Specialized software for translators and small agencies

Translation Office 3000 (TO 3000) is not a translation tool, as you would expect, but rather an administrative and accounting application for freelance translators and small translation agencies.

Freelance translators are usually concerned with the number of words that need translation, where customer information is kept and how to access it fast. They need to see everything at a glance: how much work has been done for each particular customer; payments received (or overdue); and the status of the accounts. Translators also need to customize invoices and make them look professional. Administration at this level of detail can be very time consuming. To complete these tasks, many translators use Microsoft Excel.

Excel is a useful spreadsheet program aimed at a wide range of users, but there are now administrative applications especially aimed at translators that address many of the issues and needs mentioned above. TO 3000, developed by Advanced International Translations (AIT), is one of them.

Client information. When the user launches TO 3000, the program opens first the Client window, which contains full information about any particular client selected from a list or entered from scratch. This information is divided into several sections accessible by clicking on the relevant tab, such as Main, Contacts, My Profile, Quotes, Jobs, Expenses, Invoices, Payments and Account.

The Main tab displays the most important information about each client (which needs to be selected from a list by the user) such as contact details, the type of services required, invoicing policy, payment terms, currency and any general information. The process of entering a new client is guided by the New Client Wizard, which allows the user to enter the information step by step.

My Profile allows the user to specify a price for each language direction on which computer-aided translation (CAT) tools can be used, depending on the type of match (100%, 75-99%, no match), the number of repetitions, volume units (words, hours) and the costs allocated to each one of them. This is referred to as CAT schemes and can be created and edited at any stage.

A particularly useful Quotes window displays all the current quotes for the selected client in different colors according to their current status (approved, in process or rejected). The user can enter a new quote or edit any of them in the Edit Quote dialog box. The language direction, name of the job and type of service can be easily specified. A particularly interesting feature here is the AnyCount engine, which allows the user to click on the AnyCount button and calculate the volume of text to be translated. Then one can browse and select a particular file or a bunch of files and count the number of words. The element to count, such as words or characters, can be predefined by using the Settings window. This is referred to as volume units. Word delimiters can not be predefined, but the price per volume unit can be entered manually or one can reuse the one specified in My Profile for that particular client. In order to keep pricing consistency, the user can use typical prices from the Master Profile on the navigator panel on the left-hand side of TO 3000. This window stores all the different prices charged by the user according to the type of service, language direction, volume unit and currency, independently of who the client is.

Using the AnyCount engine in the Edit Quote window to find
out the volume of text to translate and allocate a price

The Jobs window is also very useful. Here the user can calculate the volume of text to be translated as indicated above. The AnyCount engine produces a report indicating the number of words, text boxes, running headers, running footers, footnotes and end notes. Of course, this report can be exported to a .csv or .txt file. The user can also specify information such as when the job was assigned, when the deadline is, a purchase order number, notes and instructions. Depending on the invoicing policy specified at the beginning, the user can automatically issue and save to disk an invoice for a particular client. Invoices can be customized to automatically display items such as the client's name, postal address, language directions, name of the job and a breakdown of the prices.

At the bottom of the Invoices window, the user can see the payment terms for the currently selected client. The rest of the window shows items such as submitting date, code, invoice total, and balance — typical invoicing information.

The navigator panel. A user who wishes to see information related to all the clients at a glance can click on the relevant button in the navigator panel on the left (All Contacts, All Quotes, All Jobs, All Payments and so on). To see more specific information about any of the clients, the user can double-click on any item displayed. Therefore, there are two types of viewing information: client by client or all the clients at the same time.

The All Jobs window shows all the jobs for each client. Jobs can be filtered by their current status.

The All Jobs window shows all the jobs for each client.
Jobs can be filtered by their current status

All Contacts lists all clients' contact people. However, it is not possible to sort them out alphabetically, although a search option is available. It might be a good idea for future upgrades to separate first name and surname to facilitate searches. Also, at the moment, it is not possible to import a list of contacts from an external file. However, the user has the option to purchase A-Databases, which are a sort of extension to TO 3000. Basically, they are databases that can be imported into TO 3000 and provide information about various translation agencies around the world, together with their contact data. This way, there is no need for the user to type in the information manually. I was not able to see them myself, as they had not been released at the time of writing.

Organization of files and folders. TO 3000 allows the user to organize client files and store information in a logical and consistent way. The file and folder organization within TO 3000 has a three-level structure. The Business folder at the first level is created automatically at the root of disk C, but the user can change this location. This folder contains all the Client folders. The Client folders are stored at the second level. They contain all Job folders of each particular client. They also contain Invoices and Profiles folders, which are created automatically and where each client's profiles and invoices are saved in RTF. Finally, the Job folders can be created automatically or manually on the third level.

TO 3000 maintains this general structure automatically, but the user can customize it. The main advantage of this organization is that it allows centralizing of all the working files in one single place, which facilitates access to them and automatic searches.