[pianotech] Database for Piano Business

[Roy]

A few years ago I migrated away from PTBiz.  You could only export a CSV file using Mailmerge if you had the latest version of the program.  The frustrating thing was that once I decided to use something else, I had to upgrade PTBiz in order to be able to export the customer information.  The guy wouldn't help me out otherwise.  This was when he had the USB Hasp as a key for access to the program.   But, in the end I decided that it was going to be less expensive than to manually enter everything.  I grumbled, but I paid.

I am now using Outlook and Quikbooks, and find that they work well for me.  Intuit seems to update Quikbooks, and try to sell you a new version, every year.  The newer versions sync your customer information with Outlook.

Terry initially asked about being able to sync calendars remotely, right?  I looked into Google Calendar once.  It might be set up to do what you want.

Regards,
Roy Peters
Cincinnati, Ohio

-----Original Message-----
>From: David Ilvedson <ilvey at sbcglobal.net>
>Sent: Mar 3, 2009 6:25 PM
>To: rnossaman at cox.net, ilvey at sbcglobal.net, pianotech at ptg.org
>Subject: Re: [pianotech] Database for Piano Business
>
>I conferred with my friend Norm, who is a programmer and is now getting back into piano work.   He suggested you print out all the info and hire someone to enter it into whatever new program you want to use.   Seems like a good idea to me.   When I moved from Piano Service Manager (Dean Reyburn's program), I just ended up entering all new customers into Time & Chaos and slowly entering the important customers from PSM into T & C.  
>A mailing to all your customers about piano service in the next year or so might very well thin out your customer base.   You could enter the responding customers and use PTBiz as a backup database for the old customers.   
>
>David Ilvedson, RPT
>Pacifica, CA  94044
>