Estimating software

[cargeo]

hi guys
Being new to the forum forgive me if this has been covered.
About a year ago I purchased silverleaf design's Picture Framing Invoicing & Estimating Software Tool on ebay and I couldn't live without it now. To use it you need to have microsoft excel (but it also works in open office which is free).
It handles metric or imperial sizes, allows for waste and covers little things that are easy to forget when estimating and what I like is that I can give my customers a printed estimate in minutes and best of all it is great value at £14.99.
Has anyone else used this tool and if so what do you think of it.
kindest regards
George

[Colin]

Hello George,

Can you give me some more details of this. I have written my own program and was thinking or releasing it into the wild for £10 a go. It would be interesting to see what the competition is like.

Colin

[cargeo]

Hi Colin

Nice to meet you
The tool was designed by a framer that was fed up after paying a lot of money for software that wasn't up to the job and it is a set up for microsoft excel or open office calc. It has 6 different pages with corresponding tabs at the bottom, the first page is the calculator where you enter the customer's details, the frame size and prices of moulding, glass, mount boards and back board, the sundries are added automatically.
The next page is details for the workshop, the next is for the quote, then the summery page, then there is a conversion page and then one for notes
Although I saw it again on ebay a while ago when I was looking for something else I had a look just now and couldn't find it.
I hope this is of help to you without me going in to too much detail as the designer quite rightly guards the copyright jealously.

George
ps good luck with the sales of your program

[Colin]

Many thanks George, you are obviously a man of integrity as you did not offer to give me the software or divulge too many details of it. As a computer programmer/engineeer of over 40 years standing please accept my sincere thanks for that.

My program is still being developed, the basic costing structure is there but I need to add an invoice printing facility before its released. I would like to send you a complimentary copy to see what you think. Mine is also based on Excel with the first page for data entry and calculated sale price for showing to the customer. The second page is for entry of costing parameters such as Vat rate, wastage, mark-up, together with glass, mount and back sizes and prices. The third is where all the calculations are performed and the fourth is the moulding data from the suppliers, just Simons and Wessex at the moment but others could be easily appended.

Could you please let me know what version of Excel you are using and I will send the program to you.

Colin

[cargeo]

I'm using microsoft's open office calc which handels any excel file, now there is an idea for you! Not everyone has microsoft Excel where as if your program works with open office as I am sure it will, you can advertise that open office is a free download and insert the link to their site next to your program for sale, all legal and above board. and I would be happy to test it out for you.

George

[LeFrisp]

Is it likley to run on a Mac when you have finished it?
Just found open office for mac (intel) so if your front end will work on mac id be interested..

[Nigel Nobody]

Personally I'm not a big fan of spreadsheet pricing systems for a framing business. It might be a good stopgap until a business can get a POS system. POS systems may seem expensive, but they are much more comprehensive, easier and faster to use and likely to make you more money and certainly help to stop you losing money.

If the 'Silverleaf' spreadsheet is so good, I wonder why it's not available?

[Colin]

Hello LeFrisp
I will try it on a Mac this evening, it should be OK as I have hopefully written it to be cross platform. A perennial problem when porting from PC to Mac are font discrepancies but hopefully I can find a compatible one. However, these could be famous last words...

Hello Nigel,
Could you please let me know what your POS system does that a spreadsheet based program together with a credit card machine and till will not. Alternatively could you please let me know the system you are using and I will check it out. I wrote this program for myself and it works OK for me. I am in discussion with other framers to include additional functionality and if you have any specific requirements I will see what I can do.

Colin

[cargeo]

Hi Nigel

I've been using silverleaf spreadsheet program for over a year now and I haven't lost any money yet in fact the opposite. The only thing that I can see that it can't do is stock control and and it wont draw a picture of the frame.

regards
George

[John]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a spreadsheet pricing system. I created and used my own, which I was more than happy with it at the time. But, I’m sure Colin will bear me out on this, we are never 100% happy with our efforts and are continually tinkering, tweaking, and adding new features, and always looking for ways to improve.

