(Oakland, CA July 28, 2004) — Oakland, CA-based BARONdirect—the online division of BARON, a manufacturer of custom corporate identity products since the 1960s—just announced the newest addition to its comprehensive SMARTsuite (Spend Management Awareness Real-Time) online tools: SMARTproject. The SMARTproject solution records every communication on a project, from phone calls to emails, into a password-protected client site. At any point in the production process, administrators, managers, and other authorized users can access these records for a detailed log of activity on specific projects. “We’ve found that miscommunication is the main reason projects go off track,” says Aude Frederique Sanchez, project manager of SMARTproject. “Now everything that’s communicated on a project is recorded into our system.” In addition to SMARTproject, BARONdirect’s SMARTsuite system includes SMARTvision, which allow clients to see where their jobs are in the production cycle. The online set of spend management tools is designed to enable legal administrators, marketers, and purchasing professionals to better monitor and regulate work-in-progress printing expenditures. According to BARONdirect president and CEO, Henry F. Scarpelli, the next system release will allow clients to actually stop a job during production for last minute changes. BARONdirect was the industry’s first platform-independent e-commerce system for ordering printed and engraved stationery products, marketing materials, specialty products, and business supplies. Today, it serves national and multinational law firms, medical establishments, and corporations. BARONdirect's Phoenix, AZ, plant also produces specialty die-cut presentation folders, packaging, binders, and custom filing products, in addition to high-end color printing. Its fully integrated production facilities also produce documents in Braille. BARONdirect's SMARTsuitesolution is a set of integrated Web-based tools that allow tighter budget controls and greater budgeting accuracy. In addition to the new tracking function, SMARTsuite provides real-time information regarding open and invoiced orders, transaction histories, purchasing summaries and product lists. Developed for small businesses and large global enterprises, SMARTsuite is available to all customers and is easy and inexpensive to implement, involves little training, and does not disrupt existing technologies.