Overview of Prospect Management

With prospect management, you can now maintain information about prospects (or potential clients) in an independent data directory separate from your main client data. When a prospect is ready to become a client, you can easily move the prospect record (and all related data) into the main client database. Fundamentally, you create a special relationship between two data directories, referred to descriptively as “prospects” and “main”, so data can flow from one into the other.

Follow these steps to manage prospects:

Step 1: Identify your main Abacus data directory

Usually this is the default “Data01” folder, but you can create this relationship between any two directories.

Step 2: Create the Prospect Data Directory

This is a one-time task. This is the directory that will hold the information for all of your potential clients. If you have already created multiple data directories for a similar purpose, you can use an existing one.

Step 3: Set Up the Flow Database

This is also a one-time task. The flow database is a configuration file that holds the information that controls the relationship between the prospect directory and the main directory. It indicates where the prospect information will be copied when the prospect is promoted.

Step 4: Use normal Abacus actions to populate the Prospect Directory

You can maintain prospects their directory just as you would clients in the main directory. Add names, notes, matters and calendar events to track each prospect.

Step 5: Promote Prospects to Clients

You can promote prospects any time you are ready to make them clients. When you promote a prospect, Abacus copies the entire prospect record (and any related data) to the main Abacus database, thus turning the prospect into a client.