-
Sign pricing and estimating software – advice needed please?
Hey Guys, Hope you are all keeping well!! Ive been researching and looking into purchasing estimating software for our company. Ive read every single post on here and still cant make up my mind lol! Reading through posts on here it seems like Estimate and Clarity are the two big ones that people seem to use. Ive also come across Shopvox pro and also SignTracker, does anyone have any more information about either of these two? Does anyone know if these softwares will operate properly with VAT rates, currencies etc for the UK market? What we need is a piece of software that two people can use, that has all our labour rates, margins etc stored for easy estimating, that can show us how much we actually made on each individual job, will generate quotes to be emailed and will ideally integrate with quickbooks online. We would also love to be able to track each jobs progress between computers rather than using our whiteboard. We buy alot of products from trade companies (stainless steel letter built ups, led products etc), do any of these softwares have the ability to integrate these type of products including our sales margins as well as your standard folded dibond panels with 20mm foamex cut outs etc? Also which is the easiest to set up as we are very busy so id like to be able to set it up at home. Thanks in advance for all help and advice.
-
8 Replies
-
We use Clarity, does most of what you’re asking for, although sit down when you get the quote… as you need ‘training’ for everything. You can’t install it yourself, they have to do it, any modules they need to do it + training. :shake:
Shopvox… much more DIY.
-
Hi dave,
Yes we have a demo booked for Thursday morning with clarity. They didnt talk any prices with us over the phone so we will have to wait and see what they say. Ive emailed sign vox for a demo but waiting on them getting back to me. Estimate looks ok but doesnt really seem to suit the type of work we do, we do very little vinyl work except wide format, its mostly fabricating we do in here and estimate seemed geared more towards vinyl signs and banners etc. Sign tracker looked good as well and quite easy to set up but very Americanised, still playing about with it atm.
-
If your going to invest in something like Clarity you need to be committed 100% to it, change your ways to work around it, be dependant on it.
Otherwise, it just doesn’t work. There’s an article in print monthly (we featured in it) that covers it.
-
Had a look for that article and couldnt find it. Have you a link by any chance? Cheers dave
-
http://www.printmonthly.co.uk/Features/ … on-systems
-
Been in this business 13 years turning 10K a week software for pricing ffs its a joke, work out your costs and work out how much profit you need and give customer a price its not rocket science, all jobs are different and need different margins, some are harder to do than others, some just aren’t worth doing, this is a human job not a software, know your business
-
Each to their own Adrian.
As a small business I like the convinience of all my quotes being stored in one place, being able to email them directly, how it integrates with our file server, supplier price lists being in one place. Hence why I often say you need to maximise every feature of the software.
We used to work all our prices out manually, and once we started running clarity some jobs we were making a healthy margin on, others weren’t worth doing.
I can say with confidence that using Clarity has increased our margins, we’ve attracted a higher quality customer. I often still intervene with what the computer says, to adjust the margins accordingly. Possibly the reason why a number of local competitiors are closing their doors whilst we are thriving??
Yes Clarity has it’s flaws like all software, and it might not work for every business out there. Your manual method works for you, our software works for us, James at group 101 praises sign VOX, I know other printers who use spread sheets.
-
We have been working out prices manually and typing up quotes in microsoft word for nearly 6 years and up to now it has worked really well. What we are aiming for is a paperless environment and a quoting and job management software that is more accurate and faster than what we are doing now. As dave said we would like all our quotes easily accessible by anyone in the business and all prices quoted to be worked out exactly the same way no matter who is doing the pricing. We would aslo like each and every job to be accessed on every computer rather than using a white board, job sheets and sometimes just peoples memories lol!! For us its all about organisation as our business grows. Im a firm believer that as our business grows financially the systems in place to manage that growth, as well as our staff, need to grow at the same rate. Ive seen too many businesses turnover grow exponentially and the businesses didnt have the proper systems in place to cope and therefore arent businesses anymore.
Log in to reply.