Best Software intros new ACT! functionality to share contact info with QuickBooks 2003.

Best Software recently announced that its best-selling ACT! contact manager now offers an update to ACT! Link for use with QuickBooks.

The update includes additional reporting and data integration with Intuit's (Nasdaq:INTU) latest versions of QuickBooks financial management software, QuickBooks Pro Edition 2003, QuickBooks Premier Edition 2003 and QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 2.0.

ACT! Link for use with QuickBooks enables critical data such as sales contacts and invoice status to be automatically shared and updated between the two programs--thus eliminating the need for duplicate data entry on linked contact records, according to Steven Greene, president of Make the Grade Academic Services, an educational consulting and tutoring business.

"We have about 150 clients that we bill weekly, generating several hundred invoices a month. Each client may be in a different stage of the invoicing process and sometimes they decide to make double payments so it gets tricky," said Greene. "My clients are proactive about their children's education and we speak with them regularly about their child's progress. Since most client calls involve academic progress, ACT! is always open on my screen so I can access my notes and histories. With ACT! linked to QuickBooks, I no longer have to shuffle between programs to get the essential accounting data I also need. While I have them on a status call, I can also let them know that they have an outstanding invoice or thank them for being up to date with all of their payments. One of the main reasons we have been successful is the personalized attention and up to the minute information that we deliver. And, when a parent calls, we have answers for them."

With this update, users can generate and view reports from consolidated data organized and calculated by QuickBooks such as Customer Balance Detail, AR Aging Detail, Vendor Balance Detail and AP Aging Detail.

"The sharing of data between applications such as ACT! and QuickBooks 2003 products helps small businesses avoid having to manually enter the same data in both applications, which takes a lot of time and can result in data entry errors," said Esther Kruijver, director of Intuit Developer Network for Intuit. "ACT! is a perfect example of how our members are successfully using the QuickBooks SDK to bring valuable applications to Intuit's small business customers."