Very Small Digital print shop looking for MIS with AR/AP functions

[hippoprinting]

Our print shop is very tiny. We have 4 employees, 5 if you include the owner. We looked at printer's plan and Digital Print Manager by Bard Solutions. We love the Digital Print Manager and think Printer's plan is more than we need. We are growing and need something better than our current system. The issue we keep finding with most MIS systems is there is no AP/AR functions that will run credit cards or work with our account software.

We also produce a newspaper and on the newspaper side we use Merrimac Publishing software. It does everything we need but doesn't have the quoting, job ticket/docket/work order, inventory tracking etc. that we need. 80% of our projects are billed to credit cards. The Merrimac software works with PC charge to run the credit cards and apply them the account accordingly. The issue again is that Merrimac for advertising, not tracking paper inventory or time tracking employees or estimating etc.

Any suggestions? We want to grow our business with as little overhead as possible but because of our lack of follow through or random follow through with quotes etc we need something to help with the amount of admin time. I spend anywhere from 3-5 minutes entering each project into our current system and probably something like 15-30 minutes with each quote I do. Not leaving a lot of time to do anything else as a CSR, Manager, Inside Sales person, "Air Traffic Controller", supply ordering, vendor relations... need I go on?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. In all of this I still have to pitch it to the owner and do my research.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

hippoprinting, your last three words are critical - do your research.

The MIS/ERP market is a crowded place, there are probably 50 or more options out there. All at different price points and license models (perpetual license, pay per month etc). Some aimed at small shops, some at SME, some at large companies. In general, all doing the same and similar things in very different ways (not just software design, but philosophy behind the whole system). All with different benefits and features. Some singular in product design, some modular. One package may be strong in some areas such as reporting, but not in other areas such as multiple warehousing (and vice versa with other solutions). Some systems may also have an integrated eCommerce and or W2P offering, which can be critical as integration is the key (what is integrated, is it unidirectional or bidirectional, how much does it cost to integrate the web and MIS, is it an out of the box integration or will you need to hire I.T. consultants for this, how does one manage and maintain the web storefront and or MIS etc).

As with any major investment (not just capital), there will be pros/cons to weigh against each other when comparing systems. Don’t just think about what you need today, also think what you may need in 5 years or further down the line. I am sure that you still wish to be in business in 5 years time and a good cost-plus MIS will help to keep your business open, so look for something that is flexible enough to grow with the business and handle the varied work that you produce now and into the future. An MIS can save you money and help make you money, it is not just about the cost of the MIS which is only part of the story.

Make note of your shop’s biggest pain points, what you hope the MIS will relieve. Note the things that you think the MIS must have or should do. Are these things really critical when examined in more depth or when the pros/cons are explained? Will you rule out a particular solution because it can’t do A, B or C - but does D to Z well?

There are so many things to take in consideration, too many for me to think of and post right now. A good place to start is with the following MIS buyer’s guide (which can be used for any MIS system purchase decision, not just the Accura MIS):

Accura MIS Buyer's Guide

Good luck on your quest! Feel free to ask me questions, I work for a vendor of the MIS mentioned above, however I like to think that I can also provide unbiased insights.


Stephen Marsh

 

[hippoprinting]

Hi Stephen,
I did browse the Accura MIS buyer's guide and it helped me with what I looked at initially. However it seems like all the MIS out there don't have an integrated payment processing for credit cards etc. We have our lists of wants vs. needs and we know which ones work for us as I have been on demos/webinars all week. The issue we have come across with all of them is the payments.

 

[chevalier]

Web-to-Print, MIS and Print Workflow Automation | PressWise

PressWise is the best product on the market to suit your needs that I am aware of. It's cheap, provided as SaaS (you don't have to own servers and other overhead increasing equipment), does all of the tasks you noted as well as much more if you choose to utilize it.

I am not funded, affiliated or supported with any print software vendors. This is purely my opinion.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Hi Stephen,
I did browse the Accura MIS buyer's guide and it helped me with what I looked at initially. However it seems like all the MIS out there don't have an integrated payment processing for credit cards etc. We have our lists of wants vs. needs and we know which ones work for us as I have been on demos/webinars all week. The issue we have come across with all of them is the payments.

Credit card payment in Accura is handled by PayPal. Accura is an international product sold into many regions, PayPal is next to everywhere which makes it a good choice. PayPal offers free and paid versions of their business account. The printer’s customer does not need to have a PayPal account, this is simply used as the CC processing gateway. The PayPal link is integrated into the Accura MIS and AccuraOnline bidirectional storefront system.

The primary use of this is for the fully integrated AccuraOnline eCommerce site, where a customer can be set as “prepay” and when they place an online order they follow a link to PayPal to pay via CC and are automatically invoiced up front via an automated invoice PDF. Of course, customer orders that originate in the MIS (rather than online) can also be prepaid via PayPal or any other method. Once their invoice is set to paid status, the linked order is automatically taken from held to active status.

Other Accura client account payment options include a standard “credit” customer with an account (terms 30 days or similar), C.O.D. and Deposit payment customers (either a % or $ deposit value to be prepaid, which is not the same as a prepay client which requires 100% payment up front).

EDIT: You also mentioned linking to accounts software. Accura handles both sales and purchase order invoice exports. Supported accounts packages include:

Access, Arrow, Cycom, HSBC, MYOB (UK), MYOB (AU/NZ), Opera, OperaII, Pastel, Peachtree, QuickBooks (USA), Quickbooks (AU), Sage50, Sage200, Shireburn and Xero.com


Stephen Marsh

 

[hippoprinting]

Hi Stephen,
We don't use your average "accounting" software. Like I mentioned we have Merrimac Publishing Manager. It's a privately owned company in NH. The software does all the accounting for us just doesn't do estimating etc. If you'd like more info on what we are looking for please give me a buzz at six oh three 625-1855 x33.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Hi Stephen,
We don't use your average "accounting" software. Like I mentioned we have Merrimac Publishing Manager. It's a privately owned company in NH. The software does all the accounting for us just doesn't do estimating etc. If you'd like more info on what we are looking for please give me a buzz at six oh three 625-1855 x33.

Many MIS systems don’t include a full blown accounts module for exactly this reason - it would be a niche product that only small number of users would know how to use (also why develop what others already do when this is not the MIS developer’s core task). It would not be easy to find a bookkeeper or accountant that knows a particular MIS accounts package. Much better for an MIS developer to interface with standard accounts industry software. That way any bookkeeper, accountant or clerk etc. can be used. In Australia, there are two standard accounts packages that are used by the majority of bookkeepers, accountants and printers: MYOB and QuickBooks. A new SaaS web based service in Xero.com is also giving the established players some long overdue serious competition.

EDIT: Accura also has an “other” export format that can be used to export the sales data as .csv for use in an unsupported accounts package. This data is “raw” and is not formatted for the requirements of a specific package, so this usually means that one has to manually map the import in the unsupported software, rather than things just auto linking based on the correct import column headers.

I am not in sales and my company only services the Australian and New Zealand market.


Stephen Marsh