Need some Suggestions for Building Inspection Templates & Client contact software

[soundguy99]

Hi Guys,
I am only a "StageGuy", who is becoming more responsible for more of the operations of the events, as well as other things as the authority lines blur. To maintain that responsibility to both to the events, and building which holds those events, and the responsibility to management, I am finding it increasingly difficult on 2 fronts.
1st
I am also finding myself in a position to inform management, of the need for Building repairs, Equipment concerns because age, condition, saftey or any other reasons, which a this point, is done verbally. I am done a maintenance log, but is tricky to keep updated, especially when no one including management will look at. Secondly it doesn`t cover the condition of items within the building nor does it cover the aprox. time frame of when those items need to be replaced.
I am looking for some sort of Word template, or free software I can get, that issue to put together an Inventory type/ assessment, of Equipment, and Building repairs, that need to bee addressed, and put together in a way,, that I can not only give to management, but also our governing board, and is professional enough, for them to want to take action on, rather than just verbally talking about it, getting us no where. I need a way to present the information to them in a way they would take it seriously and find organized solutions, rather than passing it over, and letting these problems get worse.
I started a word document already, that has pictures of the inventory item or areas that need to be repaired, as well as The condition, type, Location, Quantity, Status, How long the item is expected to last before it needs to be replaced ect, as well as other notes. ect..
My problems is that before spending too much time into this I was wondering if there was any template or software out there that I could use to give this some more credibility to this "report", rather than looking like some one just put togeather. My Hope is by putting this togeather and presenting this in a professional manor there is less chance for them to overlook this, and more change we may finally address some of these things, or at least move in that direction.
Also 2ndly, again, with limited resources in sometime dealing with our concerts, is there any free or cheap "CRM" software that you could recommend for keeping track of Clients, (Contact information), Company info, ect.
Allot of the CRM software is online based and rather expensive especially with a monthly Fee. was wondering if there was any maybe In house software (non online), or something that has a 1 time purchase that doesn`t involve a monthly fee that we could use to get us started.
We previously tried an expensive CRM software which blew up in our face, so something that doesn`t involved a monthly fee or really in expensive might be at least a place to start.
Sorry for the long post,
Thanks again,
Soundguy99

 

[MRW Lights]

We use Google Forms for submitting work orders in our building, which is extensive and not only for our Theater Department. I also use a Google Form as our intake application for Rentals. It gives me a spreadsheet of all of my clients and lets me track trends of sub rentals and add on equipment. It also gathers contact information and I can use it to populate our rental contracts. It's a free simple and accessible anywhere solution. A lot of other theaters I work with have also gone primarily google. The next development on our end is to create a google sheet as an asset management software to track the maintenance and lifespan of our equipment using bar codes and a scanner.

 

[venuetech]

So is this a rented space, privately-owned, or ?

 

[soundguy99]

Hi guys,
Thanks for the google forums thought, I guess being google I didn`t really give it much thought. We do use it for our calender and Drive, so, that might give some possibilities, although as I briefly look at we might have to create our own templates and upload to it.
Definitely it might work good for contacts, but as for the building report We would still need to find some templates.
Venuetech, Its a city building.
Thanks again for the suggestion, I will look into that.
Soundguy

 

[MRW Lights]

Hi guys,
Thanks for the google forums thought, I guess being google I didn`t really give it much thought. We do use it for our calender and Drive, so, that might give some possibilities, although as I briefly look at we might have to create our own templates and upload to it.
Definitely it might work good for contacts, but as for the building report We would still need to find some templates.
Venuetech, Its a city building.
Thanks again for the suggestion, I will look into that.
Soundguy

Unfortunately I can't send you ours, because the information is proprietary and corporate whatnot, but I can tell we built our building report from the generic templates. If you're spiffy with spreadsheets and creating charts you can get a lot of information quickly from users filling a simple google form. It takes some work on the front end to set up, but it's still less of a headache and way less than the thousands of dollars CRM software can run and trying to interface with a company that doesn't get your business as it sounds like you've experienced.

There are programs that exist out there, but as the saying goes you can't teach an old dog new tricks... if it's not in from the ground up a new management concept can be extremely difficult to push through.