Category: Blogs

Choosing a quality, secure business software is incredibly important, and here are three reasons why OnSite 7 is one of the best options, when it comes to converting your business to an online database:

1. We are more secure than other companies. We haven’t had major security breaches and are constantly researching new technologies to make our databases even safer than they already are.
2. We have better customer support. Whether you want to learn how to use your software better, or you are experiencing a problem of any kind, you can either call one of our experts, today, for help troubleshooting; view help and seminar videos online; or attend our training center and have access to hours of classes, seminars and help.
3. We do it all. Our software isn’t just built as accounting software or as a database to store information. It does nearly everything for you — from storing all of the information for orders in one convenient location, to Apparel Erp helping to create schedules right on the production floor.

Four Financial Management Mistakes

Contracts and software solutions for business are the two biggest factors in establishing a financial frame for your business, and the strength of each of these will help determine the ultimate success or failure of your company. Poorly managing your contracts or failing to utilize your digital printing systems or apparel software means the financial framework of your business will collapse.

Here are four of the most common financial management mistakes, and ways that you can avoid them:

• Often, businesses let revenue contracts expire by accident, resulting in a loss of finances or partners. With reliable business software, you can store all of these contracts in your system and set up reminders when they are up to expire.

• Expense contracts will renew automatically, and don’t require evaluation, meaning that if you have signed a disadvantageous contract, you will want to stop it from renewing. This requires you monitoring your contracts constantly to catch these contracts before they renew.

• If you aren’t monitoring your system and your contracts, you may let legal risks remain unmanaged and unidentified. Even though it isn’t fun, as the business owner or manager, you need to make sure you are familiar with the financial framework of your company and that you are constantly reviewing contracts to maximize your profit potential.

• Finally, make sure your contracts meet compliance reviews. It is easy to let this slip, and it can result in a great loss of profits. Again, this requires constant checking up and monitoring of contracts.

OnSite and QuickBooks Software Comparison

QuickBooks is an accounting program that can be quite useful in simplifying the accounting processes in your office. However, it is limited to just that: accounting. OnSite, on the other hand is complete business solution software.  It offers accounting tools in addition to other tools that help you to manage your business proactively and more efficiently.

QuickBooks was initially designed to be used in all industries, which made it a good accounting option for many different businesses. OnSite, by contrast, is designed to be used only in the embellished products industry. The idea was that tools designed for a certain industry would be better able to serve it better than general programs.

While maybe 20 to 30 percent of your time is spend accounting, a majority of your day is spent on managing work, entering sales orders, checking jobs, doing quotes and more. A complete business solution can better consolidate your business and simplify your life than many general, specific programs.

No matter what kind of business you run, whether you require Apparel ERP, digital printing systems, or other software solutions for business, you need to have the basic software and hardware requirements needed to support your OnSite 7 workstation before you purchase it. Here are a few of those basic requirements, and a full list can be viewed here.

• A workstation computer is recommended to have both 1.5 GHz processor or higher, with no lower than 700 MHz, and 256 MB RAM or higher.
• Workstations running OnSite 7 are very dependent on the processor speed, and must meet the minimum specifications in order to run it efficiently. These are:
  • Windows Vista Ultimate, business or home
  • Windows 7 Ultimate, professional or home premium
  • Windows XP, professional or home
  • Mac OS X 10.6
  • Mac OS X 10.4.11
  • Mac OS X 10.5
• The software was designed to run on monitors that are 17 inches, at 1024 X 768 resolution or higher, and will run poorly at lower resolutions or on smaller screens. If you do have a smaller screen, you will have to scroll around every page, because it will not display the full screen.
• You must also have a server with three or more users, in order to run OnSite 7 that has a Dual CPU/Core Duo and 3.4 GHz processor minimum, recommended 2 GB RAM or higher, with no less than 1 GB RAM, and a tape or other automated backup system. Without any data, the OnSite 7 system will take up about 250 MB of storage space, so having a good-sized server to store additional data is important.

Financial Record Keeping Tips

Record keeping is one of the most important aspects of maintaining a business. The financial records you keep help ensure that you are safe from IRS audits, employee lawsuits, and more, and job records help you maintain consistency in your commercial screen printing business.

We gave you the IRS recommendations for how long you should keep certain kinds of information in our last blog. Here are several more categories, with advice on how long you should hold on to your records.

If you own business property, then the IRS recommends that you hold on to your records until the limitations end, from the year in which you disposed of the property. These documents help you calculate applicable depreciation, depletion deductions, amortization and more, and will help you determine loss or gain on your property. If that property is a vehicle or real estate, you should keep the title or deed in a secure, safe spot until the property is sold or properly disposed of.

Bank account information and statements should be held onto for about seven years minimum. If they are supporting documents for tax returns, however, you may want to keep a copy permanently.

Regardless of the kind of information, your software solutions for business should provide a place for you to store them indefinitely and in one, secure place. Your apparel software shouldn’t just keep track of your jobs and orders, but it should also help keep track of your finances and business history.

As a rule, make sure you keep important documents indefinitely, keep documents with conditions that expire until those terms have expired, or four years after, and keep most other documents about seven years.

Starting a Screen Printing Business

If you are looking to get into the commercial screen printing business, there are many things you need to do and consider before opening your doors and unveiling your new website. Here are a few of the basic steps you need to follow to open your new company.

1. Start by thoroughly researching the commercial screen-printing business and visiting the websites of companies that are already up and running and reading trade magazines that are available. Decide what kinds of products you would like to sell, from banners to t-shirts to stickers and beyond, and begin to get a feel for the jargon that is used.

