The phrase client database program still usually means something installed on a computer, and that is a real option with real advantages: it is fast, it works without a connection, and nobody else is holding your data. It also carries the risks that made most practices move away from it, and those risks are unglamorous rather than dramatic. Choosing between an installed program, a web based product and a disciplined spreadsheet is mostly a decision about backup, access and what happens when one machine dies.
The installed program and the single machine problem
An installed database lives on a computer, and that computer eventually fails, gets replaced, or belongs to somebody who leaves. If that is your only copy, the failure is total rather than inconvenient. Practices that run installed software successfully have a backup that is automatic, offsite and tested by actually restoring from it at least once. Without those three, the software is fine and the arrangement is not.
Web based, and the questions it moves rather than removes
A web product removes the backup and the second machine problem and replaces them with different questions: who else can reach it, what happens if the supplier stops trading, and how you get your data out. Those are answerable at purchase. Ask about export, ask what happens to your data if you stop paying, and check that access can be granted and removed per person rather than per practice.
When a spreadsheet with rules is honestly enough
One person, a modest number of clients, no documents to attach, and a habit of keeping a copy somewhere else. That is a legitimate answer and it costs nothing. It stops being enough at three predictable points: a second editor, a need for history, or documents that belong to clients. Recognising which of those has arrived is more useful than a general belief that spreadsheets are unprofessional.
Questions people ask about client database program
Is an installed client database program more secure?
It removes some risks and adds others. Nobody can reach it over the internet; equally, a lost or stolen laptop is a complete copy in somebody else's hands. Neither shape is safe without disk encryption and backups.
Can we move from a desktop program to a web product later?
Usually, if the desktop program exports to an ordinary format. Check that before you rely on it, because some older programs export only to their own format.
How often should a client database be backed up?
Often enough that losing the gap would be an annoyance rather than a crisis, and restored from at least once so you know the backup works. An untested backup is a belief, not a copy.