Specific Shop Management needs

[Stinkhorn Press]

Impress would be at the bottom of my list

care to expand on that, as to why? thanks

Too rigid and inflexible. It was designed for apparel manufactures originally and tweaked for decorators. Worst I've ever used. Pretty unwilling to modify and update

thanks

Seems to be working  pretty well here. They process 150-400 orders a month. I know they have made a lot of improvements.

thanks

[Homer]

check out T-Quoter. compared to the look of the others, I think it's the less "spread sheet" looking one of the bunch. It has a easy to use interface...it has it's glitches but I just learned the other day, we are on the OLD version, a new one came out 4-5 years ago and they never upgraded us for whatever BS reason....I am on the trial version of shopvox at the moment, we need to have a central hub for all the services we offer and we already use it for the sign department. It looks ok, not as clean looking as I like and it's cloud based, which I am not a fan of...but I may be forced to switch, so I'm trying hard to like it...

[tonypep]

Thanks man pls call 770-329-3994

[TCT]

For what it is worth, Priceit has been awesome for us. Those guys are down to help. There newer version is cloud based, and they've kinda pushed everyone over to it. But you may be able to wheel and deal with them and see what they can do for you in terms of one you host.

I've been as happy as someone can be who needs a shop program but can't create their own program. I also  for the record, TOTALLY understand what a massive and nearly impossible task it is to create the "every solution program".

Sent from my LG-H918 using Tapatalk

[merchmonster]

Why are you anti-cloud? Cloud means you get new software features instantly.

Oh man, this is trickier than I thought.

Shopworx is ugly commands a steep learning curve, but it being so old, it's added so much usability and quite a few bigger dogs swear by it. Almost to the point that if you're of a certain million dollar plus, more than 4 autos shop - it's that or custom made stuff.

Printavo is beautiful compared to everything else out there, and adding functionality all the time, but we're ANTI-cloud based here.
TeeCal seems to be Shopworx baby brother. Ugly, functional, not even in the same universe price-wise. I wasn't super impressed when Pierre and Ross walked me through some of how they use it, but I wasn't aware just how not-great the competition that existed was.
Impress, Cyrious, PriceIt all have their advocates.

We use QuickBooks for invoice/estimate/pdfs to email/AR and AP/payroll!!/taxes/loans/bank account/reporting.
It's not great at invoicing (or we haven't learned it well enough maybe) in that it can't reference wholesaler garment options (prices). It doesn't help create a usable production sheet from that invoice. It's not super good at reporting (but everything but Shopworx seems to be in that same boat). It's fantastic for payable, receivables, keeping record of financial accounts, running payroll and making my accountant happy. Looks like we'll be stuck keeping it (and it's cost - $500 a year for payroll, update costs every 2 years to stay current) UNLESS we go Shopworx and squeeze everything we can out of it's accounting end.

Leaning towards TeeCal and MOSTLY using the estimate/invoice/production sheet creation bits to start, relieving QB of those duties.

[Stinkhorn Press]

Why are you anti-cloud? Cloud means you get new software features instantly.
...

I'm a Luddite.

It's unnecessary. 99% of what a shop management program should do doesn't require outside computer/servers, therefore outside computers/servers is a waste, a risk.
My calculator on my desk doesn't need to have an internet connection to get my sum.
"check your stuff - ship status etc on the fly, on the road" - great! but not worth the trade-off of - today my internet provider is out, or worse, my chosen software platform's server is out...



...we already DO 70% of what a shop management program does, in house. It's not stressing us. at this point we'll probably try to squeeze a bit more out of QB to get the invoicing to be a little cleaner, quicker, AND create a workable press proof/printer notes sheet and not worry about it until our processes can't handle some future growth need (and will then probably sigh and take one last look about before resigning ourselves to paying for and sorting out ShopWorks - but I suck at forecasting the future).

[merchmonster]

I guess we're all in over here. VoIP phone, email quotes, saas shop software. If internet is down office is closed for the day 

I tried the quickbooks route and Printavo is way better than that imo. The only thing I hate is I need to manually generate a report to track cash flow against receivables and payables. But it takes 10 mins.

I looked at shopworks because of this thread. It has a lot of features but it's a little overwhelming. Didn't come away convinced to go from spending $100/mo to $650/mo

[Larz]

I'm a little late to this party but I wanted to let you know that PriceIt does exactly what you are looking for. Give us call and I'd be glad to show you what we've been up to.
-Larry

We need to find a shop management program before year end. If you are a vendor DO feel free to sell me, contact me.

I have NOT looked at all the offerings, I'm going to lay out what I need, want, and don't need and see who can recommend (or recommend against) any particular product. Feel free to PM if you don't want to step on toes.

DO NOT NEED:
pricing help: i have a homemade spreadsheet, it's more complicated than a price matrix, i have my doubts that my system can be built into any existing shop software as it now sits.
scheduling help: we do this on a big, physical board, pretty much a IRL version of the digital ones. i'm not shrinking it to a screen.
releasing approval at each stage of the job: we do this physically as well. (it's mostly on the schedule board)

I DO NEED:
I want to enter orders (estimates etc) ONCE and have them populate everything needed - production sheets, invoices, customer/job notes.
NEED to have robust reporting possible, by time frame, comparisons, cost analysis, throughput... it doesn't need to have perfect reporting IF the info is available to be entered in the right spot and exported to other report-making functions.

Pluses, but not needed: play nice with QB (desktop not online!) when setup right
play nice with major wholesalers (translate an order over to a wholesaler, is that possible?)

Mainly I want: a very usable production sheet for jobs, a way to enter jobs one time and populate everything needed, and the ability to produce robust reports.
That's what we need right now. Pretty simple. Of course in the future we'll want other controls. Cost is of a concern, but NOT my greatest concern.
1 auto 1 manual shop. 5 employees. 12-15 screens per day.

I know almost NOTHING about the possible options and varieties of management programs so please treat me like I'm 5 when explaining things, thanks!