Quick Office Supply Tips!!

This is going to be the first of our new segment for “Quick Office Supply Tips.”  These are based on real questions from customers that we feel could benefit others considering purchasing office supplies, office furniture, etc.  The questions are not in any particular order at this time and they are posted as we receive them from our customers.  I really hope they help and please feel free to post comments!

CUSTOMER: Does the Quartet Magnetic Dry Erase Board promote “ghosting?”

QUARTET REPLY: Ghosting occurs as a result of the solvents (usually alcohol) in dry markers that effectively make the board cleaner where there has been writing. This remains visible after the ink is wiped off, but ghosting disappears after a short time. The Quartet Magnetic Dry Erase Board is not supposed to at all because it’s porcelain; melamine boards are at a higher risk for ghosting.

Protect Your Identity!

Since our sister site, OnTimeSupplies.com, is an on-line merchant, they are constantly upgrading their software with the latest security, and making sure that customers’ personal information is protected.  They take security extremely seriously and are always on guard for identity theft.

I was actually looking at a couple of our primary vendors sites and found some great information and products for typical consumers that will help keep your information secure.  Most of the tips are common sense, but there may be a couple of tips that maybe helpful for you!  Please feel free to add any that are helpful in the comments section.  Thanks!

FROM biggestbook.com “What can you do to protect yourself.  Here are some hints:”

– Don’t leave sensitive documents on your desk if you are not in the room.
– Make sure your file cabinets lock.
– Invest in a shredder to shred any sensitive documents, including rough drafts, client correspondence and the like.
– Make sure you have a desk drawer that also locks. A locking cash box or safe will work if your file cabinets don’t lock. It can be locked and tucked away somewhere inconspicuous.
– If you are purchasing a product online, for business or personal use, make sure the site is secure before typing in your credit card number.
– Make sure you have a desk drawer that also locks. A locking cash box or safe will work if your file cabinets don’t lock. It can be locked and tucked away somewhere inconspicuous.
– Don’t say anything in an e-mail that you wouldn’t want copied and spread around.
– Keep your voice low when talking on the phone about sensitive matters, particularly if you work in a cubicle.
– Avoid talking about personal matters on the phone unless you want the entire office to overhear.
– When sending checks, gift certificates and the like through the mail, use privacy envelopes.
– If you want to make sure no one opens an envelope or package except the intended recipient, use tamper-proof packaging that makes it obvious to the recipient that the package was opened.
– Turn off your computer when you leave the office. It won’t be as easy for someone to log on and access if your information if they have to start the whole system up and enter a password.
– Don’t leave cash lying around.
– Don’t leave home addresses and phone number of other employees, clients or friends on your desk where someone might see them.
– Be careful of fraudulent e-mails that ask you to click on a link embedded in the e-mail message to update your account information, credit card information or other private data. These are usually not legitimate.
– Do not open attachments to e-mail messages sent to you from someone you don’t know. They might contain a worm or virus that would play havoc with your computer system.

From Fellows.com website: “Twelve Steps to Protect Your Information”
1. Guard your mail and trash from theft and shred documents or letters that contain your personal information. Shred any documents containing personal information that you no longer need.

2. Deposit potentially sensitive outgoing mail at the post office or in collection boxes.

3. Carry only the identification and the credit and debit cards that you’ll actually need.

4. Secure personal information in your home, especially if you have roommates or employ outside help. Believe it or not, even family members have been known to steal personal information.

5. Keep your purse, wallet or forms with sensitive data in a safe place at work.

6. Don’t give out personal information on the phone, through the mail or over the Internet unless you’ve initiated the contact. Identity thieves may pose as representatives of banks, Internet service providers (ISPs) and even government agencies to get you to reveal information.

7. Don’t use personal information, like your Social Security number, as a password on any accounts.

8. If your state uses your Social Security number as your driver’s license number, ask to substitute another number. Do the same if your health insurance company or financial service provider uses it as your account number.

