Well, I am tryin out the online demo of the software that so many spoke so well of and I thought I would post a few comments about the product while I was trying it out. Maybe others can help me over the parts I am not getting right away, or correct any misunderstandings or assumptions.
I sent my contact info to Moroware and Brian Ferriol quickly sent back an email with links, demo passwords, an even an offer to walk me through a live demo online, early, late, whenever I could find time. I started out by watching the online video, then went for the online demo. You can enter info, create accounts, customers, just about do it all to see how easy it is to pick up. It is all common sense stuff, no special jargon, most of us will put it to work from day one.
At first glance, it is very easy pick up. I am having no trouble at all going through it. The main screen can show it all at a glance and you can modify the veiw to show only jobs ready for template, install, fabricate or those ready for invoicing. Lots of places to put notes for unusual stuff, places for all the usuals stuff as well, faucet type, edge profileing, material pulled from drop down menus. I am thinking that this will be invaluable for a shop doing a lot of jobs, all activities can be clicked on from the screen providing quick access to what you need to know about the job. There is an activity file so you can look at any changes made since it was originally entered. There are calenders showing what jobs and what employees are scheduled and you can clearly see what times are still available. There are different views for managers,shop, templaters/ installers and weekly. It seems that no matter you are, you can click on details to find what you need about that job. You can color code different aspects, making it easy to see at a glance any choke points in scheduling jobs, many colors available, don't think you could run out.
Some of the functions are setting up accounts, jobs, quotes, calender, purchasing, inventory, reports and administrative tasks. You can even track scrap material in the inventory program, perfect for when someone calls looking for a vanity top.
It has a quote function, seems you enter the info just once and it follows for the rest of the job, entered automatically. You can even make an serial number for a sheet and print a barcode for it. It keeps track of the footage, thesquare foot cost, size, batch number of the sheet and even total cost of the sheet. You can track purchase orders,status, ship dates, who it is for, just about anything that you need.
It has a a report section, purchase for the entire year, sheet stock allocated to a job, gross sales by account. jobs per month, track what job the product was ordered for, even most popular colors, even quotes that haven't turned into jobs yet, quotes by individual salesmen. You can track jobs by supplier, even create new reports from drop down menu choices.
The email from Brian Ferriol gave some links to testimonials from customers, which I haven't had time to read yet, it gave the details of what both versions could do and the prices for both versions. I was impressed that they gave a payout option for paying for the software for the shops like mine with many needs and fewer shekels.
In all, you could run a lot of jobs with this software. As a small shop, we can still keep counter top jobs straight, but as we grow this program would be a great help for keeping things from being forgotten (how many jobs have you started fabricating only to find out the sink wasn't dlivered?). I am going to spend some time later this week getting more comfortable with the features and will report back on what I have learned.