As an artist, you may feel that using a computer in your art business too "techy" and too far-removed from aesthetic creativity. Or, perhaps computers flat out frighten you or you feel you could never have the mentality for it. But, today's systems and programs are far easier to understand than ever before, so let's do a realistic assessment of what's involved in setting up a system for your art business.

First of all, computers can be time-consuming in the beginning until you get things established on your system and gain some familiarity in their use. Realize that you can take things a step at a time. Take your time and you'll avoid being overwhelmed. In the long run, your investment will save you time, and time is money.

First you need to buy the hardware
Prices have come way down and today, you can get a good computer system for as little as $1,000. However, choosing the right hardware can still be confusing if you're not familiar with the terminology. To keep things simple, I'll give my recommendations here:

1. Pentium III 450-500mhz

2. 6 gig hard drive minimum

3. 64 megabytes of RAM minimum or if you plan heavy graphics, minimum of 128 or 256mb

4. Monitor size is really a personal choice. I use a 19-inch monitor, but I'm on my computer creating graphics constantly. If you're buying the monitor separate from the computer system, I'm a fan of NEC and have used NEC monitors since 1991.

5. AGP graphics card with 4-8mb video RAM

6. CD-ROM drive is standard and many systems now offer DVD, which in my opinion has little use for an art business. CD-RW gives the capability to read as well as write a CD. This can be handy for backups.

7. Just about all systems now come with 56k modems, so there's not much to think about there.
8. For printers, Hewlett Packard has long been a leader. I've had an HP for the last five years with one repair for a paper feed malfunctioning. HP is also known for great support.

9. For scanners, Hewlett Packard has long been a leader here also, though you'll pay more just for the name. Recently UMAX has been highly recommended and the prices are lower. I've just bought a UMAX 2200 for about $200 and it scans slides and transparencies. Both HP and Epson scanners have scanners that handle slides for around $400.

Ask the salesperson about expandability of the RAM. (How many slots are there and how many are already used?) Also ask about cable hookup and what's required if you're considering that.
Once you're accustomed to working with your computer, consider a digital cameraÑno photo developing or scanning to get your images into the computer.

If you want to backup your entire hard drive, you'll need a tape backup system. This is typically not a standard item and you may have to go to an independent vendor to install this. Make sure your computer case has the space for it.

Zip drives were very popular for a while and now I hardly ever see them in new systems as the frequency of CD read-writable drives increase.

Choosing an Internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) gives you the dial up capability to access the Internet. Many people have chosen America Online because they make it so easy. But, easy isn't always better. Also, many stores currently offer a sizeable discount for signing up with MSN (Microsoft Network) for your Internet service. This could be a good deal, just realize that it is a sizeable commitment and if you back out, you'll have to repay what you saved. My feelings about Microsoft and AOL attempts to dominate the Internet marketplace would cause me to decide otherwise. Both are behemoths that I would tend to avoid. Their pluses are that if you travel, you'll have local access numbers most places you go. However, you can get the same thing with Mindspring, which is my personal choice.

Then you need to get the software
Now that you have your computer, software is what tells your computer what you want it to do. Here's some of the basic software for handling the primary aspects of your business.
• ACT! 2000 for managing your clients, prospects and vendors
• Quicken for managing your finances.
• QuickBooks if you have payroll or do lots of invoices
• Paint Shop Pro
• Microsoft Word for Windows or Word Perfect
• Internet browser
• Norton Anti-Virus 2000

Now let's see an overview of what each of these can do for you.

Getting your act together with ACT! 2000
Keeping track of clients and prospects can be challenging as your business grows. One of the best programs for tracking people related to your business is ACT! by Symantec. With ACT!, you can enter comprehensive information about individual clients, prospects, vendors and others related to your business.
ACT! is a database driven program which means you can do searches on entries in many different ways. Want to find all the prospects you have in the state of Tennessee? Want to call a prospect and you can only remember their first name or the first three letters of their last name? Searches like these are no problem in ACT!