9. Ask about security and disposal procedures in your workplace and at offices and businesses that collect your personal information.

10. Order copies of your credit report every year from each of the three major credit-reporting agencies or through AnnualCreditReport.com (see inset). You are entitled by law to one free report each year, so take advantage of this important program.

11. Make a list of all of your credit card and bank account numbers with customer service numbers and keep them in a safe place.

12. Check financial statements promptly and report problems immediately. Follow up with creditors if your bills don’t arrive on time. It could mean a thief has stolen your account and changed your billing address to cover his tracks.

Here is some information that I found on the 3M site.  The screens provide privacy protection, glare reduction, and they also protect the screen from damage.  The reason I like this information is because it shows how to actually measure the screen.  I hope it helps.

It is critical that you measure your monitor screen correctly to ensure proper fit of your computer filter.

Be sure to measure only the viewable screen area.

For frameless filters, the size must be exactly what you measure. For framed filters, choose the size that is nearest to your actual screen measurement or slightly larger.

Find out which 3M™ Computer Filter will work best for your work environment and screen size with the Selection Guide (PDF, 63 KB).

3M™ Notebook/LCD Privacy Filters Filter Viewing Area
Height x Width
Filter Viewing Area Diagonal Fits Monitor Size
PF12.1 7-3/8″ x 9-3/4″ 12-1/16″ 12.1″
PF12.1W 6-1/2″ x 10-3/8″ 12/1/16″ 12.1″ Widescreen
PF13.3 8.0″ x 10-5/8″ 13-1/4″ 13.3″
PF13.3W 7 15/16″ x 10 5/8″ 13 5/16″ 13.3″ Widescreen
PF14.1 8-1/2″ x 11-1/4″ 14-1/16″ 14.1″
PF14.1W 7-1/2″ x 12″ 14-1/16″ 14.1″ Widescreen
PF15.0 9″ x 12″ 15″ 15.0″
PF15.4W 8-3/16″ x 13-1/16″ 15-3/8″ 15.4″ Widescreen
PF17.0 10 5/8″ x 13 3/8″ 17″ 17.0″
PF17.0W 9-1/16″ x 14-1/2″ 17″ 17.0″ Widescreen
PF18.1 11-3/8″ x 14-1/8″ 18-1/16″ 18.1″
PF19.0 11-7/8″ x 14-13/16″ 19″ 19.0″
PF19.0W 10 1/8″ x 16 3/16″ 19″ 19.0″ Widescreen
PF20.1 12-1/8″ x 16-1/8″ 20-1/16″ 20.1″
PF20.1W 10-3/4″ x 17-1/8″ 20-1/16″ 20.1″ Widescreen
PF21.3 12 13/16″ x 18 5/8″ 21 5/16″ 21.3″
PF21.6W 11 7/16″ 18 1/4″ 21 5/8″ 21.6″ Widescreen
PF22.0W 11-5/8″ x 18-7/8″ 22″ 22.0″ Widescreen
PF24.0W 12-3/4″ x 20-3/8″ 24″ 24.0″ Widescreen
PF26.0W 13 9/16″ x 21 5/8″ 25 9/16″ 25 9/16″ widescreen
PF27.0W 14 3/8″ x 22 15/16″ 27 1/16″ 27 1/16″ widescreen
PF28.0W 14 5/8″ x 23 3/8″ 27 9/16″ 27 9/16″ widescreen
PF30.0W 15 3/4″ x 25 1/4″ 29 3/4″ 29 3/4″ widescreen
Glass Framed Filter Sizes
(Desktop LCD & CRT Monitors)
Filter Viewing Area
Height x Width
Filter Viewing Area Diagonal Fits Monitor Size
Large (L) (PF400L/LB, EF200L/LB, EX10L)(Flat) 9-3/4″ x 12-3/4″ 16″ 14″-16″ CRT and 15″ LCD
X-Large (XL, XLB)(flat) 11-1/2″ x 14-1/8″ 18-1/4″ 16″-19″ CRT and 17″-18″ LCD
XX-Large (XXL,XXLB)(flat) 13 x 16 20-5/8″ 19″-21″ CRT and 19″-20″ LCD
Framed Lightweight Privacy Filters
(Desktop LCD Monitors Only)
Filter Viewing Area
Height x Width
Filter Viewing Area Diagonal Fits Monitor Size
PF317 10 15/16″ x 13 5/8″ 17 3/8″ 17″ Standard LCDs
PF319 12 3/8″ x 15 5/16″ 19 3/4″ 19″ Standard LCDs
PF317W 9 1/2″ x 14 15/16″ 17 3/4″ 17″ Widescreen LCDs
PF319W 10 9/16″ x 16 11/16″ 19 3/4″ 19″ Widescreen LCDs

