FMSmallBusiness
Download and Purchase
FMSmallBusiness is $300 as unlocked open source FileMaker code. Contact us for more information. Built on the excellent FileMaker framework, FMSB is designed to be customized for your needs.
Updated for FileMaker Go! However, any items that require FileMaker Extensions, Unsupported Script Steps, or Unsupported Functions will not function.
Requires FileMaker Pro. FileMaker Server is suggested. See requirements below… FileMaker Pro Pricing via CampSoftware, Amazon.com
What is FMSmallBusiness
FMSmallBusiness (FMSB) is a complete solution for running a small business that tracks Contacts, Calendars, Schedules, Activities, Projects, Documents, Letters, Products, Invoices, and more. Think of it as a CRM (customer relationship manager) with more power.
FMSmallBusiness is a cross platform solution built using the award winning FileMaker Pro database platform. You can run it on Mac, Windows, or a combination of both. If that’s not enough, portions work on the iPhone or most web browsers. We’ve designed it to work as either a single or multiple user solution on up to 250 workstations.
Look and Feel
Benefits
We developed FMSB to run our own business. In fact, we run the latest version ourselves as we believe in ‘eating our own dog food’. Using this approach, we are able to make the product better simply by using it. We think FMSB is the best solution to run a small business. Here are a few benefits:
- Customizable – FMSB is built on FileMaker Pro and developed from the start with individual customizing in mind. FMSB has a ‘main’ file and a ‘custom’ file. The custom file is designed in an open fashion so that anyone with FileMaker experience can make changes or even add functionality.
- Shared Contacts – Access your Contacts in one centralized location. When you change the details for a contact, everyone in your company will benefit from the updated information.
- Shared Calendar – Calendar events function in a similar manner as Contacts. Whenever an event is edited, the changes are automatically made for everyone in your company.
- Projects & Activities – FMSB makes task management easy because it has the ability to store your activities with the option of assigning them to a project—Great when it’s billing time! Projects and Activities can be assigned to a contact and staff member It can also include billable items, such as labor, attached for later invoicing.
- Income Catching – Track your time and stop losing income by tracking your time and items using FMSB’s built in Timers, Activities, and Events.
- Invoices & Products – FMSB has built in Invoicing as well as a Products modules which can help with reordering levels.
- Shared Documents – In many small businesses, you have documents that are related to your contacts and activities. FMSB has the same functionality. Each contact or activity can store as many documents and letters as you’d like–And they can be accessible to everyone in your company.
- Mail/Email Merging – Track all correspondence with your contacts. We’ve created easy to use Document generation and Merging assistants to make document storage simple.
- Data Availability – Access your data at your desk, on the road, or on your phone. Your data can be accessed via your computer anywhere in the world via the internet over a secure connection. Plus you can use your iPhone to access Contacts an Events.
- Desktop Integration – Easily update your contact and calendar data to Mac OS X’s Address Book and iCal. FMSB can create a vCard for your contacts and iCal subscriptions for your calendars. Any application that support vCard and vCal files can use the data
Key Features
| Contact Management Contact Groups vCard Importing & Exporting Activities & Project Tracking Invoicing Product Tracking |
Calendaring & Scheduling iCal Subscriptions of Calendar Events Event QuickAdds: ’7/4 9p Fireworks’ Letters and Forms Mail Merges |
Screenshots Show More
Contacts
Contacts-Maps
Contacts-Plot
Invoices
Invoices-Tracking
Calendar
iPhone-ContactsList
iPhone-EventsList
Videos
Click on a video to learn more. We take requests! Just Email a suggestion.
| Getting Started Interface Overview 12/4 |
Contacts Import via vCard 12/8 Import via Text File 12/8 Export vCard 12/8 Copy to Clipboard 12/8 Quick Finds 12/11 Groups 12/11 Document Merging & Templates 12/11 List View Selections 12/11 |
Activities Activities Overview 12/24 Billing – Calendar Events 12/24 Billing – Timers 12/24 Billing – Unbilled Activities12/24Invoices Invoices Overview 12/12 |
Reviews
I am a Mac software consultant and have worked extensively with several CRMs. FMSB is a worthy contender, exemplary of the power and flexibility FileMaker offers.There is a lot to like about FMSB. First off, it is a very polished application, rich with intuitive functionality, like out-of-the-box Skype dialing. You can check out their demo/training videos on their website, so I won’t be a complete feature creature here. Let me just list some of the most standout aspects IMO:
- Comprehensive and flexible groupware CRM functionality
- Completely extensible, and the developers are more than willing to accommodate
- Extremely robust searching, from quick find to advanced queries
- Rock-solid FileMaker database engine
- Integrated SMTP functionality (i.e., send e-mail directly from FMSB)
- E-mail and letter merge
- Integration with Gmail (very clever use of automated searching!)
