You have made an excellent choice for your studio in making the decision to switch to StudioPlus Spectra. With our knowledge of PhotoOne and the conversion to Spectra, it is our recommendation that you start with almost fresh data in Spectra. Over the years, many PhotoOne users have wished they could revamp their price lists and how they classify their clients, but the task always seemed so daunting. With your switch to Spectra, now is the perfect time to bring together our knowledge of the software and your knowledge of your business. This gives you the perfect opportunity to set up Spectra the way you wished you had set up PhotoOne.
A couple of my favorite features in Spectra are the Dashboard Reports and the Filter Builder. These features really give you the keys to analyze your studio business, giving you insight on how to focus on the sessions that give your studio the highest profit. To fully utilize the Dashboard’s powerful reporting to give you that kind of insight, it’s important you start with consistent data that can be accurately reported. With PhotoOne, you didn’t have the ability to distinguish the events on your calendar that were sessions (the things you do with a camera in your hand) from those that were appointments (all the other things you do without a camera). During the conversion, if an order in PhotoOne is not clearly either a session-based invoice or tied to a session-based invoice, the orders may not get converted into Spectra as needed for accurate reporting.
Our recommendation is that you consider converting just your clients and relationships from PhotoOne into Spectra. You may even want to take some time to clean up your client list before bringing it over to Spectra. Why bring someone over who has been a prospect since 2008 and hasn’t been in yet? If a client hasn’t placed an order since 2007, are they ever going to come back? Why clutter up your Spectra data with names that are not likely to bring in any future money? (We do recommend you keep a permanent copy of PhotoOne for reference, whether or not you decide to convert all the data.) Also, by converting just your clients and relationships, you’ll have the luxury of learning Spectra on your own schedule. You can continue to use PhotoOne until your staff is confident using Spectra. You will then have little to no down time during the conversion process.
The Spectra Filter Builder is used in many different ways, but my favorite is for marketing purposes. While PhotoOne’s marketing section required a higher level of programming knowledge, the Spectra Filter Builder is much less intimidating.
However you decide to approach the conversion process – convert just your clients and relationships or convert everything — we are right here to help you, every step of the way. With Spectra’s up-to-date documentation, online training videos, product specialist, knowledge base, user forum, technical support (available by email, live chat, and phone), our learning blog, and this support blog, you’ll be a pro in no time!