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We are using ACT vs 10.0. It is a memory hog. It required that we buy new computers. We currently run four users and will be adding a fifth this month. I had two new computers already, so I had to upgrade two and I'm adding another new one this month.
The application is great. We used a certified consultant to set up our database and migrate our data from Outlook and excel. It was well worth $750.00 for upgrades from ACT 9.0 and his time to do the programming and show us how to do things. The time to get staff used to using it and updating the data has been the most expensive part of the process. We're still new on it - but learning to use more and more features. The ability to mail merge letters to current look ups or groups of contacts is great. Recording histories and tracking opportunities makes the program awesome.
This week we have Kevin Taylor from Green Industry Solutions coming in to do a two day training on QXpress. We've had the application for a year but we've not used it since getting it set up has been more difficult than anticipated. My hope is that after his two days of training we'll be mostly up and running in QXpress. He tells me that QXP does what ACT does - but I would venture to say from my experience with it that ACT is, and Kevin admits, more robust than ACT for the CRM part of things. Kevin says they max out QXP looking to take advantage of every aspect of it. I can report back after the training and some time using it.
Either way, for CRM stuff - I think ACT is a good program. If you're looking to do invoicing, job costing and scheduling, QXP will be a better solution. QXP will do light CRM duties, but has more limited flexibility.
For the off the shelf price of ACT ($225 ish?) you can't program something in Access that is 1% as good for that cost or even ten times the cost. For the past three years I've been looking into a program that is right for us including the option of programming, and I finally decided that off the shelf programs with consulting made the most sense. It's taken me too long to arrive at these answers, but glad I finally did. If I had to do it over again, I'd do it sooner.
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