Our pricing system moved over to compiled Pascal about 20 years ago, but the tinkering and upgrading never stopped, and I note today that it now has 94,239 lines of code.

Good luck with your app Colin, but be warned, you have embarked on a never ending journey.

[Nigel Nobody]

John,
You're right about there being nothing wrong with spreadsheet pricing. I'm just not keen on them because POS systems have features that are improvements on spreadsheet systems.

I'm currently evaluating a couple of different POS systems to replace my old DOS based system, which has been adequate for my uses since 1991. It doesn't have very good customer relationship features or the ability to install Australian suppliers databases to update costs in one fell swoop.

Both of the systems I'm currently looking at are very comprehensive and much more complex. I've pretty much eliminated one of them already. The other one looks good so far, but it's early days yet.

Does Estlite have the ability to install suppliers databases and if so, what format would they need to be?

[John]

I don't want to stray way off topic by getting into the finer details of suppliers' databases. But yes, it is a fairly straightforward process to convert a supplier's moulding list from just about any format they care to provide. In addition, EstLite has the ability to access a supplier's server (with their cooperation of course) and directly obtain their current moulding prices and stock status.

[Dermot]

John am I correct that EstLite is one of the only picture framers software programs around that is set up to handle most world currencies including UK£, Euro€, US$ and the Australian Dollar to name just a few currencies and that it also handles Imperial and Metric measurements....

[markw]

I started my business using a very simple excel pricing system - it worked well and was a vast improvement on the old paper chart system. But I was always looking for something better - which really meant something designed by a programmer - not a framer with very little expertise in Excel.

I've used a few POS systems over the years - and would comment - It needs to impress the customer. By that I mean that it should be quick and present the customer with a neat well designed and concise docket. Frequently my customers comment on the efficiency of my pos system. If they are returning customers I can call up records of old work - and have all their data entered automatically - if they are new customers I can enter their data with very little effort (it accesses postcode data). The customer gets an accurate collection date - and if they provide their mobile phone number the POS system will text them when the job is complete.

I may be wrong in my conclusion as I dont know how comprehensive your Excel based estimators are, but it seems to me that its the customer interface that makes the expensive systems worth the money. The more basic systems seem to provide adequate information for the user and would seem to be a good first step on the computerised costing system

The other point that makes any system worth having is the ability to change elements of the estimate very quickly so that you can upsell - mount options, glass etc. I talk my customers through the options available and cost the difference as we talk - the programme must be able to make those changes quickly and easily. The ability to upsell can pay for an expensive pos system very quickly.

The last point that many framers miss is that collecting information about your customer - being able to email, text or write to your customer is important - for selling - or just telling them to come and pick the work up.

[LeFrisp]

Colin. did you manage to try your app on the Mac?

[Colin]

Hello again LeFrisp,

Everything works well on the Mac with the exception of cell shading which comes up with different colours. On the PC version the data is entered into the blue cells, the cells you should not touch are shaded pink. On the iMac running MacOs 10.58 the pink shading comes out yellow. At the weekend I will sit down with a PC and a Macbook side by side and try to sort the palettes out.

Apart from that all the calculations run OK.

The features are:
Metric or Imperial
Up to three mounts
Float, non-ref or museum glass, also an option for a mirror
Option of a back.
User entry fields for wastage on everything, mark-up, vat, labour, sundries and the option of up to five extras. Customer name, address, tel and email.
The customer details, the frame size, the extras, and the final price all show on the invoice.
There are no macros or VB used, its all done with standard Excel formulas.

I am not VAT registered so the final sales figure does not have VAT added. This could be easily be added if required but I would have to charge for bespoke alterations. Remember I am only looking for ten pounds for it in its bog standard version.

Can I just mention that I am a programmer, now semi-retired and teaching rather than doing.

Colin