Sharon Meyer, ClientBase Product Manager

If you haven't been to a TMU or Summer Camp conference recently you should consider it. We are constantly adding new classes and subjects and put a great emphasis on the practical application of our software. Most recently we have started a line of training classes called Peer-to-Peer Training. These classes are actually taught by fellow ClientBase users. Who better to learn from than other agencies who are out there in the real world and have success stories they are willing to share!

Last month at our annual TMU conference, we were extremely lucky to have one of our ClientBase agency subscribers teach a class called Going Paperless. Nick Mageloff owns an agency in Florida called GRX and with the help of ClientBase and our Attachment feature has come up with a pretty amazing system that greatly reduces their dependency on printed documents. Below is an overview to his strategy and the benefits.

Going Paperless by Nick Mageloff

Are you tapping all you can from ClientBase? If you are not using attachments regularly, this one feature will save you your monthly cost of TRAMS! Do you think that sounds lofty? As a travel professional in the Orlando area using ClientBase and attachments I can say this with authority.

Costs in paper and ink from printing e-mail confirmations and faxes can be huge for even the smallest office. Worst yet, time required to file all these confirmations, invoices and faxes costs us our greatest commodity - time. Then, should you need a client's file, you often have to track down who has the file - so instead of travel professional, you play Sherlock Holmes!

Many times you'll read suggestions from TRAMS about ideas that are 1-2 steps and they save you time. This concept will be a little different. Look carefully at the instructions below. Read them over a number of times and let it digest. Try attaching a file or two in ClientBase. To properly implement this concept you will need to understand this completely to have your comfort level in the right place.

Client Booking and Confirmation Information
So what do I do? Each time you book a trip, request an e-mail confirmation. For those Suppliers that still only send faxed confirmations use a digital fax service (we use jConnect.com) to turn the faxes into electronic files. For those Suppliers that only mail printed confirmations use a scanner to turn the paper into electronic files. (A basic scanner is $50 up to a nice HP with a sheet feeder at Comp USA is $300.) Now that everything is in the digital format on your computer what do you do with them? Attach these files to your ResCards or Profiles in ClientBase.

When you need to reference something about a client's trip, just go to the Client's Profile! Sound really simple? That's because it is! Now anyone in the office (with the correct permissions in ClientBase) can access the attachments and see all the "paperwork" that has come in for a client's trip.

Naming your files make all the difference for future look-ups. To make this process simple, we use this format:

(Trip Date YY-MM-DD) Vendor Name (Notice Date YY-MM-DD) Client Name

Example: Client John Smith books on Royal Caribbean sailing June 1, 2007, confirmation dated November 3, 2006 name it as follows:

07-06-01 Royal Caribbean 06-11-03 Smith John

Financial and Tax Related Records
Every month we all get invoices and statements from the companies we do business with and it generates a lot of paper we call Tax Records. This same principle applies. Scan these records and attach them to the appropriate Other Profiles. Now when you need to look for a past phone bill, go to the Other Profile for your phone company - and there is each invoice under Attachments!

The format of naming is easy, we use this format:

Company Name (Invoice Date YY-MM-DD)

Example: A Bell Telephone invoice dated November 2, 2006 name it as follows:

Bell Telephone 06-11-02

File Naming Your Attachments
You will notice your date portions of the file names are year, month, day which allow the computer to sort the files into an easy to find order. It also allows you to quickly find what you are looking for in your Client's Profiles. If for some reason you have two different confirmations for the same trip and date, just add an 'a' , 'b' or 'c' to the end as needed.

Go Paperless, You'll be Glad You Did
We have been paperless now since 2003 and it would not be possible to organize with such ease without ClientBase. Like with anything new or different, being paperless does have some getting used to, but it is so worth it! The greatest hurdle to face is fear - fear of losing information, fear of not being able to get to the information when you need it. To overcome this ourselves we save every attachment on one of our servers after we attach it in ClientBase. This way we can always find a file because of the naming methods. Furthermore, our Attachments Folder and our ClientBase data is backed up to a DVD and an online internet based backup company (iBackup.com) every single night, and best yet, it is automatic.