Commission mangement software?

[Chris Saper]

Can anyone offer suggestions as to how they keep track of their commission/clients etc, in terms of software?

[Heidi Maiers]

I like to use QuickBooks. Easy to use, not horribly expensive, and takes care of all the business needs I have.

[Michele Rushworth]

My very sophisticated "system" consists of sheets of lined paper with some notes and figures scrawled across them to represent each transaction. Time to move out of the dark ages, I think!

[Cynthia Daniel]

There's Art Sytems: http://www.artsystems.com - the Studio editioni seems to be what an artist would choose. But, I don't know if it tracks any financial information.

QuickBooks, of course, is good for tracking the financial, but may not give the ability to track all the information you'd want for a client and artwork.

There is a version of QuickBooks and a version of ACT that "speak" to each other and I think that's a superb feature. ACT is a very strong database program for tracking clients and prospects and is very customizable. I've been using it for years and I love it. You can add notes for acitivities, such as mailings, phone calls, emails. You can also set up reminders on certain dates - for example if you want to call a person on a certain date. If you use Outlook Express and maybe Outlook too, you can click the person's email from their record and the email window will come up. You can also create "groups" - I have such groups defined as Art Societies, Portrait Reps, Clients...etc. Then I can choose a group and send a mailing to everyone in that group. You can also send out form letters and print address labels. However, I've not found a way to enter an image, so if you wanted to enter the image of the painting, I don't think ACT does that.

Then there's WorkingArtist.com - you can download a trial version of it. I did so many, many years ago and found it was rather difficult to use. But, I would think they've probably vastly improved it since then. I doubt that it's as high-powered as ACT, but it's more artist oriented. ACT is a contact management system.

[Cynthia Feustel]

Chris,

There is a wonderful program called ArtworksPro that I use to track commission/clients and much more, If you go to their website at www.artworkspro.com you can view a 4 minute demo .

Some of my favorite things:

You can enter images and do a slide show of your work and by using the filters you can select what you want to see. Great for prospective clients.

The filters have a lot of different uses such as printing reports.

The service they provide is also great. I had a technical question about 7 months after purchasing. I emailed them and I recieved a reply the same day and they were very helpful. I believe they are located in Australia.

It is SIMPLE to use and the price is reasonable!!!!

I had the trial version of Working Artist and hated it. It was difficult and confusing and did not seem to meet my needs.

I am also just getting set up to use Quicken. That is the program my accountant asked me to buy so I can keep track of things for my taxes. I just bought Quicken premier home and business 2005 for $14.99 on ebay. I also teach in my studio (regular weekly classes) and sell supplies so my paperwork is usually in total chaos. (I can relate Michele )

I hope ArtworksPro is what you are looking for !

[Cynthia Daniel]

Wow, the ArtWorksPro sounds very interesting and is currently only $39. I personally use QuickBooks for invoicing my clients because I have repeat invoices to the same people and I'm able to set each client up with a memorized invoice that gets entered when the correct date comes around - otherwise, I probably wouldn' t bother with QB because it's less user-friendly than Quicken in my opinion.

[Michele Rushworth]

I also use ACT for keeping track of clients and for my mailing list. This Artworks Pro sounds good, though, for tracking commissions.