Organizing Quick Tips – “From Piles to Files”

Here’s are a few useful quick-tips to avoid those piles in your work area

  1. Keep only those items on your desk that you use every day – stapler, calculator, phone, pencil holder, etc.
  2. The less often you use an item, the further from your desktop it should be stored.
  3. Keep personal items in one area. Then, move everything back an inch to increase workspace.

Pretty useful, don’t you think? Though it may seem like pure common sense, it’s certainly something that I could apply more often, and probably will now that I’ve read that.

That is the “Tip of the Week,” from the website of “Piles to Files,” a consulting outfit aiming to help companies improve their organization. You can find the company online at www.pilestofiles.com.

Though I haven’t used this firm myself, it appears to be a useful resource if you are willing to spend some money for some quality information to make your business more efficient. The company covers topics such as:

Organizing Paperwork
Managing Time
Personal Coaching
Home-based Business, Home Office Consulting
Seminars and Workshops
Training

In the words of Piles to Files, “Break Free From the Clutter!”

Helpful Hints: Making Your Office Faster & More Efficient

Many workers, whether in an office building or working out of the home, are constantly spending valuable work time simply maintaining organization of materials. As most know, doing this can be time consuming and as they say, time is money. I know I myself, as both an office employee and a college student trying to juggle a million different things at once, would like to maximize my efficiency so I can get meaningful work done quickly, and to take advantage of all the non-academic perks of collegiate living.

Luckily, there are many products out there that can be put to this use, making your office or study area more organized without spending the time, money and effort in hiring a personal assistant as I sometimes wish I could. And some of these products, for lack of a more Shakespearean description, are just downright cool.

Take the Wireless USB Modem, for example. In a tiny device about the size of your thumb, you get the convenience of mobile broadband access to networks, with a microSD card slot for storage to boot. Need to run to a meeting where you may need speedy network access, and running short on time to figure out the logistics of it? No problem, just take this mobile device with you and you can hop onto any EV-DO Revision A network. If I want to take my laptop somewhere outside of my workspace or office, or may need to use a completely different computer, I can confidently know that with this wireless modem and a wireless network nearby I can get my work done in the location I desire free of hassle.

Another product to make your office life a bit easier is the Scooter Rack. I know, having one job in an engineering firm with drawings and files everywhere, the office space can get pretty cluttered pretty quickly with drawings of plans and other necessary documents that need to be held on to, but in a discrete location. This compact portable rack can store half-size prints in an orderly fashion, and can fit beneath a desk, maximizing your usage of the available volume in your office. Besides maybe a trashcan and your legs, there’s plenty of wasted space under your desk, so why not put a product such as this to good use?

And finally, in the just plain “cool” category – the SILVER SEAL keyboard is fully submersible and dishwasher safe (believe it or not!) and made of special antimicrobial plastic. Everyone’s dirty little secret is their inevitable snacking at their desk, which of course leads to spills and crumbs jamming up your keyboard and causing headaches – with this product this won’t be a problem! (SEAL SHIELD)

Don’t spend more time than you have to worrying about connectivity, organization of files, and computer equipment being rendered extremely difficult to use – a smart investment in products like these today can save you energy, time, and headaches tomorrow.