Each record can also be marked as part of a "group" that you predefine. For example, you could define a group called "newsletter" to define anyone who gets your newsletter. Or, define a group called "portrait agents." From within ACT! you can do mailing labels and create a form letter with the address automatically inserted.
When you make a phone call, enter unlimited notes about the call. Even these notes are searchable. Set date and time reminders for the next time to call someone. Customize user fields unique to your business such as "sourceÑVeranda, Winter 98". The only thing you have to do is remember to open ACT! so the reminders pop up.

Oh those dreaded finances!
Quicken by Intuit is a dream! It's probably the single biggest time-saver of any computer application in my recommendations. I've never tried Microsoft Money or other applications, but Quicken must be the best selling for a reason. With Quicken, you can:

• Automatically assign categories to expenditures and income: Come tax time, my life is greatly simplified by Quicken. When you first install it, there are common expense categories already established. From there you can add and delete categories and sub-categories according to your needs. Quicken can also "split" transactions into multiple categories, which is great for credit card charges or trips to the office supply store where you have multiple purchases within one transaction.

• Run reports on income and expenditures for any selected time period or account: At any time, you can run reports on one or more categories for any selected time period. You can set up a category called "business expense: art supplies" and then it's simple to check how much you've spent on art supplies for any period of time. When it's tax time, make sure all income and expenditures have a category assigned and then run and print out the reports for your accountant. A great time saver!

• Set up and track multiple bank accounts: I have my personal checking and savings and business checking all set up within Quicken. I also set up a "cash account" for those few times when I pay cash for a business expenditure.

• Pay bills onlineÑno more addressing envelopes and licking stamps: Don't be afraid of this one. I've used it for two years with only one minor glitch. You'll be amazed at the simplicity and ease. There's a screen that looks like a check and when you fill out a payee's name, Quicken remembers if you've paid them before and fills out the name usually on the first two to three keystrokes. It also remembers the category for that payee and all you do is enter the correct amount for this payment. And since I've set up both my personal and business account with pc banking at the same institution, I can transfer money from one to the other online. Be aware that you cannot do transfers between different banks.

• Download cleared bank transactions and reconcile accounts: I have literally balanced my checking account in three minutes! Maximum time was perhaps 20 minutes.
Intuit also has QuickBooks, which is a full accounting package. It has many more features than I need, but it's wonderful for invoicing. You can also keep your business account and bill paying here, but I prefer to do those functions in Quicken. Since I invoice most of my clients the same amount every quarter, I've created "memorized transactions," each due invoice is automatically generated at the correct time.

Depending on the number of invoices you produce in a year, QuickBooks may or may not be worth it. Since I do about 200 a year and many of these are for the same client, it's well worth it for my business. If you only do two to three invoices a month and it's almost always for different people with few balances carried forward, it's probably not something you need. In this case, I'd just use a word processor to do invoices when needed.

Word Processing, simple and complex
Windows comes with a basic word processing program called Wordpad. It allows basic functions such as changing font size and face, indenting and text color. But, if you want something more sophisticated, both Microsoft Word for Windows and WordPerfect are superb programs. Many new computer systems come with one or the other of these, so check this out before purchasing since they can be quite pricey to buy separately.
Both of these programs are so high-powered that I've never used all the features. But, at times I needed some of the higher-end functionality. A few things you can do are create tables and sort their contents, create bulleted lists, insert graphics, do newsletter column formats, insert spreadsheets, insert footnotes and common headers. The range is far too expansive to fully address here.

Paint Shop Pro
Paint Shop Pro is a graphics manipulation and creation program. Once a graphic is how you want it, you can then insert it into other applications such as a Word for Windows document or a web page.

