Can I send customer orders back to the office using this software?

[classixuk]

Hi there,

We've recently decided to ditch our old accounts system in favour of
Microsoft Office Accounting.

As part of the change, we have also decided to use Outlook with Business
Contact Manager for our sales reps to interact with the customer accounts.

I am having a very hard time working out how to expand the program outside
of the office walls.

We need our reps (6 of them) across the country to be able to collect orders
from our customers/update information without having to visit the office each
day.

They all have laptops.

I cannot work out how to re-create on a laptop, the same result that I have
across the LAN in the office; i.e. all of the computers in the office can
access our database using Microsoft Outlook Business Contact Manager, and
then place a sales order for any customer.

I need to recreate the exact same thing, but 300 miles away on a laptop.

Can anyone give me advice on how I can achieve this? Will I need to use
Windows Server or something, or can I install Hamatchi on the main office
machine?

I'd appreciate a little bit of advice.

Many thanks,

Chris.

 

[Lon Orenstein]

I'm not sure you can make that work, Classix... I don't believe Accounting
will synchronize -- BCM will, but not Accounting which is where the orders
are located. You could pretend that a Business Project is an Order and use
the 40 fields to customize it to be more order-like. That will synch and
then someone in the office could create an order in Accounting for them.
Not particularly elegant, I know, but possible...

Or, you could use Terminal Services and Remote Desktop to let them logon to
a PC in the office and create an order that way.

HTH,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
(e-mail address removed)
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
www.pinpointtools.com