Customer Backup 2.3

If you own a small or medium business, and your clients' data is still stored inside various notebooks, or you're using Excel sheets to store information about them, it's clearly time for a change! The best part of the deal is that you don't need any database programming knowledge, since if you know how to use a computer, that's enough to work efficiently with Customer Backup, the program I want to show you today...


Setup

Created by Reohix Corporation, Customer Backup reached version 2.3, and its system requirements are pretty low - a 400 MHz CPU and 64MB of memory, with any printer for reports, if you want to use that feature. Priced at $30, Customer Backup is also available as a free to try software, of course.












The MSI installer available for download has 4MB in size, and installing it is very easy, but I have to mention one thing that I don't like here... Once the files are sent to the folder you have chosen and all changes to your system are done, you should be able to select an option called "Run the application when I press Finish" or something like that, but you don't get that choice here...Interface

Customer Backup has a tabbed interface with a fixed size, and some may complain because it would have been better to be able to maximize the main window. The way things are, if your computer's monitor is set to use a high resolution, the window of this program will be really small, but the good part is that despite the fixed size, Customer Backup's interface is easy to work with and all the graphics look very good.

Features

As you run the program for the first time, you're required to enter the details of the database administrator, so be sure to remember them and store the user name and password in a safe place. If more users are going to use the program, having a safe password would be a good idea (it's always better to use "1iJm_0iAf2" as password instead of "JaneDoe"...).












The usual workflow is at it follows - you create customers, enter their details, add products that were sold to them, and the status of the payment. Once your database has at least one entry, you can get charts generated for earnings and gender statistics. I wonder about only one thing - I know this program is not aiming to be used by large companies, but what about a company that works with other companies? Is it possible for a company to have a gender? That's pretty odd...Reports can be generated only to the printer, and that's one of the main drawbacks of the application. While the Business Scheduler and the Quick Note Creator are two nice additions to the feature list of Customer Backup, but there are also a lot of things missing. For example, I would like to be able to send email warnings to clients that have pending payments, and some export features would also add a lot to the value of the program.

Anyway, as I see things now, Customer Backup can help you keep track of your customers, and if we have a little imagination, we could also use it to track loans or as a basic appointment scheduler. Of course that I won't spoil the fun of discovering how to do these, so I'll move on and draw the conclusions now...

The Good

The best things about Customer Backup are its ease of use, its looks and the ability to help you schedule your meetings. Using more databases it's very easy, and there is also possible for an entire sales team to use this program on a single computer without breaking a sweat, as long as they don't try to use it at the same time...

The Bad

As I was trying to backup my database, the program crashed. Fortunately, it happened only once, and I wasn't able to make it crash again. Having a resizable interface could make Customer Backup's interface better, in my opinion. At last, having some export capabilities is another thing that I would really appreciate.

Conclusion

When I see advanced management software, I always end up thinking about how many users really get to use all their features, but this time everything is normal. While there are still things missing, Customer Backup has most tools required to easily manage a small number of customers and perform basic payments tracking and appointment scheduling. Since trying it is for free, you know what to do...

Developer: Reohix Corporation
Price: $30
Trial Link: Download