Question: I cannot find one report in ACT! that tells me everything!  The report that comes closest is the Contact Report but it goes on for pages and pages with details from the notes and history!  Can you help? 

Answer:  The new SQL version of ACT! is not as friendly with report creation as the older versions. However, with this report I can definitely help as we have customized it to be consolidated, yet thorough.

Here’s what we did:  Caveat: Don’t attempt this if you are hesitant. Always back up your database AND save any changes immediately to a new template. NEVER override any original template in ACT!

Click on Reports | Edit Template | Contact Report and immediately SAVE AS YourCompany Contact Report.

Building on the Original Contact Report, we made one simple change:  In the Regarding and Details portion of the Contact History and Contact Notes sections,

We simply changed that to Read: CH:Regarding, or CN:Regarding omitting the details. This gives us just the “Subject Line” of the Note and History without the details. 

Of course, once we got started customizing, we couldn’t stop! We added our logo, put the Opportunity Box up toward the top, eliminated the User Fields, even added a Text Option:  On-Site Notes. 

We print this Report when we visit a client onsite. It gives us a place to handwrite notes which we can later type into ACT! once we are back in the office.

This also takes the place of our Activity Report, whether we are looking at client or a sales rep in house.  Hope this helps!  Click here if you would like more information on customizing reports by reserving some one-on-one time with Barbara.