Any experience with ShopVox?

[NTZ-Deanna]

I'm curious if anyone has any experience with ShopVox?  (not to be confused with ShopWorx)   If so, any Pros or Cons?

We're currently using Fast Manager, but I'm beginning to feel that it is not meeting the demand of my growing shop. 

[Oggielander]

Hi Deanna,

No experience of Shopvox but can't speak highly enough of FM which is keeping up with the demand of our growing business  - 4 autos, heat transfer print dept and an embroidery department.  I am aware that there are different versions of FM, we have the Premier version that enables you to plan and coordinate all the production.  It maybe worth looking at what version you have and possibly look to upgrade - the "grass is always greener"

I suppose the question is ... in what areas in FM not meeting your demands?

[jupmode]

We have been using ShopVox for about a year now. It's not a perfect system, but it works well for us and we haven't found an alternative that we'd consider switching to.

We needed a system that was web based. Our biggest complaint is that it's slow at times, tedious to enter all of the information (but every system is), and there are a few areas we'd like to customize a little bit more if we had the time.

If you have specific questions, fire away or email me direct: john@jupmode.com.

[Homer]

We use signvox in our sign department, same thing. At first I really liked it but the more we use it, I really don't care for the web based stuff. It is really slow and if your internet goes down, you're in trouble. I don't like entering new customers, I think there are way too many fields you need to enter or it won't let you add them. You can create orders for the same product 2 ways and get a different price each way, but I think that's more on our end with products. When you create a job, you have to click "create job" in two spots or it won't change from a quote to a job, that really grinds my gears. The positives are reorders are simple, about 2 clicks and done. When you send a proof, you can tell if the customer has reviewed it or not, so that's nice. If they review the proof and have changes, there is a text box they can fill out and submit changes, but 90% of the time, they call because they can't figure out how to do it...we looked at every available software for signage and screening I have yet to come upon one that works great, they all suck in their own way...we use t-quoter for shirts, don't get me started on that mess....

[KevinO]

We had tried it for about a month and I know that's not an ample amount of time to really immerse yourself in it, but we quickly stopped and took the plunge for Shopworks. One big thing that turned us off was having to take accounting information from ShopVox to QB or some other accounting service.

The more and more we have Shopworks, the more and more I come to love it and appreciate it. You have all the data you could ever want if you are using it correctly and the idea to input an order once and it just streamlines across all departments is worth it's weight in gold.

Believe me it was hard to make that initial financial and time investment, but if you plan on staying in business it's worth every dollar.

That's my thoughts!

[tonypep]

Shopworks here w/ status spread (schedule module) created in excel. Their way is too clunky for most other than that works fine

[NTZ-Deanna]

Fast Manager does cover a lot of the bases but I find it frustrating with it's glitches and constant shut downs.  Lack of updates to the software makes it hard for me to pay the high price tag for the Premier Package as we need it on several computer/work stations. 

Great point about the web based ShopVox being slow or down if your internet isn't working - that would drive me crazy. 

Shopworks may be worth looking into further if I'm going to be dropping some serious cash for a good system.  I'd rather spend the money to do it right the first time.  At the same time, I don't think I want to mess with my QuickBooks Systems.  Oh what to do!  Perhaps I should try to re-embrace my Fast Manager?  ugh   

Thanks for the input everyone!

[avogel]

We have been using the Shopvox Express plan since January. I use Quickbooks for all accounting and invoicing. We use Shopvox for scheduling and job tracking. We like it so far. Its a little time consuming with the way you have to setup a customer before entering a job. I like the scheduling and production time tracking portion of it. We have experienced very little down time with it. We are a small shop, 30 - 40 jobs per week.

[blue moon]

Fast Manager does cover a lot of the bases but I find it frustrating with it's glitches and constant shut downs.  Lack of updates to the software makes it hard for me to pay the high price tag for the Premier Package as we need it on several computer/work stations. 

Great point about the web based ShopVox being slow or down if your internet isn't working - that would drive me crazy. 

Shopworks may be worth looking into further if I'm going to be dropping some serious cash for a good system.  I'd rather spend the money to do it right the first time.  At the same time, I don't think I want to mess with my QuickBooks Systems.  Oh what to do!  Perhaps I should try to re-embrace my Fast Manager?  ugh   

Thanks for the input everyone!

look into Tee-Cal. It has most of the features of ShopWorx for a fraction of the price. Not perfect, but it's pretty good. You will still need to use your QuickBooks with it. They recently released some pretty big upgrades and I am super happy with it now.

pierre