[Trevor Knight]

Is how you record and monitor your work dependant on what stage your at as a business ?

Rather than making sly comments at each others methods should we not clarify first just exactly what it is your recording?

When I first started I had everything in a small pocket sized booklet. (50 customers)

The next stage was to have a bigger booklet as I had more customers ( 100 customers)

Then I seperated my big book into 4 small books, 1 for each working week (200 customers)

Then I went into computerisation and used excel work sheets for each round area (200 customers +)

Then I employed people and needed a scheduler rather than a recording system so I went for George, this was fine up to around the 1000+ customer mark.

Now, 2000+ customers, I cover 3 counties, have vehicles on the road in different areas each day and need a more flexible and workable system so I have changed to Service CEO.

This gives me everything I could possibly need at a glance. I am not knocking how anyone records their details but people have to realise the method you use is relevant to the stage your business sits at!

[Paul Coleman]

Yeah shiner is spot on there use the database in Microsoft works. It is really handy and quite easy to pick up. Remember to write a list of the fields you require as I'm sure its a pain to do this afterwards

On the contrary, adding a field into the database couldn't be simpler.

[Paul Coleman]

Is how you record and monitor your work dependant on what stage your at as a business ?

Rather than making sly comments at each others methods should we not clarify first just exactly what it is your recording?

When I first started I had everything in a small pocket sized booklet. (50 customers)

The next stage was to have a bigger booklet as I had more customers ( 100 customers)

Then I seperated my big book into 4 small books, 1 for each working week (200 customers)

Then I went into computerisation and used excel work sheets for each round area (200 customers +)

Then I employed people and needed a scheduler rather than a recording system so I went for George, this was fine up to around the 1000+ customer mark.

Now, 2000+ customers, I cover 3 counties, have vehicles on the road in different areas each day and need a more flexible and workable system so I have changed to Service CEO.

This gives me everything I could possibly need at a glance. I am not knocking how anyone records their details but people have to realise the method you use is relevant to the stage your business sits at!

I think you have a point there Trevor.  I just used to jot it all down on a bit of paper.  Then I graduated to an A4 folder with cellophane sheets.  That was useful for recording stuff but not so good if I needed to look something up.  Then I started using a little spreadsheet program on one of those old Amstrad computers.  The only storage medium on those was floppy disc so I could only keep 6 months per disc (they formatted to 720K rather than the more standard 1.44MB.)  Things really changed when I got a computer with Windows 95 on it and eventually started taking the trouble to learn the basics of the Works program.
Oddly enough, I have far less customers these days than I did then but it's still more convenient doing it all on computer.  I probably had about 350 - 400 customers back then (nearly all underpriced as I knew no better) and these days I've got a bit over 200.  I earn a lot more from the 200+ than I did from the 350-400.

[Skyglide]

Hi Trevor Knight
Your post is right up my street,
I've taken the bull by the horns and pressed on at large personal sacrifice to get my business up and flying.
Looked at the service ceo website - all American, etc.
How much is this software? And do you really really find it beneficial?

Chris

[billozz]

Hi this is my 1st post - We have started using a handheld pda - after 11 years of using notebook then spreadsheet i gave in to technology and got one. I have to say its the bizz! No more soggy pages or re printing on the pc. I have excel running on it with all work listed then when we i get back just hot sync it to pc and the file on pc is updated. No going back! Hope this helps.

clearview,
will excel fit onto a pda i thought it was too large to fit

[Trevor Knight]

Hi Trevor Knight
Your post is right up my street,
I've taken the bull by the horns and pressed on at large personal sacrifice to get my business up and flying.
Looked at the service ceo website - all American, etc.
How much is this software? And do you really really find it beneficial?

Chris

For our comapny service CEO is a relevant and VERY important part of the running of our buinsess.

The USA tag is purely because the system is based in the USA, it will transgress over to GBP when you use it.

Why do I find it beneficial?

Customer Record is second to none, every data you will ever need is held inside the customer record.
Financial - ALL necessary records are produced at a flick of a button.
History - Everything from how they paid, when they paid, cheque numbers etc is logged to avoid any discrepancies between you and the customer.
Auto logged location - the postcode is entred and an auto route is provided. The systems also offers you a proposed round to put the customer into based on location and nearest customer to the location.
You can give each vehicle a round and they are then tracked based on work completed, time taken etc....

The list is endless.

Cost £1,500 upwards depending on number of users.

