Yet another managament program thread

[1964GN]

Life with only QuickBooks has become to complicated. Now they have eliminated work orders and sales orders. Anyway, we are 2 auto shop and adding a 3rd in the next 60 days, and the lack of a shop management program is starting to wear us down. We are currently doing about 60-70% contract. For one new large contract client, we order the goods on their account. Having a program with TSF integration would be a HUGE plus. Plus, they are our go-to vendor.

In 2021, who is standing out from the crowd? We get that they all will fail somewhere

[blue moon]

we are still super happy with TeeCal. It runs the whole shop and for you it will sync with QuickBooks.

The important part though is that they are about done with their API and you will be able to develop your own apps that would talk to it.
We are currently in the last few days of developing a program that will tie it to shipstation.com which connects to Shopify, big commerce, order my gear, ebay, amazon and just about anybody else. We will be able to import the orders directly that are created on all those sites. No more manual entries. Our contract customers will have to enter the orders on our web site which will also go straight into Teecal. All of this should cut our paperwork time in half.

pierre

[mk162]

Start here:

1. put together a list of wants & needs.  You will need to remain flexible on this, ranking them isn't a bad idea.

2. Make sure you note what your goals are.  Do you want to streamline ordering/reorders/scheduling?

3. Set a budget, but don't let that be the end all.  Also take things into account like processing fees etc.  Those are likely to go up...at the same time your clerical time should drop dramatically.

4. Test drive the contenders.  Watch all of the videos you can.

5. Nothing is perfect.  You will have to make whatever you get work.  There will always be something missing, but that one missing thing might be overshadowed by a great feature you didn't even know you needed.

Hope this helps

Here is a list of some:
Teesom (what we run)
Precise by Impress
Price-it
Shopworx
Printavo
TeeCal
Shopvox Apparel
Deconetwork
Corebridge
TeeChimp
Cyrious
Stokkup
The Print Life

This is by no means all of them, and some of them may be gone.  I don't know.

[blue moon]

5. Nothing is perfect.  You will have to make whatever you get work.  There will always be something missing, but that one missing thing might be overshadowed by a great feature you didn't even know you needed.

this!!! As Brad says, get used to the idea that you will have to change some things in the shop. If you embrace that, you can streamline your processes and you'll wonder what took you so long.

pierre

[Nation03]

I forgot which program it was, if any, but the guy who runs Tiny Fish in Upstate NY said they use a software that is open source code so they were able to higher a programmer fairly cheap from Upwork or Fiverr and have them customize it to their needs. They can do similar stuff with Google Calendars. For me, Printavo is pretty much all I need, but I can see custom plug-ins and code coming in handy for larger shops with more unique processes.

[1964GN]

Start here:

1. put together a list of wants & needs.  You will need to remain flexible on this, ranking them isn't a bad idea.

2. Make sure you note what your goals are.  Do you want to streamline ordering/reorders/scheduling?

3. Set a budget, but don't let that be the end all.  Also take things into account like processing fees etc.  Those are likely to go up...at the same time your clerical time should drop dramatically.

4. Test drive the contenders.  Watch all of the videos you can.

5. Nothing is perfect.  You will have to make whatever you get work.  There will always be something missing, but that one missing thing might be overshadowed by a great feature you didn't even know you needed.

Hope this helps

Here is a list of some:
Teesom (what we run)
Precise by Impress
Price-it
Shopworx
Printavo
TeeCal
Shopvox Apparel
Deconetwork
Corebridge
TeeChimp
Cyrious
Stokkup
The Print Life

This is by no means all of them, and some of them may be gone.  I don't know.

Great response! Thanks. How are you handling contract with Teesom? We did a live demo and did the trail period but that ended up being over Christmas so we didn't really dive in that deep into how contract orders are handled. Our newest client is sending about 50 PO's per week and entering and tracking these is a huge time suck.