Office Exercises Can Ease Your Body & Mind

Working in a cubicle or office all day, looking at the same computer screen and maintaining nearly the same position all day long, can get taxing on the body and make work uncomfortable and distract you from getting important tasks done. So why put up with it?

Here are some easy exercises that can help your body and mind.

The “Executive Stretch” – I bet many people do this exercise occasionally without even realizing the benefits of it.  Sitting in your chair, clasp your hands together behind your head, and press your elbows back so that you squeeze your shoulder blades together.  Repeat this 3 times, and do this several times a day to prevent your back from seizing up and to maintain your oh-so-important comfort level.

As we all know, staring at a computer screen for lengthy amounts of time can be taxing on the eyes and make your tired and unable to acutely focus.  So do the easy Focusing Technique by simply focusing on an object 20 feet away for several seconds, and slowly look around at other surrounding objects.  Doing this will make looking at your computer screen more bearable and will make you more productive.

Again, sitting still and staring at a computer screen may not be anyone’s first choice for what to do on a lazy Saturday, but alas, it’s Tuesday around 3 pm, and your neck is starting to kill you.  Try out the Neck Glide – sitting upright and staring ahead, just rock your neck back as far as you can, then glide it forward.  Repeat this 3 times, and repeat the exercise when your neck needs a breather.

Then there is the Arm Massage – While sitting at your desk, place one arm down flat on the desk, and with your other arm apply pressure with your thumb from your wrist up to your elbow, and back again.  Do this 3 times for each arm, and you’ll get some blood flowing again.

Tired of sitting down?  Well, just stand on up for this next one, known as Reverse the Curve. Place your hands palm down on your lower back, and looking forward, rock your upper body back over where your hands are to stretch your back and hips.  Make sure you hold the position when you are leaned back for 5-10 seconds.  Do this exercise 3 to 5 times in repetition, and throughout the day as needed.

Finally, there is one more simple exercise – the Leg Extension. Sitting down, stretch one leg out in front of you, and point your toes during the ceiling to stretch your leg and lower back.  Hold your foot in this position for about 5 seconds, then relax it.  Do this 3-5 times per leg and sitting down at your desk trying to get that last project out of the door will be a much more enjoyable experience.

These exercises may sound trivial, but they are helpful to your body and certainly your attitude while at work, increasing productivity while not having to suffer through neck cramps and other bodily aches that can impede you.  Besides, taking a few minutes to do some of these give you a good little break from working so hard!

MSDS Sheets: A Resource Guide

As an office supply dealer we get a number of request for MSDS sheets and we are always happy to help a customer with this need.  I have added some great resources that we use on a daily basis to help service our customers, and some information regarding what an MSDS sheet is all about.  I really hope that these resources will help our Smart Office readers.
A material safety data sheet (MSDS sheet) is a form containing data regarding the properties of a particular substance. It is intended to provide workers and emergency personnel with procedures for handling or working with that substance in a safe manner, and includes information such as physical data (i.e. melting point), storage, disposal, protective equipment, and spill handling procedures. The exact format of an MSDS can vary from source to source.
According to MSDS Writer “The need to communicate hazards of chemicals to users is of the utmost importance. The widespread use of chemicals, the development of new chemicals, and the need to re-evaluate the hazards of pre-existing chemicals contribute to the importance of MSDS Compliance. In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has created the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS) to mandate the use of a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) and provide information to people who use, handle or store hazardous industrial chemicals. The MSDS is used to convey the details on a material’s identity, manufacturer information, hazard identity, emergency information, instructions on what to do if a hazardous situation has occurred, information on the prevention of hazardous situations, as well as other technical information. Recognizing the importance of this document, many other countries (e.g. the EU, Australia, Canada) have adopted the HCS into their own chemical safety initiatives. Article can be found at the MSDS Writer Resource Guide.
To quickly look up MSDS sheet on Office Supplies, check out http://www.biggestbook.com/msds/home.asp (Just enter product SKU or description)
If none of these resources work out for you, contact the manufacturer directly. Biggest Book has contact information for all the manufacturers in addition to the MSDS sheets. I really hope that this article helps!
Miles D. Young
Smart Office
An Office Resource Guide by:

