From our Sold To / Ship To tab of the QuoteWerks quote workbook, you can search the contact database for a contact by name, company name, last name, email, or phone number. QuoteWerks will fill in the contact information in the quote by pulling the contact information from the contact that you searched for. You will never have to re-type your customer information.

Many of the fields in QuoteWerks have a lookup list option. When you press the F2 key while in one of these fields, QuoteWerks will display a list of values that you can choose for the field. You can create a macro value that pulls information from a field in in the contact record. For example, if you press the F2 key while in the terms field in QuoteWerks, QuoteWerks will display a list of terms options that you have previously entered. You can create a new option that retrieves a value from a field in stored in the contact that you use to store your terms.

The QuoteWerks contact database has Company AKA feature. This lets you specify up to 3 "Also Known As" (AKA) aliases for each company record. When searching for a contact by company name, if the search phrase finds a match in the Company, CompanyAKA1, CompanyAKA2, or CompanyAKA3 field, that record will be returned in the results. There are many fantastic ways to use this feature which you will quickly find very useful. For example, a company like "Center for Computer Resources" when asked for their company name may reply with "CCR". If you search your database for CCR you will of course not find it, because the company's full name is "Center for Computer Resources". Using the new company name aliasing feature, you can set CompanyAKA1="CCR". That way you will find their record if you type in either "Center for Computer Resources" or "CCR". Here is another way to use the Aliasing feature. You may use contact management software "GoldMine". The company that makes "GoldMine" is "FrontRange Solutions, Inc.". If you want to search your database to look for the phone number for GoldMine support, you will most likely remember the name "GoldMine" and not "FrontRange Solutions, Inc." In this case, you can set the CompanyAKA1="GoldMine". That way when you search for "GoldMine" it will pull up "FrontRange Solutions, Inc." Building on this, you could also store the name of your GoldMine reseller in CompanyAKA2, so that when you search for "GoldMine" QuoteWerks returns the contact information for both the company that makes GoldMine and the reseller that services your GoldMine installation. Another really great use for the Aliasing feature is to record company parent and child relationships. A company may have its own particular name like "Aspire Technologies, Inc.", but its parent company is "Lewe Enterprises". You may have "Aspire Technologies, Inc." listed in your database, but when they call you, they say their name is "Lewe Enterprises". In this case, you can set the Company="Aspire Technologies, Inc.", and CompanyAKA1="Lewe Enterprises". Another use would be simply to use the Alias as a nickname. Another use is when a company changes their company name. You can put the old name in CompanyAKA1, and update the Company field with the new name. This way, you will find the record when you search for the old or current company name. This is particularly useful when someone who has been with the company for a long time may initially announce themselves as working for an old company name either accidentally or they assume that your records have not been updated.

The QuoteWerks contact database has a ContextRef feature. This ContextRef field is located right below the Contact field. This can be used to make a contextual note about this person that is always displayed right by the contact name (rather than buried in the Notes tab). You can use this to store all sorts of useful information like "he is our new property manager", "met him at EHExpo", "met him golfing with John". You can also put things like "is a guy" or "is a girl" for help with unisex names. And of course you can use it to indicate how to pronounce someone's name, like for "Lewe" you could say "pronounced Loo".

The QuoteWerks contact database has a TopNotes feature.  The Notes tab is divided into two sections - TopNotes and Notes. Typically as you add new notes to the Notes field, the older notes get pushed further and further down. Often, important information then becomes buried in the middle of lots of notes. The TopNotes will always stay on the top. This is especially useful for recording things like warnings, notices, and instructions that you always want to see. It can be things like user id's, account numbers, instructions on how to navigate through their phone system like prompt [5] then [7], then [2]. You can also store information like "Always get signature for delivery. Always use their FedEx# 1234-5678-9. Typically we speak with John or Brian when accepting orders. If the customer asks for pricing, only Mike knows the special pricing they negotiated."