In our blog post from earlier this month, we discussed how to set up your database to track client anniversaries with the purpose of sending anniversary cards to your clients. We figured since we helped you with the start of this project, we may be able to help you with another step in the process—printing out mail merged mailing labels.

Why would you want to use this feature of ACT!? If you are sending out quite a few cards, it saves you time and energy to set up mail merging through ACT!. Hand-writing several envelopes can be a real chore and manually imputing contacts into your word processing software is also less efficient. Learning to use this simple, fast  feature now will save you time whenever you need to send out mailings in the future.

To start with, you’ll want to verify you have labels that are designed to work with your printer. In order for the ACT! template to print correctly to your labels, it is best to get labels that explicitly state they work with a laser or inkjet printer (for best results, by the type that correspond to your printer). Note that the labels you buy will have a label number—you will need this later.

Once you’ve selected your labels, you can get to the mail merging. First you will want to create a look-up of the contacts you will be sending cards to. Once you have your look-up of contacts, you just follow these instructions*:

        1.  Click the File menu, then click Print.

        2.  In the Printout type list box, click Labels.

        3.  Select the label that you want to use (should correspond to the label number on your package of             labels), then click OK. The Run Label dialog box appears.

        4.  Under the Create report for section, enable the desired option. In most cases this will be Current         lookup.

        5.  In the Send output to section, select Printer or Preview. (Preview allows you to view the labels             as they will be printed.) You can also print from the preview if you are satisfied with the appearance of         your labels.

        6.  Click OK to print your labels

And it’s that simple. Anytime you want to send out a mailing, you don’t need to spend your time writing out addresses or fighting with spreadsheets. Simply tell ACT! to print your labels and save yourself the trouble.

Could you use a personalized training to learn more ways ACT! can save you time on administrative duties? Contact our office for details at 847-520-0860

*instructions are modified version of this Sage ACT! Knowledgebase article

Summer is finally, maybe, just about here—depending where you live, of course. And summertime, while lovely for all things outdoors and vacation related, can also be a slower time for business. Due to this slow down, some businesses find themselves looking for projects that are aimed at helping improve how they run their business.

Well if you use ACT!, we have a small project for you: organizing your database to find customer anniversaries. Why do this? Sending anniversary cards is just a nice way to say, “I recognize how long you have been using our services and I appreciate your business.”

In fact that’s almost exactly what you can say in your anniversary cards. So how do you use your database to send out these cards?

Easy. Create a custom field on your contact view and name it “contract start,” “client start date,” or “anniversary” and make it a habit of filling it out once you gain a new client. When you create the field, you can set it as an annual event to make running your query even easier. If you set it as an annual event, you can easily go to Lookup, Annual Event, and then you can simply select your custom field from the dropdown, select current month, and then click Find Now.

The list that pops up is all of the contacts with anniversaries in the current month. From the search window you can print the list, schedule a to-do, or even pull up the contacts as a lookup for further refinement.

What you want your cards to say is up to you and can reflect your company’s values. We recommend scheduling a recurring activity for someone on your team so they can remember to send out the cards every month. This method makes it easy to say thank you to your clients without having to spend a lot of time trying to track whose anniversary is when. Plus it will give you something to do this summer that will make your clients happier.

Would you like some help setting up custom fields or sorting the contacts you already have? Please call our office at 847-520-0560 for help.