Customer Relationship Management Systems Comparison - Infoathand vs SugarCRM
CNP Integrations, as a leader in the field of customer portal (website) design and CRM integrations, is often asked to provide a client with comparisons and/or suggestions for CRM 2.0 implementation. Comparisons and feature analysis have proven to be a sound basis for meaningful and objective CRM evaluation.
The integration and seamless use of business data is critical for the survival of any small and mid-size businesses (SMBs). Typically, a SMB buys a CRM, an operations management system specific to their business model, an accounting system, an invoicing system, and potentially a service management system. Integrate those components into their customer portal (public web site) and the average SMB starts to feel like they are in the IT business, not their real business.
CNP Integrations has found with info at hand, the approach is quite different. info@hand is a full circle transaction management system built with; a Customer Relationship and Business Management System (CRBM) - a CRM at the core, with integrated operations management, service management and order management features, plus integration to your customer portal and (optionally) the market-leading QuickBooks accounting system.
As you view the chart, the comparison factors are organized by CRM function (Mobile Support, Project Management, Marketing, etc.). Note the features that you may find of significant importance and review a summary of these info@hand specific topics following the comparison table.
Feature
info@hand
Sugar OS
Sugar Pro
Notes
User Guide
x
x
x
Long Reach Corp also wrote the first several versions of the User Guide for Sugar Open Source and Pro, plus the first book to be published on SugarCRM (“Implementing SugarCRM”).
Installation Guide
x
Complete Installation Guides for Red Hat Fedora Core 6, Windows Server, Mac OS X.
Other Documentation
x
We add a User Guide for info@hand Mobile and Outlook Plug-in, and User & Install Guides for the Portal.
Product Catalog
x
info@hand also supports product assemblies, and adds a catalog import function.
Quotes
x
x
Only info@hand has easy customization of company name, address, logo, plus support for multiple layouts, multiple tax rates, discounts, price tuning using margin or markup, plus a quote approval workflow if required.
Sales Orders, Invoices & Incoming Payments
x
info@hand can create, print & email Sales Orders & Invoices, process and allocate Payments, process credit card payments, and print Statements & Receipts. Accounts reflect the current account balance. info@hand Finance for QuickBooks integration is available as an option. Sugar OS/Pro/Ent have none of these features.
Purchase Orders
x
info@hand can create Purchase Order PDFs for suppliers, and can record and allocate Outgoing Payments.
International PDF Generation
x
All info@hand PDFs offer full UTF-8 support for languages such as Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Korean.
TimeSheets
x
Timesheets may be filed for time spent on Projects and Cases, then approved or rejected, with costs automatically accruing to the Project or Case.
Resource Utilization & Costs
x
Resources have standard costs, with overrides available on a task basis. These costs are used to calculate forecast and actual project costs. Resource utilization view added in Calendar module.
Projects Module
x
x
x
Very different Projects modules - only info@hand tracks project financials and links to timesheets. Automatic email reminders for late tasks.
Service Contract Management
x
x
info@hand also tracks assets under support contracts, has automatic email reminders of renewal dates, & includes enhancements to Cases & Accounts.
Dashboards
5
1
1
info@hand offers dashboards for Sales, Service, Projects & Financials, plus a Personal one for favourites.
Custom & Std. Reports
x
x
info@hand adds interactive and scheduled reports: create & email reports and charts automatically!
info@hand supports more flexible workflow conditions than Sugar Pro.
Inbound User Email
x
x
info@hand has one or more accounts for each user, and adds email folder management. It also has a spell checker, auto email address completion, auto trash folder deletion, and full text search.
Related Documents
x
Documents may be linked to Contacts, Accounts, Projects, Opportunities, Leads, Cases, employee HR file, etc..
Enhanced Opportunities, Contacts
x
Contacts organized by multi-select Categories and Business Role. Opportunities organized by Probability % and Forecast Category. Note: Entire info@hand system has optional B2C mode for retail businesses.
Calendar Views
x
Added monthly Company Calendar, with views to track project resources, meeting rooms, etc.
Includes employee photo, online indicator, business card and thumbnail views.
Forecasts Module
x
x
Includes drill-down through sales reporting structure - viewing opportunities, pipelines, forecasts, quotas etc..
