Thanks in advance to all you experts out there :D

I'm looking for a keyword search program that's cheap and easy to use for storing records by description (and perhaps a number) so I can file and keyword search for look-ups in months or years down the road.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

John

What are you gonna do with it?

I Bought a small Printing Business and i need to keep track of the orders. I can spend big bucks on a "canned" system, but can't really afford it now.

I want to be able to open an order... let's say for 67pat business cards and then when give it a number so I can file it after it's completed. Then a year from now when you want to reprint your card, I do a search for "67pat" and all of your orders appear. Something like that that's not "mega bucks"

-jd

You could do that in Excel with drop down menus that you can search by name, or any field you would like. Its a simple spreadsheet but may be easy for you to do. What field are you looking to search.

Name-Address-Phone Number-Item Number-Template Style-Date



Kev

Yep, Excel is the cheapest way to do what you want. You can download pre-formatted forms too for your needs, then either save them individually with filenames that make sense, or you can even use one file for each customer, and add a new sheet to the workbook for each order. The other not so expensive way to do what you want and have a lot more functionality than Excel, is Quickbooks. It's not "that" expensive, depending on how much you really want to spend, but it can keep track of your entire companies finances too. Let me know if you have any more specific questions about either of these options. I can even send you some sample Excel invoices I use on occassion.

FYI: This post belongs in the "Bug Hunt" section :D

Yep, Excel is the cheapest way to do what you want. You can download pre-formatted forms too for your needs, then either save them individually with filenames that make sense, or you can even use one file for each customer, and add a new sheet to the workbook for each order. The other not so expensive way to do what you want and have a lot more functionality than Excel, is Quickbooks. It's not "that" expensive, depending on how much you really want to spend, but it can keep track of your entire companies finances too. Let me know if you have any more specific questions about either of these options. I can even send you some sample Excel invoices I use on occassion.

FYI: This post belongs in the "Bug Hunt" section :D

Thanks for your info. I do have quickbooks and like it so far. I don't see where you can do a search though by job desc after it's been archived. BTW, I'm talking about 2 - 5,000 orders a year too. I didn't think Excel would let me search either, but I'm not an expert in it. I know a few that are, so I'll ask them.

Thanks again!

John

If you already have Quickbooks I'd stick to that. I don't have it installed anymore, but I'm sure there's a way to do custom searches in it. Try to research that.

Something like Google's desktop search?

Google's desktop search is included in the Quick Books 2007 Pro version. May be in 2007 standard as well.

I use ACT for my contact database. I have over 3000 files for customers and use it to track a lot of information. All the fields are searchable, and you can search mulitple fields at once. There are also custom fields that you can add and label for your specific purpose.