2. Get training either by taking a class, securing an internship or an entry-level job in the industry.

3. Begin looking for equipment by contacting vendors who offer new and used machines and set your budget for supplies. Make sure you have a large enough budget to cover startup costs, and if you don’t begin searching for a loan or a sponsor.

So you’ve got a growing business and you want to run your operation more smoothly. Maybe you started off as a 1 to 5 employee shop, and have outgrown your current systems and procedures.

Any small business can fall into one of two categories:

1. An efficient enterprise with happy customers and organized employees.  You get orders out on time and with little or no errors.

2. An operation that struggles on a day-to-day basis to keep up.  Orders get out…eventually, and with a lot of extra “blood, sweat and tears”.  Schedules are hectic and orders have more mistakes on them than they should.  Both customers and employees are stressed out!

Now picture what your business COULD be, Imagine it as a smooth-running, well-oiled machine, humming in unison with picture-perfect productivity. Data is entered once, orders are accurately processed, customers are happy, and profits rise.

Sound like a fantasy?

Perhaps a more realistic picture of your current operation is a daily struggle to keep your head above water. Orders are taken, data is entered and then re-entered into several systems and things move at a slower-than-ideal pace. Let’s take a look at an example…

Kathy Customer finds your website and places an order for 100 of your locally branded t-shirts. The order is received and data is entered into multiple software programs: Excel, Goldmine, Quickbooks, etc., etc. Kathy calls, asking for an update on her order. The computers are checked, but the status update has not migrated to ALL the applications handling Kathy’s order. Misinformation is erroneously given. And Kathy ends up receiving her order a day or two later than expected. This is an all-too-common problem that has nothing to do with your level of competence as a business manager, but, rather, the level of confusion caused by multiple “solutions” to varying business needs.

Add to that recipe a touch of growth (you do, after all, have a fantastic product or service), and the headaches can start to add up quickly. With growth comes growing pains, and in business those pains manifest themselves in more mistakes, slowing processes, sluggish customer service, and an ever-increasing impatience among your stakeholders. At this point, your old business software systems simply can’t keep up.

Are business growth challenges presenting themselves? There’s a clear-cut answer: one integrated business software solution, tailored to your industry. We at Shopworks developed our OnSite enterprise resource planning system to precisely meet those needs. Stay tuned for our next blog as we explore why OnSite is the best solution for you.

Tips for Improving Customer Service

In our last blog, we gave you several customer service tips, including purchasing reliable software solutions for business, like print estimating software and apparel software; answering your phone; focusing on the positive; and listening to the feedback you receive. Here are a few more tips to help you raise your customer service to a level that will help you grow your business for years to come:

• Some good customer service advice is to make sure you handle their complaint in an effective, calm manner. This means reassuring them, diffusing their anger, and helping them in any way that you can, without compromising your business.

• If you make a promise, make sure you keep it. Don’t tell a customer you will deliver a product within a week, if you know it will take you three, and don’t promise partners that you will collaborate with them, if you have no intention of doing so. You want to be known as a company that can be trusted.

• Make sure your customers know you appreciate them, by giving back when possible. This means giving them discounts and coupons, on occasion, and sending them a “thank you” when they make a large purchase.

• Make sure your entire staff is trained in appropriate customer service, from how to answer the phone to how to handle a disgruntled customer, and how to answer any reasonable questions that you can anticipate. They should also know the protocol, if they can’t answer a question, so that they can direct the customer to someone who is able to help them within your company.

If you are looking for software solutions for business, we recommend you purchase a software system that was developed specifically for companies within your industry. Here are some of the most recent developments in digital printing systems that were created with companies like yours in mind to look for when you are selecting onsite software.

• Production Process Models: the software you select should allow you to model different production processes to see the best way to complete an order. This will help cut down time in processing and will thus shorten the amount of time delivery takes, further along in the process.

• Tracking: Make sure your system allows you options when it comes to tracking. For instance, the best systems allow you to track production based on machine, department or individual employees. This, in turn, helps you pinpoint problems faster and improve your business processes, since the guesswork has been taken out of problem-solving.

• Pricing: Just like with tracking, your system should provide you with different ways to measure and set pricing. For instance, you should be able to price items based on square meters, square feet, linear feet, and more.

• Storage: There should be a clear, consolidated method for storage within your system, and production variables and store design details should be stored in a manner that makes sense. Your system should grab and keep file location information, material types, imprint locations, and more.

• Specialization: While the software should be specialized for digital printing companies, it should be versatile enough that it can handle your needs, regardless of whether you print on vinyl, paper, cloth, or other materials.

Starting a Screen Print Business

When you have plans to start up a screen printing business, there are many things you must do to get your business off the ground. Having apparel software is just one step, and one that you can take once you establish your business. However, there are many other things you will need to consider when making a business plan to get things rolling.

Screen Printing Business Plan

1. Create a model that is based on other successful t-shirt businesses. You have to learn the industry and how it works before you can become successful.

2. Create your plan. Think about your target market and what you plan to sell. Also decide where you plan to sell.

3. Get to know your competition and their selling strategies. This can help you with pricing and promotions.

4. Create quality products that people want to buy. Make sure you test out the products fully before mass producing anything.

5. Get your finances in check. Create a budget and know how much it will cost you to buy what you need to start. You must work out how much it costs to make each shirt in order to price your items so that you are making profits versus paying for just the overhead.

6. Set business goals of how many shirts you plan to sell. Use this as motivation to get yourself and your company out there.

7. Create an aggressive social media strategy to get people to start liking and commenting on your page. This is one of the best ways to get sales going.

For more information about our suite of software for your screen printing business, contact us at ShopWorks.