# shop management software



## monayem (Dec 9, 2012)

Is anyone use shop management software? In the business it is important to give customers estimate, invoices, and order approval forms. With the shop management software can i easily do these work? If i want to use shop management software is it good for me.


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## starchild (Jul 22, 2009)

Did You google screen printing management software?


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## Printavo (Oct 7, 2007)

Yeah Google'ing will definitely help. I used to run a shop for a few years in college and I couldn't find anything that was modern and simple. I learned to code and built Printavo. It's basically web-based software to help manage your shop quickly. Worked for us and could help you guys too.


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## ukracer (Feb 11, 2010)

Why does every body now release monthly subs software? Not much is worth 25 quid per month and even less can afford shelling out month after month.


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## Printavo (Oct 7, 2007)

So here's the thing. When I ran a shop we were always on the go meeting with customers and getting things done. We needed a web-based solution so we could access our data on the go and on our phones. Now from a revenue perspective, the way to monetize that is to sell a subscription which pays for the hosting, maintenance and continued development/growth of the product. It's a pretty nice model that's affordable for all types of businesses.


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## Inkognito (May 5, 2012)

ukracer has a good point. the cost of a monthy subscription service is a draw back for many shops. it's definitely not a selling point imo. why not charge a one time "license fee" and then an appropriate "upgrade fee" when you release updates? screen printers use products like corel, illustrator, and photoshop to manage their artwork. they use products like intuit's quickbooks to manage their finances. and if they know ms access, they can create a database to manage their work flow and orders efficiently. do any of these require a monthly fee? and can't these application be accessed out-of-office by some type of cloud computing (not sure about that one)? i'm sure printavo is a well designed application, and worthy of a cost that would enable you (the developer) to make a profit, but i just think you'd sell more units if your pricing structure was different. just my opinion, which doesn't count for much


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## Printavo (Oct 7, 2007)

Inkognito said:


> ukracer has a good point. the cost of a monthy subscription service is a draw back for many shops. it's definitely not a selling point imo. why not charge a one time "license fee" and then an appropriate "upgrade fee" when you release updates? screen printers use products like corel, illustrator, and photoshop to manage their artwork. they use products like intuit's quickbooks to manage their finances. and if they know ms access, they can create a database to manage their work flow and orders efficiently. do any of these require a monthly fee? and can't these application be accessed out-of-office by some type of cloud computing (not sure about that one)? i'm sure printavo is a well designed application, and worthy of a cost that would enable you (the developer) to make a profit, but i just think you'd sell more units if your pricing structure was different. just my opinion, which doesn't count for much


You definitely have some good points. Here's my take. Web-software is a hugely iterative process, which means (at least in Printavo's case) there are updates literally every-night. If there's a bug on one of my users end I can login and fix it for them right there in a matter of seconds, it's just not the same for desktop software. Now yes there are larger updates every month or so but up-charging for that would make maintaining the platform pretty difficult since not everyone would update. Unfortunately that wouldn't be scalable to a larger audience. 

More and more of your services are moving to the "cloud", Quickbooks, Adobe's subscription (Cloud Creative) and tons of invoicing tools. A $50/mo fee for all Adobes products or $100/mo for Quickbooks is a great way to keep costs down per month if you're a small shop. You also have NO worries about fixing errors yourself and those costs we made back in 1-2 print jobs max. 

Hopefully that makes more sense but I like reading your opinions on it, keep it coming if you have other ideas.


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## oldmoneybrand (Jul 7, 2012)

Printavo said:


> You definitely have some good points. Here's my take. Web-software is a hugely iterative process, which means (at least in Printavo's case) there are updates literally every-night. If there's a bug on one of my users end I can login and fix it for them right there in a matter of seconds, it's just not the same for desktop software. Now yes there are larger updates every month or so but up-charging for that would make maintaining the platform pretty difficult since not everyone would update. Unfortunately that wouldn't be scalable to a larger audience.
> 
> More and more of your services are moving to the "cloud", Quickbooks, Adobe's subscription (Cloud Creative) and tons of invoicing tools. A $50/mo fee for all Adobes products or $100/mo for Quickbooks is a great way to keep costs down per month if you're a small shop. You also have NO worries about fixing errors yourself and those costs we made back in 1-2 print jobs max.
> 
> Hopefully that makes more sense but I like reading your opinions on it, keep it coming if you have other ideas.


I looked into your product, it is deffinetly the cleanest and simplest to use that ive seen so far.(It doesn't have that boring eyegouging PC software look)

I wish printavo had some sort of accounting feature that wasn't just a profit/loss format, something that you could scan your receipts and invoices in and attach them to your expense report for future reference(on the go).

Can it keep track of inventory that you have on-hand and remind you that you need more shirts, paint, or chemicals when you run low(maybe have an estimated shelf life for chemicals that the user inputs) ?

Is there an iPhone app or is it browser based? There should be an app, if not.

I'm not sure about the invoicing feature, is it 100% customizable? I like my invoices to look like the template from Apple Numbers with my logos at the top and bottom. I also like that you can build formulas in each cell, can Printavo do that?

Can you attach artwork to your work orders? Say I'm out of the shop and sell a job can I attach the artwork so that my employees can begin prepping the screens from the shop right away?

The one feature that would really sell me and I'm sure a ton of others is real-time supply costs from all major vendors and the ability to take the current cost and add a calculated, quantity/imprint based mark-up to it and draw up a quote quickly.

I think that most of us are looking for a clean & easy full head to toe shop management software and yours seems to be just for scheduling, quoting, and invoicing. If you offered the other features you would have me as a long-time customer for sure.


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## Printavo (Oct 7, 2007)

Hey, definitely don't want to get in trouble for self advertising by answering that but hit me up [email protected] if you have questions.


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## Riph (Jan 11, 2011)

It seems to me that no matter how you slice it, licensing software is a "subscription." 

Even if you make a one time payment to purchase a license, you are still going to pay for updates. When your operating system gets updated, you might need an update to your software again. When new features come out, you are going to pay again for the update. Then your hardware gets old, or can't run the latest version, or you need a memory upgrade or whatever. It's endless.

The beauty of the "cloud" model is that updates happen transparently and don't take any of your own time. You don't have to have additional hardware to run the apps. You don't have to do the backups. Basically, you make a monthly payment and you get out of the Information Technology business and back to the business of running your business. 

Where I can, I use software services provided via the cloud model - for me that includes a sales funnel system (Base), my Bookkeeping/Accounting (Quickbooks Online), Google docs for letters, spreadsheets, presentations. Email from two or three different systems, none of which I manage.

Sure, I have software that I licensed the traditional way, too. But I am a definite believer in the cloud based subscription model.

Of course, that's just my opinion, your mileage may vary.


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## Printavo (Oct 7, 2007)

Riph said:


> The beauty of the "cloud" model is that updates happen transparently and don't take any of your own time. You don't have to have additional hardware to run the apps. You don't have to do the backups. Basically, you make a monthly payment and you get out of the Information Technology business and back to the business of running your business.


Well said, it lets people like me do the debugging and maintenance/upgrades instead of you.


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