MS Outlook Sync Plug-In
x
x
info@hand includes an MS Outlook 2003/2007 Synchronizaton plug-in.
MS Word Mail Merge
x
x
info@hand offers server-side generation of mail merge files using RTF templates.
Mobile Browser Support
x
x
info@hand Mobile access via Windows Mobile, Treo, BlackBerry, etc... offers better small screen layouts
Customer Portal
x
x
info@hand‘s free Joomla-based Customer Portal has Forums, Cases, Bugs, Projects, FAQs, Event registra-tion, Invoice/Payment history and integrated eStore. SugarPortal is an expensive Pro option and offers far less.
Online Store
x
Customer Portal includes a VirtueMart-based eStore that offers info@hand’s catalog products for online sale.
QuickBooks Integration
x
info@hand Finance for QuickBooks option synchronizes customer & product lists, invoices & payments, etc.. with QuickBooks. RPS Technologies offers a third party option for Sugar Pro that is much more limited.
Trixbox (Asterisk) Integration
x
x
x
info@hand integration with Trixbox Pro is free and offers both click to dial, and screen pop-up on incoming call. info@hand also includes phone number auto-formatting on data entry to ensure consistent data quality.
License Cost (per user, for the On Premise Option)
$250 US
Free
$275US/yr
info@hand offers a one-time license fee that is less than the annual license fee for Sugar Pro. With Sugar Pro (& Enterprise at $449 US / user / annum) you never really own anything.
info@hand Customer Portal: info@hand customer portal is built using the Joomla Content Management System
This provides a customer self-service portal for your info@hand-enabled business.
Customers can now collaborate directly with you 24/7 as they access their portals on their time. Customers using the Customer Portal may perform many tasks. Some of these tasks require that the user be logged in (using username/password credentials you provide to them) and others do not. There are many features to this component, please refer to the Customer Portal User Guide here, and Installation Guide here, or try out the portal using the online demo here (username and password are both demo). This links to the database of our regular demo site, so you can check what is happening in the CRM by accessing the regular public demo site here (admin/admin to login).
When a sale is made through eStore, details of Account information, Invoices and Payments are automatically posted in info@hand. If you have info@hand Finance for QuickBooks (optional) installed, that same information will be synchronized from info@hand to your QuickBooks database as well.
info@hand Finance (QuickBooks)
With the dominant QuickBooks market share in our customer segment (1-200 employees); info@hand has developed an optional module called info@hand Finance (QuickBooks Synchronization Link). With this feature users can link key financial data within info@hand with a QuickBooks implementation. The key features of info@hand Finance include:
Continually synchronizes Accounts, Product Catalog (item list in QB), Invoice & Payment data, Opportunities (customer jobs in QB), currencies and taxes from within info@hand to the QuickBooks Accounting system.
This synchronization is accomplished through the QuickBooks Web Connector (QBWC), at intervals controlled by QBWC. QBWC is free, and provides a SOAP-based web-services interface with which info@hand Finance communicates.
info@hand Finance is compatible with QuickBooks software (2006 generation or later, Pro and higher versions). It does not currently support QuickBooks Online Edition (QBOE).
Note: QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit Inc.
info@hand Mobile: Mobile Handheld Browser Support
info@hand Mobile allows users of wireless phones or PDAs (with browser support) to access their info@hand server. Mobile users can review or update existing data and add new data. This function, though very powerful, can only access the principal modules including; Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Leads, Tasks, Meetings, Calls and Cases.
info@hand PBX:
info@hand PBX is add-on telephony software that integrates Asterisk/Trixbox/Skype/X-Lite Telephony systems into the info@hand Business Portal. The integration of these systems into info@hand provides:
Click to dial: Firefox browser Plug-in: Click to dial for Firefox, by info@hand
The click to dial capability is provided by an add-on for Mozilla Firefox 2.0 or later that enables click-to-dial capabilities for any software that displays telephone numbers on the browser screen. This add-on is called Click-to-dial for Firefox, by info@hand.
info@hand: Outlook Synchronization: Plug-In
The info@hand plug-in for Microsoft Outlook is available free of charge for all info@hand users, and utilizes the info@hand web services SOAP interface to integrate CRM functionality into Outlook. The plug-in is simply installed and configured on each client PC or notebook that needs this capability, and enhances the Outlook client installed on that computer.
info@hand: Email, News, Calendar & Directory: info@hand provides support and many features for;
Email Management:
info@hand lets you compose and send email (text or HTML format), plus receive email from one or more accounts per user.