- Geo-tagging and Google maps plotting
- Integrated invoicing with helpful un-billed activities reminders
- iPhone webapp client (I haven’t implemented this yet)
- Concerns/areas for improvement:
- Pricey comparative to other SMB CRM solutions, especially when you factor in FileMaker server licensing
- Syncing with iCal and Address Book
- More comprehensive Google Apps integration
- Off-line sync (for multi-user environments)
- To do list functionality could be separated from project-oriented activities and streamlined
All-in-all, FMSB is reliable and robust. It “just works.” While I have actually rated other CRM software higher on this site in the past, I do think FMSB has some of the greatest potential. So my 4-star ratings here are not meant to suggest that this isn’t a 5-star app. Rather, as great as it is, I think we’re in for a lot more from this developer. And as far as voting with my feet goes, this is currently my CRM of choice.
Support and Maintenance
Support is available at our standard rates. We can provide support via phone, remote control, or at your office. Email support is free.
Joining our Maintenance Plan is the easiest way to get the latest upgrades. We supply one year of upgrades at no additional cost. After one year, a Maintenance Plan is required at a cost of $100 per user per year to continue receiving upgrades. This covers FMSB only, not the FileMaker Pro software. FileMaker Pro upgrades will be at an addtional cost. There may be FMSB upgrades that require future version of FileMaker as new features are implemented.
Customization and Source Code
FMSB is designed to be easily customizable. To make customizations easier, we divided the solution in to a ‘main’ and ‘custom’ file. Any development changes should be applied to the custom file to make upgrades easier to apply. Changes to the main file may make upgrading difficult.
Access to the FMSB source code is available for $1200 and includes two hours of consulting time. Alternatively, we will make the source code available and include ten hours of consulting time for $2000. Additional consulting time will be billed at our standard rate. The appropriate number of user seats must be purchased along with the source code. The purchase includes access to the source code for one organization.
System Requirements
Since FMSB is built on FileMaker Pro, a FileMaker Pro user licence is required for each user as well as a FileMaker Server licence, if needed. We highly suggest implementing FileMaker Server as it provides scheduled backups and connectivity for multiple users. While we can provide FileMaker Server hosting, we suggest serving your database on a computer on your network for best performance.
FileMaker Pro Clients and FileMaker Server are not included. If you are already a FileMaker licensee, you do not need to purchase FileMaker Pro again as long as it is up to date. We can provide special pricing on FileMaker products or FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Server can be acquired from Amazon.com. Our pricing is better than Amazon.com and is non refundable, payable by check.
- FileMaker 10.0v3 or later. FMSB ships with FileMaker extensions which are automatically installed.
- Operating System requirements must match FileMaker Pro requirements with the exception of the screen resolution must be 1024×768 or larger. Slightly larger screens will reduce scrolling. A faster CPU and additional RAM will perform better.
Questions and Answers
A: Yes. FileMaker Pro can share a database with a total of ten computers.
However, we strongly encourage everyone to use FileMaker Server just for the fact that it has the ability to automatically backup the database file. In addition, FileMaker Server will allow you to use the web based iPhone interface and iCal calendar subscriptions.
A: The very first time FMSB has to download several FileMaker Extensions and unfortunately, it is very slow. Normally you would see a progress bar, but we're using an Extension to show progress bars. It's a chicken and the egg kind of problem.
Another option would be to click 'Advanced' and then 'File' then 'User' to install the Extensions from the internally stored Extensions. The install process is better using the default method, but faster using the internally stored method.
A: By default, FMSmallBusiness uses the default FileMaker extensions folder when it installs the extensions. The extensions only work with FileMaker and will be inert when FileMaker is not running.
- Windows XP: C:Documents and SettingsUser NameLocal SettingsApplication DataFileMakerExtensions
- Windows Vista: C:UsersUser NameAppDataLocalFileMakerExtensions
- Mac OS X: Macintosh HD:Users:User Name:Library:Application Support
A: Data that can be exported from any other application can be imported into FMSmallBusiness. That said, much of the importing may need to be accomplished manually. If you have the FMSB source code you can do this yourself, otherwise we can assist with this at our hourly rate. You can import your contacts easily if you data in is vCard format by going to Contacts and choosing Import via vCard from the Contacts menu. You can do the same thing in the Calendars module if you import a vCal file.
A: Yes. You can create a Calendar Event that is either an Event or To Do that is connect to a Contact.
A: Yes. One email attachment can be email if you use either your email client or SMTP. If you use SMTP, you can automatically attach the selected document and then manually choose additional attachment.
A: We have not tested the connection with Android. The iPhone screens on our site are actually web pages, os it should work. That said, those web pages provide access only to Contacts and Events. If you needed access to other modules, that could be customized to your needs.
A: FMSB allow for Documents to be stored using two methods. One method that we do not suggest is storing the documents in the database file using 'FileMaker Containers'. The second method uses 'Super Containers' which store the documents on your servers hard drive as files. Normally, you would never access the file structure directly, but rather access the documents from the FileMaker database. You could store the SuperContainer documents in a DropBox folder, but the paths to the files are not meant to be directly accessed.