Download/HomepageMost information/contact/project management programs try to service everybody, with ill-fitting results. What if you need more? Or less? A contact manager may manage more client names than you’ll ever need, but not store, categorize, or cross-reference miscellaneous information very well. A project manager may track innumerable small details, but not from different clients. A freeform information manager might handle projects, clients, and information, but require time and skill to configure properly. Overkill in some ways, inadequate in others.
It’s refreshing, then, that Integra Software has introduced Client Tracks, focused on that specific subset of the workforce (freelance writers and programmers, lawyers, etc.) that does contract work for multiple clients. The main screen of Client Tracks is a simple calendar for scheduling "events," each of which can link to a defined client project. Once you’ve entered a project’s overall description, you can design a task-planning template for it. Also on the main screen is a stopwatch (for timing events), notepad, phone book, phone dialer, and a utility that will calculate the number of days between any two dates.
Too bad there is no way to track hourly charges or log phone calls, though. That seems like a natural feature and Client Tracks already has a stopwatch - why didn’t they just link it directly to a couple fields on the project form? Additionally, the online Help is wordy, ill-designed, vague, and occasionally misleading. You would think from the online Help, for example, that Client Tracks does some of the aforementioned calculations, but I couldn’t figure out how or where. (It even ships with the necessary bill formatting files - apparently unused.) It would still be worth buying if it was inexpensive, but prepare to be sticker-shocked by the registration price; ninety bucks (!!) is three or four times what a little program like this should cost, however handy and focused. Too bad. I wanted to recommend this.
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