I would image we want what most shops want. To speed up the entire process from quoting to delivering. Monday.com has helped a lot with production management but we currently have 150 jobs in house and everything is just to decentralized/scattered. Part of our problem is the lack of experienced help, but that's a subject for another thread LOL

[ebscreen]

Our newest client is sending about 50 PO's per week and entering and tracking these is a huge time suck.

I've written imports for our larger clients that do similar volume. Strongly suggest anyone in a similar position
do the same. Double data entry is the devils work, and invites mis-keying.

Some clients use spreadsheets for their PO's which are the easiest to import from. Other send PDF's that we have to
strip down to text and then parse through for the relevant pieces. Single click either way.

Having all clients use same PO form would be ideal, but (at least in our situation) ain't never gonna happen.
We'll force smaller contract clients to do so but the larger ones have their own systems in place, and their own
PO forms are part of that.

The thing that peeves me is that a lot of the programs listed can't export data in a format that anyone else can use easily.
We print for other shops and Printavo for example should be able to send PO's as a CSV or any other format we can easily
import. Need to get programs talking to eachother even if they are competing.

[mk162]

We manually input all of the info for their orders.  It's not ideal.  We handle it one of two ways.

If a contractor is bringing me g2000's we write them up in the WO as customer supplied.  We can easily go back and check what we printed and delivered.  I know what garments they printed, and it's easy to trace back.

The other way is when a customer brings in things that we don't get like NIKE that isn't from Sanmar, or say Peter Millar.  I simply put the imprint on the WO and the total quantity of garments getting that print.

It's not bad, but if you are doing a lot, it may not work for you.  A script that allows you to import them would be ideal.  If they are reorders it would still be really fast though with the way Teesom saves the art.

[mhimple]

We have tried a few different software companies in the past few years and the one thing that has been a issue is scheduling different process's on different days on our calender/schedule.
For examples client "A" wants 1000 shirts printed and folded but we need to do this on different dates. If our project managers are slammed and forget to reassign the folding, that causes some major issues in our timelines and the calendar is a major portion in what system we use.  Out of the choices in the previously replies, does anyone have any success in multiple scheduling for one PO?

[blue moon]

We have tried a few different software companies in the past few years and the one thing that has been a issue is scheduling different process's on different days on our calender/schedule.
For examples client "A" wants 1000 shirts printed and folded but we need to do this on different dates. If our project managers are slammed and forget to reassign the folding, that causes some major issues in our timelines and the calendar is a major portion in what system we use.  Out of the choices in the previously replies, does anyone have any success in multiple scheduling for one PO?

Teecal has different section that can be on different schedules. Right now it's embroidery, screen, DTG and CAD cut. If you don't use one of those you could use its section for scheduling.
This is not exactly what you were looking for, but it's a good example of what needs to be done to make these programs work.

pierre

[Homer]

we've been on the hunt for a few years, I've tried all the ones Brad listed.... For us, scheduling and quoting are two completely different systems. Scheduling is all done in google calendar with color coding and a series of symbols. I can see at a glance what's going on in every department and the live status for each job. now quoting is a whole nother can of worms... some of those programs are like taking a space shuttle to get groceries...SignVox is one of the worst, WAY too complicated for what it needs to be. The best so far is teesom but the data entry to get started made me go squirrley and I ended up bailing on it.... I won't go back simply because their calendar sucks so I'd still need the google.... It's like these programs are either ridiculously outdated and made on windows 98 or they're for 100+ employees and require a full time employee just to enter quotes...

[blue moon]

I know TeeCal is developing some new stuff and they asked me for suggestions. If you guys let me know, I can pass them on. Maybe something gets put in. . .

pierre

[1964GN]

Pierre, you have convinced me to take a harder look at TeeCal. What version are you on? Their website is light on details.

[brandon]

It's like these programs are either ridiculously outdated and made on windows 98 or they're for 100+ employees and require a full time employee just to enter quotes...

Exactly

[GraphicDisorder]

We use Fast Manager still, which is the precursor to Teesom. Like it, don't love it.

I wanted to like Printavo, but every time I try it im hit with another reason it don't work for me.