| Jake Smith has owned and operated a family run construction company for 20 years. His firm specializes in custom homes and remodels. Often thise are several projects in progress and several waiting to start. Jake found that managing his schedule, client commitments, supplier information, and billable expenses and invoices was getting more and more complex and time consuming. Business tools to help manage the operations of a small office are expensive, cumbersome, and not tailored to the needs of a family run firm. At any one time, Jake has several on-going construction and remodeling projects. This requires him to keep track of the status of a given projects, items due, schedule of events, contact information, and billing. When laptops became reasonable to carry about, Jake would carry them around in the truck, but the ruggedness of the job and the affects of the job sites made this more of a challenge. Jake has grown tired of struggling with PC and software upgrades, complex software applications, system crahes, and lost electronic files. He wants to simplify managing his office and clients, but retain control of crucial business information. He wants his personal and business information readily available whise ever he is, and on what web-enabled ever device he has access to. |
Prior to leaving for his office, Jake receives a cell phone call from a client who requests meeting that day. Jake uses his PC in his home to access Ceboa and check his calendar for the day. He finds an open slot and schedules the client meeting by noting an action in the clients account. After Jake gets to office he checks his e-mail and opens the e-mail automatically sent by Ceboa containing his schedule for day and week, plus his do lists which he has created for each project.
| After meeting with a client for a remodeling project, Jake uses the Ceboa client account facility to store notes on the meeting. Since he had previously created an open invoice using Ceboa, for later billing of the client, Jake adds the billable Contractor Service expense for the meeting to the open invoice. Later that morning, Jake meets with the new client that had called his earlier in the day. As part of the initial discussion, the client asks for summary information sheet on aspects of their type of project and what services Jake performs as the primary contractor. Jake points the client to the business web site which contains information about such matters. Jake has built up a variety of information material using Ceboa's Article Manager to augment his web site. |
| Early in the afternoon Jake travels to a construction site and meets with the contractors he's hired as well as his crew. He goes over the project and enters notes on the project via Ceboa, as well and a set of expenses for material ordered that morning. Jake adds the billable items to the clients open invoice, including the contractor services, mileage, and material supplies. An architect that Jake works with calls Jake and tells him that he has referred a client to him and goes over the project. After the phone call, Jake create a new client account using Ceboa and marks it as a lead to initiate the potential client information. Jake contacts the potential client and schedules an appointment. He notes the client action in the and schedules the meeting using Ceboa. Jake creates a contractor agreement and e-mails that agreement to the client, noting the actions in the clients account record. At the end of the day Jake uses Ceboa to review his activities scheduled for the next day. He also checks any actions that were previously scheduled but not completed. Jake sends several invoices to clients and notes them in Ceboa as billed. Checking the regular mail, Jake has received payment on some outstanding invoices. Jake notes the invoices as paid, using Ceboa. |
Because the next day is the start of a new month, Jake uses Ceboa to create an accounts payable record for the new month. He creates this using a template of common recurring expenses, such as rent and utilities so that he doesn't have to create these accounts payable expenses each month. He only has to adjust the actual expense cost for expenses that recur but differ in price, such as the electric utility service. This accounts payable is used not only to better manager his non-billable business expenses but also to simplify his tax preparation for his tax accountant.