ACT! by Sage 2008

The Leading Contact Management Software for the past 20 years

ACT! by Sage enables individuals and organisations involved in selling or other contact-driven roles to Make contact, Build relationships, and Get results.

With ACT!, you can instantly access detailed contact and customer information, manage and prioritise activities, and track all contact-related communications to help you build productive business relationships.

Renowned for its ease of use, ACT! can be tailored by each user and offers robust integration with the tools you use everyday such as Microsoft® Office®, Lotus Notes®, accounting products, and handheld devices. ACT! works in a single user or networked environment for up to 9 users. If you need to network more than 9 users, please consider ACT! Premium.

New and exciting features
ACT! 2008 delivers a host of exciting new features, as well as enhancements to existing features, including:

ACT! by Sage allows you to:

Centralise Centralise critical contact and customer information and stay organised
Manage Manage and grow business relationships through top-notch communications
Prioritise Prioritise your work to stay on top of appointments and tasks
Forecast Forecast and track sales opportunities for an improved bottom line
Access Access and report on information quickly for a complete view of customer interactions
Productive Stay productive by taking critical information on the go


Organise your ContactsOrganize Your Contacts
ACT! is a single, central repository for critical contact and customer information captured across your business. It enables you to access detailed contact and customer information, manage calendars and activities, capture all customer communications, track opportunities through the sales process, and report on overall effectiveness.
  • Track complete customer data: contact details, notes and history, appointments and to-do items, documents, and new opportunities.
  • Populate 60+ pre-defined fields including Name, Company, Phone, Address, Web site, E-mail, and ID/Status, or add your own.
  • Enter virtually unlimited date- and time-stamped notes and history. View a list of notes and/or see the entire contents of a note with split-panel note preview.
  • Create Company Records and view a roll-up of notes, history, and opportunities tied to contacts at those companies.
  • Use the Groups feature to easily organize, communicate, and schedule with related contacts.
  • Attach documents directly into Activities, History, or Documents tabs. Even when you are in Microsoft Word and Excel3 , you can attach documents and spreadsheets to ACT! contacts so it’s easy to quickly locate presentations, proposals, quotes, and more.
  • Create notes, history, activity, and opportunity details using Rich Text Formatting that supports colors, bullets, graphics, URLs. Customise your layouts, including changing colors, adding logos, and moving relevant field displays for greater visibility so ACT! is unique to your business.
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Stay in TouchStay in Touch
Track all of your critical contact and customer communications on the Contact Record for quick and easy referencing. Utilise the ACT! E-mail Client integrated with Lotus Notes or Microsoft Outlook Express, or integrated directly with Outlook to send outbound e-mails to contacts and create contact history on the Contact Record. ACT! Mail Merge allows you to correspond with multiple contacts, either via e-mail or paper correspondence, and automatically track a history on each Contact record.4
  • Track customer correspondence for a history of all communications with a contact and its organisation.
  • Quickly identify the last communication with a contact from the Contact Detail View with the Last Reach, Last Attempt, Last Meeting, Last Letter, and Last E-mail fields.
  • Write letters in ACT! using Microsoft Word5 or the ACT! built-in Word Processor which supports tables, graphics, HTML, and spell checking.
  • Select a group of contacts and perform a mail merge to a letter or e-mail. A history is automatically generated on each Contact Record.
  • Use pre-formatted templates to save time on e-mails, letters, and memos. Easily customise the HTML graphical templates to e-mail customers.
  • Create, send, and track e-mail to/from contacts using ACT! E-mail Client integrated with Microsoft Outlook Express or Lotus Notes or integrated directly with Outlook and create a history for all e-mails sent.6
  • Utilise direct Outlook e-mail integration from within ACT! to send messages.7
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PrioritisePrioritise Your Work
Stay on top of your deliverables with multiple Calendar views within ACT!, including Daily and a customisable Work Week view. Calls, meetings, and to-do items can be filtered by priority, date range or user, even displaying totals for each type of activity. And, Activity Alarms will help you stay on top of all your time-sensitive deliverables.
  • Schedule calls, meetings, and to-dos quickly and easily.
  • Filter calls, meetings, and to-do items by priority, date range, or user.
  • Access Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Calendar views.
