The Framers Forum

Hello framers.
My partner and I are doing a bit of a review / tidy up of our customer workflow practice.
For years we have used an old carbon duplicate receipt book for client orders. It works fine mainly because my partner and I are used to each other’s shorthand and way of working.
However, now we have a part time assistant we need to tighten up our ways. We have already had a bit of a mix up… shame on us!

May I get your view on your customer order taking and work tracking process. Its surely better than a carbon duplicate with additional ‘post it’ notes.

Are there any key fields and points you find important or must have?

We consider ourselves as a medium, small sized operation, operating out of a garage and purpose-built unit in our house. Our main customer base are locals from telephone and email enquires

Thank you kindly in advance
Carol

We have used pricing software virtually from day 1, in addition to producing consistent prices they should also be capable of some form of stock control, listing materials required for all orders taken in a specific period, produce cutting lists, allow additional notes and have the ability to send emails and/texts to customers.

Most software vendors will allow you to download a trial version for you to play with for a month.

I have my own pricing program, it prices, produces cut list, quotes, customer history, it can price for retail customers and also trade customers, It's just a massive data base
Customer history is a must, if not, then either the customer has to take a photo of what you framed for them before or they have to bring in the frame they want matching, if they want something framed as before, also you can be consistent on prices

I've just moved over to FrameR by framiac.
It produces worksheets with all my inputs and orders can be updated/changed/corrected at anytime. £10/month is a bargain for how it has changed my work practices.

Good Afternoon,
Having dome most of my pricing manually I am looking for a simple software which could help me keep records and store pricing from Suppliers.
Any thoughts would be helpful
Regards
Patrick, Camden Frames

For me, who started with a 2 ply carbon pad, a vestige of the original owner, I designed a 4 ply, fill in the blanks form. In the late 80's I was already looking into POS software as I had experience with it in my former life with big box retail. I entered the modern world with a software package around 1991or 1992 and never looked back.

Regarding using a price chart vs computer calculated pricing, the computer calculations are more accurate all around. The work orders are also easier to read by anybody, including special notations.

With an error rate of just $2 per order and 2 orders a day for a 6 day week, that is a savings of $24/week or over $1000 / year savings. That is enough to pay for the convenience and labor savings of updating prices of a POS system.

Hey Patrick,
Estlite is perfectly adequate, in fact it does quite a lot and costs about £500 one-off payment. I moved over to Framiac after a couple of years though, which does a few more things and I find really easy to use. Imo I think the layout and look of a program is really important for some of us. Framiac ticks my boxes. It's pretty much useable out of the box and is endlessly customisable for how you work and what you use. It costs about 1% of sales per month. There are others I have seen. Wessex do one. Quick Price is one I saw at a framers pretty straighforward, a bit basic looking layout. Frame ready has just enabled there's for the UK, it's very well thought of in the US. If you want a simple Android App there's The Framers Pricing App. Loads more out there...

Good paperwork can save you both time and money and in all likelyhood it will make your life much easier. It also becomes much more vial as the number of people working in your shop increases and then the paperwork makes it easier for various members of staff to work together as an effective team, when it's not possible to check information with someone on their day off. I find that good working systems also make for stress free working. I like to batch the various aspects of different jobs to help my work flow.

I have half a day for cutting mounts, different mount are for different customers and the paperwork helps me to stay organsed. I also have other times for undertaking other tasks. Good paperwork drives the system. I have a card file box with a flip up lid, my master file copy goes in there. The customer gets another copy and I have smaller print outs for use with the mountcutter, for cutting glass, backing boards and making frames all of these are printed out onto an A4 card and cut out with scissors.

When at the mount cutter i have two little boxes and transfer my working notes from one box to the other as I complete each mount. This help me to remember what I am suppose to being doing! I also multi task by using those little kitchen timers, which tell me when it time to go back to jobs waiting from the glue to set before completing the next stage. Maybe this sounds crazy, but I have had a stroke and my brain now sometimes plays tricks on me and I now need my memory aids as my brain is a little bit broken.

I have made my own system using a pricing system that was made in excel and posted on here a few years ago.

Now I have it in Google Sheets so although it is just me it could be accessed and edited by others in real time.