New mis software

[chrisio]

Hi.

In the new year I want to try and get to grips with the email/trello/hodgepodge message of a system we have in place.

It works but we miss oit on jobs because we are not following up on a quote or a job goes wrong because not all of the correct information is on trello.

We are a small print shop and deal with around 50/50 business and consumer and I would like to concentrate on winning more repeat business this year from businesses..

Looking round i am completely overwhelmed by what's outs there and everyone wants to set up a demo etc before even mentioning pricing.
I dont even think I have managed to find one that has screen shots of the software available. It looks like they all want to hard sell and I dont handle that very well at all

I think most of them do what is required such as estimating/crm job tickets etc and I think I need something fairly simple to begin with but I do need to integrate with square for payments and invoicing as thats the system I use and I wont b3 changing from that.

Does anyone have any leads on a simple straight forward to use system that can grow and wont break the bank I dont mind spending upto around £/$250 per month.

Cheers.
Chris

 

[tngcas]

Looking round i am completely overwhelmed by what's outs there and everyone wants to set up a demo etc before even mentioning pricing.
I dont even think I have managed to find one that has screen shots of the software available. It looks like they all want to hard sell and I dont handle that very well at all

I flat out won't do business with companies that refuse to disclose their pricing upfront.
It is incredibly wasteful of everyone's time and energy. If that's their model upfront it won't get better.

The MIS systems out there end up bloated and overpriced because they always start out basic but then they end up continually adding features.
As they add features they actually start to break what worked well (especially if they didn't design the initial platform with an easy onramp to the new features).
I've seen it happen over and over again.
Every time they add new features they feel justified in charging more and more and pretty soon you have expensive, overpriced bloated software that nobody wants to use.
My two cents.

What features you actually need in an MIS will depend drastically on what type of print shop you are and your niche. It's truly not easy to find an MIS that fits your specific setup.

 

[chrisio]

I flat out won't do business with companies that refuse to disclose their pricing upfront.
It is incredibly wasteful of everyone's time and energy. If that's their model upfront it won't get better.

The MIS systems out there end up bloated and overpriced because they always start out basic but then they end up continually adding features.
As they add features they actually start to break what worked well (especially if they didn't design the initial platform with an easy onramp to the new features).
I've seen it happen over and over again.
Every time they add new features they feel justified in charging more and more and pretty soon you have expensive, overpriced bloated software that nobody wants to use.
My two cents.

What features you actually need in an MIS will depend drastically on what type of print shop you are and your niche. It's truly not easy to find an MIS that fits your specific setup.

I totally agree on the pricing aspect - just give me a ball park its all I ask that way I know I am not wasting your time by enquiring.

The main things I need is
1. Strong CRM so contacting customer/potential customers is easy
2. Quoting from a range of pre-configured items eg 500 business cards etc
3. Booklet quoting / estimating cover stock/ inner stock/ paper weight etc etc
4. Job board with configurable job cards so I can tweak them if needed to include extra information
5. Integration with Square UK invoicing - although the only one I have found is ShopVox but they only do payments and still rely on internal invoicing - I want the invoice to be created within Square itself (I fear this is impossible)

What I basically want is to be able to replace email/trello/manual calculations / manual invoicing with one system that keeps track of everything

I think I will just have to sign up for loads of demos and face the hard sell

Cheers

 

[SoggyWinter]

I'm in a similar boat. The plan is to switch to OnPrintShop to the extent possible, and look at Open Source ERP and CRM | Odoo for stuff we can't do with OnPrintShop and Square.

 

[chrisio]

I'm in a similar boat. The plan is to switch to OnPrintShop to the extent possible, and look at Open Source ERP and CRM | Odoo for stuff we can't do with OnPrintShop and Square.

This is the problem though isnt it. already you are looking at at least 2 different systems, so are you going to replace one set of problems with another (plus the learning curve that goes with it)

Forgetting square integration for the moment - you would think there is a market for a focused system that does what we need - mine and your requirements are not that unusual I would have thought.

It just seems to be an impossible mission to find it!

 

[SoggyWinter]

This is the problem though isnt it. already you are looking at at least 2 different systems, so are you going to replace one set of problems with another (plus the learning curve that goes with it)

Forgetting square integration for the moment - you would think there is a market for a focused system that does what we need - mine and your requirements are not that unusual I would have thought.

It just seems to be an impossible mission to find it!