Create custom email folders.
System automatically associates all mail to Contact and (optionally) Account history.
Organize and perform outbound email marketing campaigns
Many other features including full text search and Email signatures as convenient time-savers.
Personalized News Pages:
An RSS News page delivers personalized daily news for each employee.
See the top 5 stories for each news feed you select - and click to open them in a separate window.
info@hand is supplied with hundreds of standard news feeds, and you can add your own quickly and easily.
Check for schedule conflicts when planning calls and meetings.
Send invitations to colleagues and customers.
View your calendar by Day, Week, Month, or Year.
View the full company calendar by Month.
Check Resource and Meeting room bookings.
Display current project assignments for all billable personnel, to help maximize utilization rates.
Company Directory:
A photographic company directory displays telephone extension, department, email, mobile phone number, and SMS address for all employees. An indicator LED shows which users are currently online.
Corporate Human Resources data for all staff members, including salary information, vacation and sick days, plus all required statutory HR-related documents (based on your state or country) can be entered and viewed in info@hand. HR Documents are saved securely, and as with all HR data are only accessible to designated employees you establish.
info@hand includes a service contract management system that tracks the products on each service contract, and reminds you of service contract renewals. The Service Contracts module combines with the Products, Cases and Software Bugs modules to provide a comprehensive service management capability.
info@hand tracks the performance of current projects, and organizes a project by tracking the history of all project-related documents, status reports, tasks and contacts. This feature is virtually the hub of info@hand please refer to the info@hand user guide to outline a complete listing of its functionality.
There are several common sub-panels - such as Open Activities, History, Contacts, Documents and Opportunities - but also a special sub-panel entitled Project Tasks.
Project tasks include information about the start and due date for each task, the resources assigned to the task, the utilization percentage for those resources on this task, and the hourly cost for those resource on this task (by default the standard hourly cost is used from their HR profile).
When a project task is active, resources may book time to the project and to that project task specifically. At the end of each time period, resources file timesheets, which automatically include all time they have booked to projects or service cases during that time period.
Once their timesheets are approved, the costs for their work accrue to the project and are displayed on the project's summary table of costs and income. And a project's as-yet-unbilled booked hours may be invoiced at any time. With a single mouse click, the user has an invoice open with all billable hours detailed on it, ready to print or email.
The Company Calendar shows a table of all resources, their project assignments and utilization percentages when the Show Project Assignments checkbox is selected.
Customers may collaborate on projects via the Customer Portal, checking on the progress and anticipated completion dates of tasks, uploading or downloading project documents, and accessing contact information for project members.
Document Management:
info@hand enables the sharing of business documents - from HR claim forms and Marketing collateral to Engineering designs. Multiple revisions may be stored and tracked ensuring only approved documents are used. Documents may be associated with Projects, Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, or Service Cases.
info@hand manages and links financial information as part of its circular transaction management approach. You can create and organize a product catalog, and then prepare customer quotes, sales orders and invoices from that catalog. Once sold, products may be tracked by serial number or service contracts, with their associated case history.
Payments may be received and allocated to open invoices, and receipts may be printed as PDF documents. Statements may be created and printed for partially paid invoices, or as full account statements.
the optional info@hand Finance module permits the catalog and accounts data, plus invoices and payments, to be synchronized with QuickBooks at regular intervals.
Purchase Orders may also be generated and emailed to suppliers, and outgoing payments may be tracked and allocated to purchase orders to derive an accounts payable balance.
Disclaimer: Information included in this site is acquired from third party sources and believed to be accurate, however, may change without notice and is not guaranteed. CNP Inc. assumes no responsibility for its use and is not liable for errors and omissions. Each reader is strongly encouraged to further evaluate all criteria which are meaningful to them. All trademarks and copyrights used and referenced are property of their respective owners.
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