Contract Manager software

New: I moved from programming this in PHP/MySQL to setting up PmWiki to do this, and it works admirably. I hope to have some screenshots and describe how it works in a cookbook recipe on PmWiki.org shortly.

The app is fully functional: there are forms for entering clients, a form for specifying certain proposals/agreement terms via drop-down menus and data-entry fields, customizing a list of prices in the middle of the contract, etc. The only thing it doesn't do well right now is selecting default values the first time you add contract terms, but I'll work on that. I've been able to extend the contract, add sections, and add them to the terms form ad-hoc, but it is a pretty advanced PmWiki application, and requires knowledge of PmWiki to utilize it with maximum flexibility.

Preliminary template screen shot,
with project logo I created.

Internal project of Eclectic Tech, until in Beta. GPL license, PHP/MySQL, Smarty templating, PEAR modules, built with language pack extensions in mind from the start.

Description

Lightweight contact manager, with a specific focus on managing informal contracts in a "Chinese-menu" or "mix-n-match" format for combining contract elements, and allowing compilation and tracking of specific contracts on a per-client basis.

This program was inspired by the number of different businesses built around frequent estimating and contract work, always scrambling for old contracts in their filesystem for cut & paste/rewrite of sections of old contracts. I see myself heading in that direction, so I want to head it off at the pass.

Preliminary template screen shot,
unformatted data listing.

Current status: Alpha.

Alpha means first stages of development, not even ready for testing. At this stage, basic functionality and features are being built in.

• generates all user-visible text output from language add-on file (i.e. it's translation ready)
• databases are configured and preliminary working data is filled in
• Smarty generated menus from language packs are working

Beta target features

Beta means usable but too buggy for production/public use - a debugging stage where less features are added, and there are wrinkles being ironed out. The goal is that all of the following features should be included and bug-free before the product is called a 1.x stable release.

• list, add, edit, delete all database fields
• track billing terms and rate overrides for each client
• track unlimited contacts, email, phone numbers and web urls at each client firm
• support reordering of basic contract elements or sections
• support HTML templating to format the final output in the browser window
• store signed finalized contracts separate from the contract templates database.

Future possibilities

These would be for a 2.x release, not for the first release of the software.

• more robust contact manager (call tracking, etc.)
• stronger estimating features
• support downloadable pdf
• support downloadable text
• support marked-up or pre-formatted text (for use with word processing macros)
• support emailing from the program