If I were to take a guess as to why things are the way they are is
1) big companies custom build their own software in part or in full
2) a lot of smaller shops are still doing workflows manually the same way they have for decades
3) web to print software vendors don't feel the need to build out full accounting and CRM features
4) accounting and CRM companies aren't interested in web to print because it is too small

 

[chrisio]

If I were to take a guess as to why things are the way they are is
1) big companies custom build their own software in part or in full
2) a lot of smaller shops are still doing workflows manually the same way they have for decades
3) web to print software vendors don't feel the need to build out full accounting and CRM features
4) accounting and CRM companies aren't interested in web to print because it is too small

After spending what feels like hours reading why x y and z are the best choices and not really learning anything, me and chatgpt have had a cosy few hours and are in the throws of creating something.

 

[tngcas]

ChatGPT and I have built a few fun things in the last few weeks. Will it get used, the word is still out on that but it honestly is fun. An enjoyable way to spend time.

 

[davarino]

Good luck, chrisio and tngcas.

All great inventions are the result of seeing a problem, and recognizing the possibilities of a certain approach to solving that problem, whether that approach is reasonable, theoretical, political, practical, economic, (or anything else), or not.

"Don't carry a hod. Build a cathedral."

 

[jwheeler]

There are a ton out there, new ones always popping up, and others going out of business. I'd suggest going with ones that have been around for a long time and are proven. One that comes to mind that works for smaller shops is Printers Plan. We had it at a small shop I first started at ~25 years ago, and when I worked at a larger shop years later that bought out a couple of small shops, the small shops had it as well.

They show a demo of the product right on the web page I provided above.

I don't sell PrintersPlan and never have, but I used to sell production gear and software for KM...and we had a few MIS systems that we pushed - this was not one of them. KM's are pretty pricey. I bring this up only because, while I am now a customer and understand the demos/pricing process is frustrating, they are not just trying to do a 'hard sell'...there are several things they need to know in order to provide an accurate estimate such as:

1. Which modules do you need?
   
   • Often there are optional features like managing inventory (blank stock or pre-printed products), having credit card payment processing, barcode scanner job tracking, etc
2. Do you need to integrate with any external tools
   
   • an external accounting software like Quickbooks
   • an existing online storefront, or do you want to get their storefront
3. Do you have an existing database/MIS that you can export from and need services to import that database into this new one (such as all of your customers' information)
4. Do you need professional services? (meaning they do most of the work to set it up or will you be doing most of the work after they train you how to use it)
   • It can be quite a long process to input all of your stocks, finishing options, different presses, hourly rates, click charges, markups, volume discounts, etc
5. Do you want the self-hosted (local server) version or the cloud-hosted version?

 

[chrisio]

There are a ton out there, new ones always popping up, and others going out of business. I'd suggest going with ones that have been around for a long time and are proven. One that comes to mind that works for smaller shops is Printers Plan. We had it at a small shop I first started at ~25 years ago, and when I worked at a larger shop years later that bought out a couple of small shops, the small shops had it as well.

They show a demo of the product right on the web page I provided above.

I don't sell PrintersPlan and never have, but I used to sell production gear and software for KM...and we had a few MIS systems that we pushed - this was not one of them. KM's are pretty pricey. I bring this up only because, while I am now a customer and understand the demos/pricing process is frustrating, they are not just trying to do a 'hard sell'...there are several things they need to know in order to provide an accurate estimate such as:

1. Which modules do you need?
   
   • Often there are optional features like managing inventory (blank stock or pre-printed products), having credit card payment processing, barcode scanner job tracking, etc
   • an external accounting software like Quickbooks
   • an existing online storefront, or do you want to get their storefront
2. Do you have an existing database/MIS that you can export from and need services to import that database into this new one (such as all of your customers' information)
3. Do you need professional services? (meaning they do most of the work to set it up or will you be doing most of the work after they train you how to use it)
   • It can be quite a long process to input all of your stocks, finishing options, different presses, hourly rates, click charges, markups, volume discounts, etc
4. Do you want the self-hosted (local server) version or the cloud-hosted version?

Cheers.

I did actually look at printers plan but their lack of prices transparency put me right off. Even if they do not give an actual price on the website its not difficult to put a base price up and then say that add on modules are charged extra.

Rightly or wrongly that absolutely drives me round the bend! Now it also may be a case that I can't see the price for looking and there for im clearly the idiot.

Me and chatgpt have got quite cosy together over the last few days and I am about 80% there on a fully working system that suits us exactly- have I reinvented the wheel, more than likely for 90% of the features but its that last 10% for our edge cases or just because.

Its truly amazing what this ai stuff can do.

Cheers
Chris.

 

[Shawnd]

Most shops that are running Plan Prophet with either Printers Plan or Printsmith seem to be very happy with the overall solution. PP fills that CRM nitche the MIS systems don't want to deal with.

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