Appointment Juggling: Planners & Calendars are Critical

Appointment Juggling: Planners & Calendars are Critical

It’s Tuesday night. The clock says it’s four-thirty, but it feels as though it has been saying that for the last half hour. You were supposed to be finishing up some payroll busywork, but have instead found yourself fiddling with the contrast on your monitor. Perhaps making it brighter would make it more pleasant to look at. Darker? Mainly, you’re just trying to kill the last half hour before its time to go home. True, you could just leave now and no one would think the worse of you, but you like to set a good example for your employees. Besides, you like to leave your early escapes for Friday.

Then the phone rings. It’s your boss, and he wants to know why you aren’t at the meeting downtown! Oh no! You completely forgot about it. You scramble to make up an excuse, but he doesn’t sound happy. He advises you to meet him first thing in the morning so he can catch you up on what you missed. You hang up and lose interest in the contrast of your monitor and decide you have to do something about your appointments. But what is the answer? Is there one, or are you simply doomed to a poor memory and an inability to juggle time?

The Planning Calendar

There is an answer, and it is found in the planning calendar. At-a-Glance is but one company that makes a fine planning calendar. These calendars make it easy for you to keep track of all of your appointments, meetings, and special events that you have a tendency to forget. And you’re not alone. If everyone could simply remember everywhere they were supposed to be, planning calendars wouldn’t be one of the biggest selling office supply items on the market. You just need to take the time to get one, and get organized.

Of course, having a planning calendar will not do you much good if you do not use it the right way. You have to make sure you right everything in that calendar, no matter how small and insignificant. You then need to make it a point to look at the calendar every morning and plan your day accordingly. Take the time to thumb through the next few days as well, just to make sure there isn’t something on the horizon you need to be planning for today.

Overall Time Management

While a planning calendar is important, it’s not the only aspect of your overall strategy. You can do many other things to help you start controlling your time, rather than have it be the other way around. One of these ways is to start each day by creating a to do list. Granted, this isn’t a revolutionary idea, but are you doing it? Or do you easily get sidetracked even when you know there are things to get done. Having a to do list, and writing it up in the order in which the tasks need to be completed is an excellent way to start managing your time better. Encourage your employees to do the same. Just the act of creating the list can make you feel better and more in control.

Get Help with Time

Don’t hesitate to bring others in to your time management strategies. This particularly includes your employees. Make sure you use these people in such a way that they can contribute to getting tasks done and appointments kept. After all, that’s part of why you’re paying them. If need be, incorporate your family into the mix as well. If you have important tasks that can be delegated to anyone else, make sure you do so if you won’t have time to manage the project by yourself. Of course, when it comes to friends and family, this only works if you’re willing to do the same for them should the opportunity come up.

Time management doesn’t have to be the bane of your existence. If you take some simple steps to get it under control, you’ll find that you had much more time in your day than you originally thought, and you won’t feel that constant weight of stress crushing down on you throughout your days. Isn’t that reason enough to get things in hand?

Four Tenets of Office Management

When it comes to office management, there are some standards and practices you should always adhere to, regardless of your company’s specific product chain or your service industry. These tenets will help you to have a more successful office atmosphere, and keep your company on track for success in both the financial and human areas. One may be just as important as the other, because one naturally feeds into the other. You’ve of course heard the old saying about sharing the wealth.


An office that is making money hand over fist is a happy office, most of the time, or at least it should be. Of course, this won’t necessarily be true if the employer is underpaying the workers, but as long as that is in check, everything else should flow smoothly. The following are the four basic tenets of office management that can keep an office running smoothly.


