Shop Management Plug in and programs for decorated apparel biz

[T Shirt Farmer]

Ron, there is no reason another program can't do what ShopWorx does at a fraction of the cost.

ShopVox is on it's way to doing that.  We just signed up and while some things aren't what they should be, it's a great program so far.  We are looking to migrate over on Jan 1st.

My biggest gripe about shopworx will always be ditching QuickBooks.  Everything we do ties into QB, payroll(not through QB), our CPA.  And not to mention over 20 years of data.

MK162

Unfortunately your comment regarding ShopVox bettering Shopworx could not be more incorrect, less expensive yes - better no--  we have the ShoVox owner/developer working side by side in our shop over the last 9 months and know intimately the pros and cons of this platform.

[GoWestRob]

I've talked to Panisa who is starting SimQuotes, it's currently in Beta but it seems like they have a good start.
http://www.won-solution.com/

[ZooCity]

From experience, and I've had a good grip of it at this point, there are two things holding back software for our industry:

• Size of the company building the software.  Web/cloud based is the obvious platform at this point.  It's where the development attention is,  but the web/cloud based programs out there for our industry are almost all one person, entrepreneurial operations that are roughly following the basecamp model of "just build it and sell it, make it work later".  This model, which has made a lot of people a lot of money in saas software, can be a total screwjob on the end user in my opinion and plagues the whole world of web based software from the smallest to the largest. Google, for instance, has massive bugs and lacks core functionality in some of it's most critical apps.  If a company of that size with it's vast resources can't make cloud data management work, expecting one dude outsourcing his coding here and there to do it is beyond unrealistic.  The same issue applies to traditional software as well where your entire business is wrapped up in an FM application and you're locked out or down and the one person who made it isn't responding.  Not an option for most companies.
• Ability to build a solid core.  I've worked with developers on this and they struggle massively here, partially from lack of knowledge of how data should flow/interact, partially from a lack of on the ground experience in print shops and mostly due to #1 above where they want to focus their coding efforts on bells/whistles while the core functionality of the software is absent.  You can do so much with a good core alone and build even more upon it, which dovetails beautifully with the saas model, but I've yet to see an app that has rock solid and complete core functionality.

[Homer]

Ron, there is no reason another program can't do what ShopWorx does at a fraction of the cost.

ShopVox is on it's way to doing that.  We just signed up and while some things aren't what they should be, it's a great program so far.  We are looking to migrate over on Jan 1st.

My biggest gripe about shopworx will always be ditching QuickBooks.  Everything we do ties into QB, payroll(not through QB), our CPA.  And not to mention over 20 years of data.

MK162

Unfortunately your comment regarding ShopVox bettering Shopworx could not be more incorrect, less expensive yes - better no--  we have the ShoVox owner/developer working side by side in our shop over the last 9 months and know intimately the pros and cons of this platform.

what's your take so far on shop vox? We use Sign Vox in the sign shop and it's really great. In the screen shop we use T-quoter and I LOVE to hate it. I think it's the easiest to navigate out of the bunch but it is lacking on so many levels. I can not wait to get rid of it. Support is garbage and for a lousy product, it's a loose - loose situation. I would love to change to shop vox for the entire shop but I won't jump ship until the program is ready.

[T Shirt Farmer]

Ron, there is no reason another program can't do what ShopWorx does at a fraction of the cost.

ShopVox is on it's way to doing that.  We just signed up and while some things aren't what they should be, it's a great program so far.  We are looking to migrate over on Jan 1st.

My biggest gripe about shopworx will always be ditching QuickBooks.  Everything we do ties into QB, payroll(not through QB), our CPA.  And not to mention over 20 years of data.

MK162

Unfortunately your comment regarding ShopVox bettering Shopworx could not be more incorrect, less expensive yes - better no--  we have the ShoVox owner/developer working side by side in our shop over the last 9 months and know intimately the pros and cons of this platform.

what's your take so far on shop vox? We use Sign Vox in the sign shop and it's really great. In the screen shop we use T-quoter and I LOVE to hate it. I think it's the easiest to navigate out of the bunch but it is lacking on so many levels. I can not wait to get rid of it. Support is garbage and for a lousy product, it's a loose - loose situation. I would love to change to shop vox for the entire shop but I won't jump ship until the program is ready.

Homer

Have you tried syncing Invoices and Purchase Orders from ShopVox to QB... often QB rejects the attempt to sync because item numbers such as those uploaded from Sanmar by ShopVox  contain offending characters or sets of characters such as : or ; or to long of an item description .. trust me we have done the DEEP DIVE into this platform.




Remember the comment was comparing Shopvox to Signworks

[panisakuehm]

Thanks Rob! www.won-solution is how we got started. We surveyed 1000 shop owners and are building the software together with their feedback. Check us out here: www.simquotes.com - Panisa

[panisakuehm]

www.SimQuotes.com

We're developing a new cloud-based order management software app and looking for founder beta members to help us build the best software for you and for the market. Check us out if you're mildly interested.

- Panisa

[Du Manchu]

I have been very pleased with Fast Manager.  I demo'ed many of the ususal suspects a few years ago, but found FM to be the most flexible and customizable.   It can be a little quirky at first, but once you settle in and figure it out, it will do most anything you want it to.  Keep an eye out for a cloud version they are rolling out any day now.  Implementing FM (or any mgt program) was a shop-saver for us from the days of Quickbooks and Spreadsheets.   

3 users for $25 a month for the basic version.

It gets the job done for now.  Shopworks (or some future unknown competitor) is on the bucket, as I'd like to have the accouting integrated into the program rather than exported into Quickbooks.