HI,

We have been in business in 5 years. We are using quickbooks pro to handle the accounting and regular phone and email support for handle the technical issues.

We have been thinking in to evolve in a crm software to deal with all accounting/billing/support issues in harmony, and pursue the situations of the customers closely, pursue the marketing and sales in much more fashionable way. basically we would like to run the company in today's standards to enable to grow and improvement in a better way.

We have reviewed goldmine so far.

But I need opinion from professionals like yourselves, that has been running successfull web hosting, application hosting, content delivery and such businesses.

What is the CRM package do u utilize for your business and why ? what are the benefits, or better saying, pros and cons ?

Or better yet, what is the most suitable CRM system for our kind of businesses ?

Thank you very much for all your feedbacks and recommendations.

Regards.

We had a look around a few CRM systems as well. The main issue with them is that they can sometimes be over complicated and aren't very flexible.
So we decided to create our own. This way we can easily incorporate a new clients area which has linked everything together nicely!

I saw this solution (WHMCS) is being used by some hosting companies in the forum. I checked the features, demos and etc, looks like suitable for what i am looking for. But it is webbased and i guess it is hosted remotely in their systems. But the pricing is very cheap.

Could i get some review from the current users of WHMCS in the forum ? What do you guys like about it, what is the pros and cons ? Is it secure enough ?

Tnanks.

You could give a shot to salesforce.com, it integrates most accounting and support third party applications,.

We're building our own. It's painful to do, but we at least know it will do exactly what we want when we're done. Don't be misled -- WHMCS, AWBS, etc. are NOT accounting systems and cannot replace QuickBooks or Peachtree. You need a good foundation for accounting if you want to run your business and actually know what's going on with the numbers.

-Chris

This may not be what you're looking for, but I've had good success using ClientExec from NewEdge for managing user accounts, invoices, and support; and then using an accounting package for keeping track of the books. ClientExec is pretty low cost and easy to setup, though it's admin options can be a little tricky to learn.

I've been using WHMCS for more than a year now and it meets our needs quite well. It isn't remote hosted. You can run the script on your domain. Recommended solution.

CRMs have nothing to do with accounting or really even billing to be honest. It would be great if something like it existed, but it really doesnt. As far as i know, there isnt even a term for that type of product.

We use WHMCS and i must say it is simply amazing. It has a few accounting features, but not many. I would still say go for whmcs though.

We've used WHMCS for about 12 months now, and its great for billing.
That said, its great for billing. And its OK for support
However, if you are looking for an accounting platform, or a CRM platfrom, and want it all to be integrated, good luck; I don't think an online OS version exists.

We are using SugarCRM for sales/lead management, DotProject for Project management, WHMCS for support & billing and Quicken Cashbook for accounting (although we are looking at Kashflow (online)

We are considering what it would take to intergrate all four, but its a steep curve, considering the amount of back & forth that goes on within our processes.

Think about the steps in a design sales process
Lead identification ->Marketing activiies_-> Approach -> Enquiry-> response -> follow-up -> quote -> close the sale -> conversion to invoice -> convert to order -> manage order process -> billing in stages -> account activation-> customer relationship management -> special offers and promotions -> referrals -> back to the start

Plus support enquiries, upgrades, add-on/follow-up sales etc.

If anybody has thought about how to do this, I love to share ideas.