WHen you are about to creat a new company in your CRM database you should make sure that the company is not already in the system.

ChannelCRM tries to help you avoiding duplicates, but there is no harm done in trying the search function to see if the company is there already.

A new company can be created from the main menu: Files| New | Company. Or directly from the company window by pushing the button New.

Now you have to enter the company name and the phone number. The system wil show you a list of companies that "looks like" the company you are creating.Below we are creatin Escargo Inc. which to the ChannelCRM system is quite similar to Escargo A/S. Therefore we are warned about the similarity in the names.

If you choose OK, the company is created and you will see the company window. Now you may enter the information you have avialable. The system does not require you to enter any values, it is up to you and your company's standards to enter information. Obviously - as long as the information is accurate - the more the better.

You should make sure that the information you have entered is correct. The time spent securing correct data entry, is much better spent than the time needed trying to figure out what to do about bad or inconsistent data later.

When yo are searching for a company it is often usefull to search by zip-code or relation (prospect, customer ..). The more information you have about the companies in your database the more valuable the database will be to you.

If a duplicate company was entered, your can clean it up. Please look under how to remove duplicates.

As time goes on it is quite possible that theinformationa bout you companies and contacts becomes somewhat outdated, unless you keep it updated. If you are tired of updating manually please note that ChannelCRM can automatically import and cleanse company and contact inofrmatio from NN Marketdata. If you are using a different supplier of company information - please do not hesitate to notify us.

Please refer to Data Import for an explanation of, how companies can be created and updated automatically.