  • Calendar pop-ups make it easy to view activity details instantly by mousing over any activity for an "at-a-glance" view.
  • Use Activity Alarms to stay on top of deliverables.
  • Schedule recurring activities at once for repeat tasks. Activities are linked to one another so a date change in one can push out other activities.
  • Synchronise your ACT! and Microsoft Outlook7 calendars to facilitate appointment scheduling with company employees not using ACT!.
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Track Sales OpportunitiesTrack Sales Opportunities
ACT! enables you to track sales opportunities from initial inquiry through close utilising the standard sales process or a process customised to suit your business. When working an opportunity, simply click follow-up and a new activity will be created automatically with the opportunity details – ensuring the prospect is managed as it moves through the process. View and report on all your sales opportunities so you always know where you stand.
  • Use the built-in sales process or customise it to suit your specific needs.
  • View all sales opportunities at once or filter by Users, Estimated Close Date, Status, Sales Stage, Amount, or Probability of Close.
  • Use the Product List to easily enter repeated products or services and automatically fill in information such as name, item number, cost, and price.
  • Generate instant quotes3 for any opportunity without having to re-key information.
  • View graphical Sales Pipeline and drill down to see opportunity details.
  • Choose from 20+ pre-formatted Sales Reports or export to Microsoft Excel with one click for further analysis using built-in, customisable pivot tables.
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Report on ActivitiesReport on Activities
Instantly access every important contact or detail using advanced Lookups or Keyword Searches. At the end of the week or month, it’s easy to report on activities with one of 40 standard reports that ship with ACT!, 20 of which are specifically focused on sales activities.
  • Perform a lookup on most fields or use Advanced Keyword Search and ACT! will highlight the keyword in particular note, history, activity, or opportunity.
  • Perform numeric lookups such as greater than or less than queries and easily edit a row or rows within the query to better suit your search needs.
  • Access 40 standard reports including Phone Lists, Activity Reports, Referral Source, and Sales Summaries.
  • Use the Report Designer to create custom reports and send most reports to Excel3, HTML, PDF, or e-mail.
  • Customise Priority, Activity, and History types for better tracking and analysis.
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Information on the GoInformation on the Go
Take your critical contact and customer information with you so you can be more productive, whether you are in the office or on the road. With ACT!, you can link to a Palm OS or Pocket PC device so you have the information you need at all times.
  • Synchronise your ACT! Calendar, Contact and To-Do information, Notes, and History items to Palm OS or Pocket PC devices.
  • Print over 20 templates designed for popular paper organisers so you always have your schedule with you.
  • Print from any ACT! calendar template and the contact phone number for any scheduled call is automatically printed on the calendar.
  • Access critical contact and customer details through Citrix® or Terminal Services8 when out of the office.
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1 For complete details, contact Sage Business Solutions.
2 You must purchase one license of ACT! per user.
3 Requires Microsoft Excel and Word 2000, 2002, or 2003.
4 Requires Microsoft Outlook 2000, 2002, or 2003. Requires Lotus Notes 6.5. Requires Outlook Express 5.5 or 6.0. ACT! must be added as an Outlook address book to use this feature.
5 Requires Microsoft Word 2000, 2002, or 2003.
6 Requires Microsoft Outlook 2000, 2002, or 2003. Requires Outlook Express 5.5 or 6.0. Requires Lotus Notes 6.5. ACT! must be added as an Outlook address book to use this feature.
7 Requires Microsoft Outlook 2000, 2002, 2003. During setup, users must select if they want to access Outlook e-mail through the ACT! E-mail client or direct integration with Outlook.
8 Citrix and Terminal Services require specific configurations. Citrix supported using Presentation Server V3.0 and V4.0.

To purchase ACT! or to upgrade your current version please visit our eStore.

Sage Business Solutions is a leading provider of end-to-end accounting software and business management software solutions. Numerous awards confirm Sage Accpac as the best accounting software for large, mid-size and small business. ACT! By Sage is the ideal customer contact and client manager software. For a highly functional and scalable Customer Relationship Manager software solution turn to Sage SalesLogix or for an Internet based Customer Relationship Management solution your perfect choice is Sage CRM. No matter which Sage solution is right for your business, you’ll find it to be easy to implement, easy to use and easy on your budget. Contact Sage Business Solutions today.
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