[clearview cleaning]

Hi this is my 1st post - We have started using a handheld pda - after 11 years of using notebook then spreadsheet i gave in to technology and got one. I have to say its the bizz! No more soggy pages or re printing on the pc. I have excel running on it with all work listed then when we i get back just hot sync it to pc and the file on pc is updated. No going back! Hope this helps.

clearview,
will excel fit onto a pda i thought it was too large to fit

Yes pocket excel. You can see about 5 colomns on mine which includes address - price - then months so you can easily see if they missed a payment. The pda is fantastic i cant see how it can let me down, i get home sync with pc and if it packs up during (which it hasnt after 8 months use) day i can still resort to pen and paper. Its not complicated to the contrary its v.simple.

[macmac]

To cut a long story short, there is nothing mentioned above that couldn't just as easily be done with pen & paper AND if you realy, realy must, a 2 quid map

MAP? MAP? How unprofessional

tony

[Paul Coleman]

To cut a long story short, there is nothing mentioned above that couldn't just as easily be done with pen & paper AND if you realy, realy must, a 2 quid map

MAP? MAP? How unprofessional

tony

I agree.  Getting lost is far more professional   

[macmac]

Talk about complicating the uncomplicated

PDA's, data bases, jesus, i thought this was a window cleaning forum.

tony

 
I realise that some of the posts may look complicated.  The beauty of the way that I do it is that only the setting up is a bit complicated.  Once it's done, it's a lot easier to maintain than paper records.  I can have a complete list of who owes me money with a few mouse clicks.  Likewise with work that is becoming due.
It's one of those things that is more complicated to explain than it is to do.

I can do all of the above with NO mouse clicks, just open an A4 diary.
Can you honestly beat that? maybe a transparent diary that doesn't need opening, now that's an idea.

tony

[Trevor Knight]

To cut a long story short, there is nothing mentioned above that couldn't just as easily be done with pen & paper AND if you realy, realy must, a 2 quid map

MAP? MAP? How unprofessional

tony

Really 

Come to my office and show me please, I would love to see you organise 3 vehicles, 2000+ customers, weekly, daily, fortnightly commercial along with monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, annual cleans - on paper??? I also can at a glance have an exact financial report for VAT, Tax, P&L, Organic Growth, New Business generation which we NEED and use on a weekly basis?

Come on lets be realistic about this, with the click of 2/3 buttons I have instant access on 2 pieces of paper what is required for each vehicle each day, customer history, notes etc....

To do this with a pen and paper would be in all honestly, chaos!!!

Believe me, I started as I have said in a previous post with a notebook and pen and if it was at all possible and containable to keep it in that fashion I would have done so!

[Steve Lowe]

Like Trevor we use Service Ceo and use Mapoint to help organise our jobs. Its all about what stage your business is at really and the software would be overkill for a sole trader in my opinion. There is also a big learning curve unlike George !

Steve

[Sir Squeaky]

I agree that if you've got more than about 500 customers (I've got less than 200 probably) it might be helpful to have a little pocket PC thing.

But you certainly shouldn't need SatNav to be a window cleaner. :

[Trevor Knight]

I agree that if you've got more than about 500 customers (I've got less than 200 probably) it might be helpful to have a little pocket PC thing.

But you certainly shouldn't need SatNav to be a window cleaner. :

Rog,

The reason we use sat nav is only because we cover such a large area and sometimes we get customer enquiries form people who are tucked away in some sleepy corner of a village in the middle of nowhere.

The satnav is really useful for finding these properties.

Because of the area we cover the mapping system becomes handy only when it brings up a "closest" customer which can help plot where to put the customer and onto what round.

Agreed, satnav for a local based round is completely overkill and totally OTT.

[Sir Squeaky]

I wasn't really including you Trev!

You're a different thing altogether, you bigwig management sort.

[Trevor Knight]

I wasn't really including you Trev!

You're a different thing altogether, you bigwig management sort.

lol, more like general dogsbody!

[stevekennedy]

Hi Trev, Steve

We need an upgrade from George and I was thinking Service CEO. Talked with Tom Harvell this afternoon. He wasn't sure about the UK postcodes. Said I might have to pay Royal Mail. Did you need to do this?

He also said that if I can have my data in a "Comma Seperated" format it can be automatically transferred. George has this function. Wondered if either of you had tried the automated approach?

[Skyglide]

Glad this topic has resurfaced. Have now purchased Service CEO. Agree lots of learning to be done, but videos are provided. Just started data input and I would say it's a great product and well designed.
Chris

[Russell Macdonald]

I use Window Cleaner Pro.

It works well for me & i can understand it.

Macc

[stevekennedy]

Hi Chris.

Thanks for the reply. Did you find that the postcode function worked ok?

Any problems so far?