QUESTION: I am struggling to get all client information input in a computer data.  I take pages of notes about clients, family, company, coworkers, etc.  I plan to hire a future data entry person.  What software have you found to be the easiest to use?  What software data are you using in your office?  Tom

ANSWER: When I had my recruiting firm, we used PCRecruiter by Main Sequence Technology.  Big Biller is another good alternative out there that I have heard good things about, but I am not familiar with them.

Regardless of the software you choose, you should not be doing data entry, period.  You mention hiring a data entry person.  Because this work is not time sensitive, this could be a local high school student, or part-time person, such as a stay-at-home mom or dad that are looking for some work to do.

This person could even do some research, such as uncovering profiles for you of people for you to call.  PCRecruiter by Main Sequence or Big Biller software, will probably be a investment of $75 or $85 a month.  They will do all the backups and everything, and they will do a great job training you on how to use it.

What I would be doing is gathering the name, rank, serial number, maybe come up with a data form if you do not already have one, then just put those pages aside and when the data entry person comes in you just give them the folders of the data you have collected.

Data entry positions are usually between $10 and $20 per hour. If you are doing your own data entry, and you are going to bill $300,000 a year, that is about $150 an hour.  I always like to tell people this hourly rate because they think they are saving money. In reality, every hour you are doing data entry is an hour you are not doing recruiting and client development.  You save $10 and it has cost you $140 in billings to save that.  I want you to imagine at the end of every day if you do 2 or 3 hours’ worth of admin, writing a check for about $400.  It is not cheap when you look at it that way.