You may wonder why you even need a graphics program. The how-to is more than can be addressed here, but following are some graphical ways in which others have used their computer:

• Create business cards, stationery and brochures
• Experiment with the coloration of a photo before starting to paint. You can even select parts of a photo to darken, lighten or change color balance.
• Photograph and scan a painting in progress and email it to the client for approval
You may wonder why I didn't recommend Adobe Photoshop or Corel Draw/Photo-paint. Basically these latter programs are fairly expensive and not as user friendly. Paint Shop Pro at about $90 is one of the best deals around and its much more user friendly. I've used it for years and unless you're planning to do design for the printing industry, Paint Shop Pro should be more than enough to start out. Later you can add higher end graphics programs if you feel the need.

Internet Browser
A browser is a program that resides on your own computer and allows you the capability to "browse" or "surf" the Internet. All new personal computers come with Microsoft Internet Explorer preloaded. It is currently the dominant browser because of Microsoft's huge efforts to be number one in all areas related to computers. But, it was only a couple of short years ago when Netscape Communicator was the leader. I will always feel Netscape is the better browser. If you want to check it out, you can download it or order the CD for free at http://www.netscape.com under Top Picks.

Norton Anti-Virus
Most people have heard of computer viruses. Believe me, they're something you don't want. Once installed, Norton checks your file regularly for viruses. You get free downloads for a period of time before you have to renew.

Having an Online Portfolio
I strongly encourage artists to view a web site as an electronic portfolio rather than only an advertisement. Though getting commissions from a web site is certainly something everyone would like, there are benefits that go far beyond that. And I've found that the artists who are the happiest with their online portfolio are the ones who "think with it," are excited about it and always looking for new angles on utilization.

As the Internet increasingly becomes more a part of everyday life, having a web site is fast becoming an expected part of doing business, just as you would have business cards and a hard copy portfolio, a telephone and a fax machine. Even if you have more than enough work, a web site can still have benefits for you. Consider some of the following:

• Artists have often told me that having a web site has increased their credibility with clients and prospects.

• Interviews for articles took less time because the bulk of the information could be obtained from the artist's bio online.

• Some artists periodically swap out images with their newest portraits and involve the client, who usually gets very excited about their loved one being on the Internet. Once the image is up, the client automatically tells everyone about it. The artist has just gotten a portfolio showing with many people for very little effort.

• Artists have told me of jointly pulling up their site with a prospect, reviewing and discussing portraits on the phone and actually closing the person without ever meeting them or sending out any samples.

• Several artists have successfully used their sites for promoting their books, workshops and videos.

• I've been told stories of artists who were unexpectedly asked to show their work and were caught without their portfolio, but accessed and showed their online portfolio instead.

• Some artists have supplied their clients with postcards pre-printed with their web address on it. Every time the client uses a postcard, the artist gets some promotion.

Another advantage of being online is the ability to easily and quickly communicate with clients and prospects through email or through one of the popular "chat" programs. This can save a lot of money on long distance phone calls. Also, when you ask for the name, address and phone number of a new prospect, get their email address too and enter it into your email program. Later, you can send out a bulk email to this list updating them on your career, new images on your web site and even your latest newsletter.

Getting down to commissions, I'm sure you're still wondering how effective this is. In my experience, I've known one portrait artist who received ten commissions in about two and a half years and others who have been on the Internet for several years and received none, and everything in between. Many commissions to my knowledge have been family portraits, but there has also been a commission for a Cancer Research Institute, several university portraits, a judge, a CEO and a military academy.

One thing I typically point out is that, depending on your pricing, it only takes one commission to cover the cost of an online portfolio for quite a while. In the meantime, you have a wonderful tool for communicating with your clients and prospects and you have the easiest, lowest cost means of maintaining an up-to-date portfolio.

What about getting educated?
There are several resources for getting quick and to-the-point computer training. Most community colleges have inexpensive crash computer courses geared to business people. A good course is typically about 16 hours. Recently, I noticed that CompUSA offers some computer courses if you have a store in your area. I also highly recommend ZDNet University at http://welcome.zdu.com, an online training resource that is very reasonably priced.

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