Employment


Unless you are a company of one, employment will be a factor in your yearly decision making. Therefore, it is wise to have policies and rules in place for when the situation arises. It does not make sense to sort of throw your hands in the air and hire someone in a different fashion. That creates inequality in the workplace and confusion among the employees. Not to mention, things usually work a lot better when they are standardized. Does that mean taking the human element entirely out of the equation? Absolutely not.


No company should base their hiring practices on a set of rules so stringent that an answer to interview question (A) means an outcome of (B), or a resume that state (1) should always means (2) occurs afterwards. There should absolutely be room for judgment calls and the like. However, there should be policies in place as to how that employee is trained and brought into the working environment.


Project Management


One area where quite a few office environments fall behind is that of project management. Without strict guidelines and strong project leadership, employees are like a ship at sea without a compass or any sense of purpose or direction. A project that should have taken a week is turned in three months later. And whose fault is that? Is it the employees? Not really. Not if there aren’t guidelines in place about how these things should be handled. Without those guidelines, people in general are not going to work to the best of their abilities. Sure, there will be those who will rise to the occasion even without those policies, but they are relatively few and far between. It is much better to have the guidelines in place so that employees know their deadlines and have the tools necessary to meet them.


Office Furnishings


You could run a company budget dry trying to keep up with every piece of technology and office equipment on the market. On the other hand, an office could well be behind the times if the manager doesn’t spend at least some time considering what tools the office could use to maximize efficiency. It’s important to strike the right balance here. There are some great internet office supply stores that would be at home in the bookmark folder of any top executive. Take the time to peruse these stores and even sign up for email alerts about new products. That way you can take each product on a case by case basis and evaluate how it would help your company versus the money it would cost to purchase it. They will also let you do direct side by side comparisons of different brands. You may need a new multifunction copier. Do you go with Brother or Canon? These decisions can be made by carefully looking at price and feature comparisons.


Communication


This goes hand in hand with the last tenet. It is up to the office manager to decide how his employees will communicate with each other and with the outside world. With today’s technology, communication has changed in many ways. What was yesterday’s memo board is today’s email alert, what was yesterday’s meeting with a client might be today’s teleconference. Make sure you avail yourself of all the new communication options and implement the ones that make the most sense.

How-To: Keep Your Inbox from Taking Over Your Life

The computer age is great. Tasks that used to take days now take seconds, information is always there at the touch of a button, and businesses can extend their realm of marketability beyond their local walls and into the annals of cyberspace. With all of these positives, though, it must be said that there are some negatives that come with it.


If you are an office manager, you may consider email to be one of those negatives. Perhaps you treat going to your inbox as if it were a life sentence. How many spam messages will I get today, you think with a sigh. Then there is the matter of simply sorting through the good ones. Which ones demand your immediate attention and which ones can be ignored until later? Which ones are just the latest forward from one of your coworkers? If you are finding that you are spending too much of every day sifting through your email, this article is for you. We’ve devised a simple set of ways for you to get your inbox organized and turn your email back into a positive.


Folder Creation


The first step toward making your inbox a place of calm and peace is to create some folders. If you have ever done this with your internet bookmarks, you may already know how much easier they can make finding something (especially if you’re a bookmark packrat). Why not try the same thing with your email? A lot of people are not even aware of the many things their Outlook can do. This is a shame, because while Microsoft may not be the perfect company, they really have loaded their email program with a lot of features that probably go unused by ninety percent of their users. If you’re one of them–do one thing before go any further. Take an hour or so and just explore your email. Just play around with it. See what it can do. Chances are, you’ll be surprised by what you find.


Ok, time to get back on track with folder creation. Let’s say you want all of your client’s emails in one folder, all of your employee’s emails to go to another folder, and then your boss’s emails to go in a third folder. You can of course go on and on, but we will stop there for the sake of brevity, and since we have little way of knowing how you specifically want to separate your email categories. To do this, just go under File and click the New Folder icon. Label it something easy like “Clients” or “Boss”. No sense getting creative here and then creating an extra level of confusion for yourself when you go to retrieve your mail. Do this again and again for each of the various categories you want to make.


