Laws of Organization

Running your own business can be complicated. You're expected to be manager, marketer, accountant, and tireless worker. Add the responsibilities of being a spouse and parent to the mix and it's enough to make anyone frazzled. That's why lawyer Andrew Titus uses Bento 2 to organize almost everything, from his practice to his home life.

Simple, effective organizational tool

Running your own business can be complicated. You're expected to be manager, marketer, accountant, and tireless worker. Add the responsibilities of being a spouse and parent to the mix and it's enough to make anyone frazzled. That's why lawyer Andrew Titus uses Bento 2 to organize almost everything, from his practice to his home life.

"It's so easy to create a solution with Bento that I can use it in virtually every aspect of my life," he says. "It's the perfect organizational tool for work, home, and nearly anything you can imagine."

Titus runs a law practice in Bridgeport, MI, dealing with family law, collections, and general civil law. "It's a small practice, just myself and my assistant," he says. "We deal with every aspect of the business and that keeps us busy." With so much to do, Titus needed a way to keep track of it all. The lawyer used to build databases for a living and knew that his small firm could use a high-powered organizational tool. But it needed to be easy to use and fast. "I saw Bento and knew right away that we should try it out," he says.

From finances to cases to classes, Bento tracks it all

The lawyer downloaded a trial of Bento and set up a checkbook register for his firm. Things grew quickly from there. "Setting up the checkbook register took a few minutes," he says. "Then I started creating databases for a wide variety of information and Bento took the place of several different single-use programs. It's impressive how quickly you can create solutions with Bento. The templates are great starting points and they are simple enough to customize that you can create a wide variety of solutions in minutes."

He created databases to track cases, trust accounts, and milage, as well as create invoices, and manage the legal forms he processes everyday. "Lawyers use many forms. Keeping track of them—how to fill them out, notes about their use—is a big problem. I've been doing this myself using a hodgepodge of applications and PDFs." Now Titus tracks it all with Bento 2. "I developed a Bento library that links my forms, and has all of my notes," he says. "Searching for the forms is a snap and it saves me from hunting for them and the notes about them, because now both are on a single screen. I have more than 100 forms and Bento has simplified their use tremendously."

Along with his law practice, Titus teaches English composition, arithmetic, and geography at an adult education program in the evenings. He's created a Bento 2 database to manage his classes. "The database has four layouts and forms and it covers biographical information, notes about student performance, attendance, and test scores. It also manages links to all of the assignment PDF's."

The new database has saved Titus time and improved his classroom. "The forms look professional, they're easy to use, and they're quick to get to," he says. "The universal search is a time saver and a wonderful convenience because a student may come to me with a question about a particular assignment. Rather than having to hunt for it, I simply type in the relevant information and it pulls up what I'm looking for instantly."

Store it, relate it, find it, easily

Titus uses Bento 2 to log all the documents related to his business and his classroom. "I can put a field in any Bento database that's basically a file list," he says. "That lets me organize and access all the documents—word documents, PDFs, anything—from the Bento database. I just click on the document and it pulls it up in the Finder. That's a number one feature for me, I use it constantly."

With Bento 2, Titus is able to tie all his information together with a few mouse clicks. "Because of the source list on the left side, it's easy to jump between many different types of information," he says. "There's the Address Book, iCal, the check book, mileage, vehicle maintenance, my classroom info, and legal forms. It's instantaneous to click there and add or refer to some piece of information, and just as quickly jump to a completely different set of data. You simply can't do that using other software."

Split screen view, a new feature of Bento 2 that allows viewing forms and tables in the same window, gives Titus even more ways to review his data. "I use the split screen as the default view in some of my databases," he says. "It allows me to quickly jump from record to record without having to use the search feature. It lets Bento work as a database and a spreadsheet on one screen."

So easy a child can use it

Along with being an indispensable tool at work, Bento 2 has also found a place in the Titus household. "I'm teaching my 8-year-old daughter about computers with Bento," he says. "Up to this point she has used the Macs at home for games, videos, and music. I guided her through making two different libraries so she can learn to use the computer and create software for practical purposes."

Titus helped his daughter create a simple database containing her friends' phone numbers and another to track her library books. "Then she created one by herself within a couple minutes, to keep track of the points she earns in her dance class," he says. "Bento is just that easy to use."

Bento 2 has become a flexible and invaluable organization tool for Titus. "It's incredibly easy to set up database solutions with Bento," he says. "You tell Bento what you want to do, and it creates the program for your needs. It requires very little knowledge of databases—the learning curve is very short. It's truly an easy and capable organizational solution for anyone."