FileMaker Unveils New Bento Business Organiser

Eight new templates and the ability to print QR Codes help businesses, from jewellers to farmers, organise and communicate with ease.

LONDON, UK – 6th September 2011 – FileMaker, Inc. today announced the new Bento Business Organiser, a free set of customised database templates that make it easy to manage businesses run by sole proprietors. The Bento Business Organiser from FileMaker, available free with a 30-day trial of Bento 4, offers a set of powerful templates tailor-made for business owners that sell handcrafted goods such as furniture, clothing, paintings, baked goods and jewellery at farmers' markets, festivals or from their own studios, workshops and websites, such as notonthehighstreet.com.

Bento is the most-popular line of personal database products for Mac, iPhone and iPad, receiving 4 Stars from both MacFormat and Macworld UK.

"When you run your own business, you have enough to deal with just making and selling your products," says Ryan Rosenberg, vice president, marketing and services, FileMaker, Inc. "We built the Bento Business Organiser to help the solo business owner with all the other details, including organising contacts and clients, tracking products and projects, managing orders and inventory, coordinating events and tasks, and even printing 'quick response' or QR code labels."

The square 'quick response' codes turn URLs, vCards or any kind of text into a block of pixels that users can scan onto their smartphone and print instantaneously.

The professionally designed, ready-to-use eight templates in the Bento Business Organiser, which can also be used with Bento for iPhone and Bento for iPad, (both sold separately) include:

• Contacts – Organise relationship details, including emails and voice memos, for customers and vendors all in one place.
• Products – Store catalogue descriptions, pictures, prices, QR (Quick Response) codes and materials used. Print QR Code labels with a few clicks.
• Sales Orders – Produce and print custom sales orders with your company logo and built-in calculations for VAT and totals.
• Inventory – Manage reorder levels, costs, locations and the finished products that are related to each inventory item.
• Projects – Log project details, deliverables, deadlines and communications history, including important files and notes from meetings.
• Events – Coordinate participation in farmers' markets, festivals and exhibits. Track expenses and store photos from each event too.
• Tasks – Prioritise tasks and assign them to specific individuals or link them to projects and events.
• Voice Memos – Record voice memos on your iPhone or iPad and sync to Bento for Mac to easily recall conversations and to-do items.

Mobile marketing and communications made easy
QR codes stored in the Bento Business Organiser Products template can be printed onto Avery merchandising and branding labels. These labels can be affixed to products and then scanned by a variety of mobile devices, including the iPhone and iPad 2. The QR Code links the viewer to a web page, email address or map location to provide a mobile portfolio of product information and other details.

From photographers to painters and craft-makers, business owners are enthusiastically adopting Bento. The Bento Business Organiser makes it easy for them to better organise the details of their business so they have more time to spend making and selling their products. Here's what they have to say.

Rave reviews from Bento small business customers
"With the demands of running my own plumbing business as well as being a musician and writer I needed to work much smarter," says David Simcox. "I bought Bento and from the off I felt at home with it. I can track a work project from the initial customer contact through to invoicing and job completion."

"My garden is so much more productive now that I don't have to try and keep track of everything in my head or on scraps of paper!" says horticultural writer, Emma Cooper. "My garden is constantly evolving, so I love the flexibility that my Bento seed catalogue provides – my Bento database will grow and bloom just like my garden."

About FileMaker, Inc.

FileMaker is the leader in easy-to-use database software. Millions of people, from individuals to some of the world's largest companies, rely on FileMaker software to manage, analyse and share important information. The company's products are the FileMaker line - versatile business software for iPad, iPhone, Windows, Mac and the web - and Bento, the personal database for Mac, iPhone and iPad. FileMaker, Inc. is a subsidiary of Apple.

Media Contact:

Kirstin Beveridge
kirstin@octopuscomms.net
+44 (0) 845 3700 655