Directing Email Traffic


Once you have your folders in place, you may be wondering if you are going to have to copy and paste each email into the correct folder when they are received. Of course not, that would just be adding several extra steps and creating even more inbox confusion. What we want is to make your email life a little easier. So here’s the next step. You are going to create rules for each of your folders. This is done through the Outlook program and it can easily be set up to distribute your emails to the appropriate folders. You can set it up to go by subject line, or by the sender. This way, if your boss sends you an urgent message, it will go straight to the Boss folder you created, and you’ll know you need to take a look at that email and address it before getting to your other folders and any new messages you have in there. You’ll still have an alert in the main system itself that will tell you when you’ve received new emails and to what folder you should look to find them.


The Real Inbox


Now that you have sorted out your email inbox, what to do about the one on your desk, piling up with papers from every which way? Well, there are some simple steps you can take to clear that out and make it less of a burden as well. 3M and Rolodex offer a variety of products you may never have heard of that can help you get organized in a hurry. Take the time to find a good online office supply shop and browse their selection of merchandise to find excellent tools you can use to clean up the clutter.

Making Your Database Work for You

For reasons unkown, decades after this information has been possible to collate by computer, many offices refuse to make use of a simple databases to effectively manage their business. Perhaps you are one of these people. Maybe you see other companies figure out complicated results from surveys they take, from sales promotions they did, and you’re not quite sure how they did it. Maybe you think it was through some superior technology that you do not have access to. But nothing could be further from the truth.


The fact is, they are just taking advantage of this decades old technology called the computer database and then crunching the numbers they find inside. Running a successful office means keeping track of information. If you are not doing so, you are not living up to your full potential. A database can keep all of your business contacts together, so that you can access them at the click of a button. A database can hold all of the information about your last advertising campaign and reveal to you how effective it was in obtaining new business. A database can tell you which of the items you sell is the most profitable for your company.


Advertising Campaigns


One of the best uses of a database is for your multiple advertising campaigns. With an efficient and well put together database, you can access, collate, and compare information in ways you might never have thought of. Only then will you truly be able to get a sense of what has been working for your company and what hasn’t.


You don’t want to spend your time and money running an unsuccessful ad campaign over again, that part is self evident. However, what may be just as important: you don’t want to cut off an ad campaign that might have worked if it were not for other factors. That is why it is so important to keep and store information about every aspect of your campaigns. It is amazing sometimes how one little change or variance in wording can completely turn your ad campaign around. If your ad campaigns are more in the direction of marketing and referrals, you can do the same sort of thing with a database. You will be able to research what works and what has not. What sort of variables might you be able to implement that would increase your referral rate, and so on.


Contacts and Customers


There are too many great ways to keep all of your contact information in today’s digital world to still be trudging along the old way. Is there anything inherently wrong with the old way. No, but when there’s a quantifiably better way, why not put it to use? A lot of people are hesitant to bring new technologies (no matter how basic) into their lives or their workplace. And it’s true, there usually will be a learning curve.

Often there will be a period of a week or a month where you wonder why you switched. After that, it will be smooth sailing. You just have to force yourself to accept the changes and get over that little hump. Soon enough, you will be wondering how you ever got along without it. By stuffing all of your contacts and customers into a clean database, you’ll be able to organize them in any fashion you want, create hyperlinks between related contacts, easily duplicate contact information that falls under more than one category, and much more.


Accounting


Though the uses for a good database are practically endless, we will just take a quick look at accounting management and leave it at that. A database can do wonders in the area of your office finances. Keep track of all of your billing and receiving information, organize your debts and credits, keep your payroll together, and plenty of other things. The limitations are strictly with your own imagination.


Like we said, there are a hundred more ways to use a database, if not more. If you take a look around your office, you can probably come up with more ways without even blinking an eye. Keep in mind that not all of these databases need be electronically based. A good notebook by Universal or Ampad can give you same results in a more portable fashion. Give a try in one area of your office management, and it’s very possible you’ll find it wise to implement it in many others.