(Archived) Any Ideas on How to Set Up Evernote for a Talent Agency?

[poodlefreak 0]

I would appreciate any new ideas and/or suggestions on my current set up.

I am an agent for artists and I am brand spanking new at Evernote and I would like to setup my account in the most efficient way possible.

I have listed notebooks in alphabetical order by the artists' first name, last name.

Inside each notebook I have made notes which will hold each document generated by the artist.

For example:

Notebook: Jane Dough 2011

Note 1: Invoice (tags: JD, Invoice, current date, client name, JD123 (JD123 is # assigned to that specific job)

Note 2: Purchase Order (tags: Jane Dough, Purchase Order, current date, client name, JD123)

Note 3: Receipt (tags: JD, Receipt, current date, client name, JD123)

Note 4: Check (tags: JD, Check, current date, client name, JD123)

Note 5: Wire (tags: JD, Wire, current date, client name, JD123)

Note 6: Recvd in Full (tags: JD, Recvd in Full, current date, client name, JD123)

Note 6: Misc (tags: JD, Misc, current date, client name, JD123)

So I have over 20 notebooks, one for each artist.

Each note will hold all of the jobs assigned to that artist, so there could be over 200 invoices in the invoice note, 200 purchase orders in the purchase order note, hundreds of receipts in the receipt note, etc.

Then at the end of the year, I will stack the notebooks under Archive 2011 and start a roster of new Notebooks for 2012.

I will be the main administrator and several agents will be sending me all of the paperwork associated with the Artists via email into an Evernote Inbox which I will then tag, review, act on and move to the appropriate Notebook and Note. None of the agents have the time to spend tagging each doc.

As I am brand new to Evernote, I do not have the long term experience that you guys have and cannot foresee what problems this setup may encounter.

Any ideas, suggestions or redirection would be greatly appreciated.

Thanking you in advance and Happy Labor Day,

poodlefreak

[poodlefreak 0]

I received a suggestion from a friend via email as follows:

set up the notebooks the same way but not the Notes, set the notes up by each job # and throw all of the docs into one note :

Notebook: Jane Dough 2011

Note 1: JD123 8/4/11 tags: JD123, JD 8/4/11

Note 2: JD124 8/5/11 tags: JD124 JD 8/5/11

Note 3: JD125 8/6/11 tags: JD125 JD 8/6/11

What do you think?

[jbenson2 2,147]

What if you have Jane Dough and John Doe as clients?

[poodlefreak 0]

I would have to give John Doe different initials, maybe use nickname with corresponding initials, because Jane was first.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Personally, I would suggest you look for software that is already suited to this purpose. I would imagine something already exists. However, if you're going to use EN, first, I would suggest you assign numbers to each talent and to each customer & each job. I would not have a notebook for each artist simply b/c you're limited to 250 notebooks. Maybe it will take you a while to exceed 250 artists, but it's still a limitation I would not want to have to encounter & deal with.

I may start with a notebook for the talent & the note title would be the talent's assigned number, right justified, zero filled followed by their name. (IE 000010 - Mary Smith) I would then create a tag called "000010 - Mary Smith". (This allows the notebooks & tags to sort in the correct order, since w/o zero filled, it would be 1, 10, 11, & 2 would follow 19.) It would have detailed contact info about the talent. I'd do the same thing with customers, including the contact person, phone numbers/email addresses/etc.

I would then do the same thing for the jobs - have a notebook for the jobs, assign a job number & create a matching tag. The job note would have the details of the job/gig & be tagged with the customer tag & talent tag(s). This allows you to assign multiple talent to a single job/gig.

Maybe a separate notebook for all payments received, tagged with customer tag, job tag & payment type, should you need to differentiate between payment types.

Probably another notebook for payments to the artist, tagged with artist tag & job tag. This allows you to find all payments for a particular job and/or talent.

Then have a tag called "paid in full". When a job is paid in full, add that tag. (This is at least one situation where software better suited to the purpose would be helpful b/c it would automatically determine any balance due and determine if a job is paid in full.)

I'd then put all the notebooks into a single stack. This way, you could search the stack for everything for a particular customer (using the customer tag) or a particular talent (using the talent tag) or a particular job (using the job tag).

By going to the payments received, you could find all payments received from a customer for multiple jobs by searching on the customer tag. Or go to the outgoing payments to find all payments paid to a talent (regardless of a job) by searching the payment notebook with the artist tag.

Based upon what you've posted, that's how I'd start out. After working with it for a while, I may modify some things. But that's a starting point.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Suggestion:

1.) Develop a well structured title for each note.

Using Intitle: as part of your search (or saved search) can be very powerful.

Almost all of my notes (bills, tasks, appointments) use the following title structure:

Date State City Subject Company/Person

2.) Also you should not create a tag for the current date. That will create too many tags to clutter up the Left Panel. You could adjust the date in the Created date column.

[poodlefreak 0]

You guys rock! Thank you so very much for your excellent ideas and for spending your valuable time

giving such well thought out answers to a complete stranger. I am amazed and grateful for your help.