Company Names

[tassiecelt]

Hi, first question here..

entering client names from the Mac addressbook into TM seems to select personal contact names. I would rather have the company name inserted. Is there a way of doing this?
thanks in advance.

[Adam]

We will have to research if there is any way to do that.  The API for the Address book is kind of limited for this.  We'll see if there is anything we can do.

[tassiecelt]

Thanks, I can edit the short name manually of course, but it would be nice to have that option.

[Spyderturbo007]

I am also having a similar problem when importing from the contact list of both the iPad and the iPhone.  I currently use a contact name and company name when entering a new contact.  This leads to Time Master only using the contact name and not the company name when creating time entries and invoices.  This gets a little confusing for clients when I send them an invoice.  I would assume it has to do with the services being tax deductible and the company name not appearing on the invoice.  Then I have to create a new contact, delete the invoice, time entry and recreating everything. 

It would be nice if both the contact name and the company name would appear on the invoice. 

Thanks!

[Adam]

Hi, first question here..

entering client names from the Mac addressbook into TM seems to select personal contact names. I would rather have the company name inserted. Is there a way of doing this?
thanks in advance.

After re-reading your first note, I see that you said that you are on a Mac.  If you are using the Mac Address Book, there is a *checkbox* that says "Company" when editing.  If you check that, it will show the Contact using the Company name instead of the First, Last name.  If you sync that with the iPhone, it will also change the priority and when you Copy in Time Master, it will choose that Company name instead of the persons name.  This is only an option for Mac users as on Windows, there is no easy way to set the priority of labels.

[Adam]

I am also having a similar problem when importing from the contact list of both the iPad and the iPhone.  I currently use a contact name and company name when entering a new contact.  This leads to Time Master only using the contact name and not the company name when creating time entries and invoices.  This gets a little confusing for clients when I send them an invoice.  I would assume it has to do with the services being tax deductible and the company name not appearing on the invoice.  Then I have to create a new contact, delete the invoice, time entry and recreating everything. 

It would be nice if both the contact name and the company name would appear on the invoice. 

Thanks!

You should have the Company name in the "Full Name".  The "Short Name" is used for two things.  1) it is used on the device itself.  I usually abbreviate my customers names (for example if I had a company called "American Broadcast Systems" I would set the Short Name to "ABC").

We don't have a specific field for the persons name, however you can just add it in the "Address" block.  So you could have:

Attn: Mr. John Doe
123 Main Street
Suite 2B
Anytown, NJ 07123

And that will print on the invoice.

[tassiecelt]

Thanks Adams, I did wonder if that would be a solution. I've not been in the habit of ticking the Company box in Mac Address Book, but I will and see if that works better.

[Spyderturbo007]

You should have the Company name in the "Full Name".  The "Short Name" is used for two things.  1) it is used on the device itself.  I usually abbreviate my customers names (for example if I had a company called "American Broadcast Systems" I would set the Short Name to "ABC").

We don't have a specific field for the persons name, however you can just add it in the "Address" block.  So you could have:

Attn: Mr. John Doe
123 Main Street
Suite 2B
Anytown, NJ 07123

And that will print on the invoice.

Hi Adam,

Apparently my device doesn't seem to work that way.  If I have a company name and a contact name, it automatically defaults to using the contact's name as the Full Name.  I would have to manually edit that field if I wanted the company name to appear.  Currently I resort to adding the company name to the address block as you indicated above.  Is there a way to force it to use the company name as opposed to the contact name?  It's just a little annoying when scrolling through entries and seeing the persons' name as opposed to the company name.

Thanks!

[Adam]

Unfortunately there is no way we can force it.  We use the built-in iOS calls to "talk" to the Contacts app data and have to take what it gives us.  On the Mac "Address Book" you can tell it is a company, but on Windows there is no way to force that.

Although I'm not sure it's worth it, I've heard that you can go into the Contacts app and remove the name from the Contact.  Save it.  Edit it again and add the Name back in.  That will "force" it to think it's a company instead of a person.

[Spyderturbo007]

Nope, that didn't work.  It reverted back to displaying the contact name and not the company name.  It's a shame that Apple doesn't add more functionality for the business oriented user.  I really don't think it would be that hard for them to add a check box asking the user if they want to view by company name or contact name. 

Oh well.  Thanks for your time!