or whatever else you want. Have as many media and media types as you want.

 

Y N   

Track All Guaranteed Positions To Prevent Accidental Over Selling *

As an example you can tell SM4 that for one particular publication there is . . . for each issue: 1 back cover, 1 2nd cover, 1 third cover, 1 position opposite table of contents, 5 guaranteed positions right hand page first 15 pages of the book, etc. This can vary for each publication. You may also have special positions for special issues which may have their own covers or table of contents -- but only be available for one date a year.

 

Y N   

18 User Defined Rates Per Ad, Charge/Discount, Dollar/Percent, Gross/Net *

You may define each rate and label it. Some examples are:

Position Discount, Discount, Dollar, Gross, Default 250
Prepayment Discount, Discount, Percent, Gross, Default 5%
Artwork, Charge, Dollar, Net, Default (or in this case minimum) 200

 

Y N   

Customize Tag Line For Invoices And Confirmations *

For each Ad, there is a 54 character comment line. So you could change the 01/10/2008 issue to say "January 2008" + pages + color. You may want a bi monthly to say "Jan/Feb 2008". This is the information that becomes the description of your invoice.

 

Y N   

Unlimited Ad Status Levels, Such As 25%, 50%, 75% 100% *

Good for Forecasting. Enter the status of each ad. This does not need to be a percent. You may define it as "iffy", "probable", "definite". Any label may be up to 10 alpha/numeric. Users can only enter a valid entry. Users can also be reminded if they leave this field blank.

There is an advertising report by Add Status as well.

The administrator can globally delete all ads that did not actually run in the issue.

 

Y N   

Enter Contracts With Fixed And Open Dates *

You can also report on contracts with open dates.

 

Y N   
Store And View Ads On Line *
Y N   

Four Customizable Forms i.e. Confirmation, Insertion Order, etc. *

There are four forms which could be called: Invoice, Advertising Confirmation, Contract Confirmation, etc. or anything else you want to name them. SM4 controls the detail print out but you have an opening and closing of any length.

 

Y N   

Verify Contract Dates Before Placing New Ads *

Click on pop up to see all current, past and future contract dates for this client.

 

Y N   

Track New Ads Vs. Renewals *

Advertising Report will let you filter All Ads, New Ads or Renewals only. How you define New and Renewal is up to you.

 

Y N   
Advertising Reports May Be Saved And Have Over 2000 Variations *
Y N   
Short Rate and Rebate Reports *
Y N   
Commission Reports That Track Split Commission *
Y N   
Competitive Ad Tracking And Reporting *
Y N   
Full Production Reporting *
Y N   
Remind User If Important Fields Are Not Filled In *
Y N   
Unlimited Media Frequencies i.e. monthly, weekly, daily . . . simultaneously *
Y N   
Ability To Close Ads Singly Or As A Group (No More Editing) *
Y N   
Unlimited Production Notes For Each Ad *
Y N   
Custom Report Writer *
Y N   
Customer Sales Report Comparing Last Year To This Year *
Y N   
Over 25 Stock Ad Fields And 9 User Defined Fields *
Y N   
Automatic User, Time And Date Stamp When Ads Are Updated *
Y N   
Archive Old Advertising, But Keep Available For Reporting *
Y N   
Separate Or Combine Multiple Media Advertising For Each Company *
Y N   
Mark Special Ads As Not Commissionable *
Y N   
Leave As Is. This Will Be Automatically Calculated.

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