Recs for good/simple client management app for photography business

[Orionpkmyz]

Hello all,
I'm starting out in photography (sorry if this is the wrong place to ask) and am looking for a client management app for my new iMac (my first mac). Obviously I don't have many clients yet so I only want something simple, not crazily complicated. Basically I need to have contact list, note areas, search function, and most importantly, a place to link files/folders (their albums) on my HD or external HD so I can access them easily. Is there such a thing available?

Thanks in advance!

 

[AsterixGM]

Tagging. Would like to know this as well.

 

[adversus]

You might have better luck in your search by referring to it by what it is: CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

There are tons, and tons, and TONS of options out there for CRM. Plenty of OpenSource solutions, cloud based (Salesforce.com if you get crazy), etc etc.

https://www.google.com/search?aq=f&gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=mac+OS+CRM

 

[Orionpkmyz]

You might have better luck in your search by referring to it by what it is: CRM (Customer Relationship Management).

There are tons, and tons, and TONS of options out there for CRM. Plenty of OpenSource solutions, cloud based (Salesforce.com if you get crazy), etc etc.

https://www.google.com/search?aq=f&gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=mac+OS+CRM

Thank you for pointing out the name. However, most of those sophisticated CRMs are way over my needs. I just need something very simple.

 

[jsm4182]

Check out Bento, its a simple database application. Its pretty customizable and easy to use. I use it to manage projects for my freelance web development work. If Bento doesn't have enough features for you you could look into the same company's larger offering, Filemaker Pro.

 

[snberk103]

Another way to go is to separate the photos and the back office. For example get a good accounting package (which you need in any case) that takes care of the billing, bookkeeping, contact management, etc.

Then use something Lightroom to manage the photos. Use Collections and Smart Collections to manage the client's images. In theory, you may never have to leave LR while you go from capture, to sorting, labelling, editing, etc. It even has a printing engine to do photo packages, and a web-page building module.

I don't do much of this kind of work, so don't know how robust this approach would be.... but for the work I do it works just fine.

Luck.

 

[Orionpkmyz]

Thanks, everyone, for your help!

Tagging. Would like to know this as well.

I found out about this software on a photographer forum called StudioCloud. Will download and try it tonight (offline desktop software is free, subscription required for online/advanced features).