Category: Blogs

Business Money Saving Tips

We gave you several tips to save during the holidays in our last blog, including making sure you have software solutions for business like Apparel ERP that was specifically designed for companies like yours, purchasing office supplies from cheaper stores in bulk, and only buying office machines — like screen printing equipment — when you need to. Here are a few more tips to help you save this season:

• It’s always fun to decorate for the holidays, but it is not nearly as much fun to figure out how to store and save those decorations throughout the rest of the year. If you buy new decorations each year, you end up spending several hundred dollars each year that you don’t need to do. Make sure you save your lights, Christmas ornaments, tinsel and other decorations so that you can save money next year.
• It is important to be sure your employees are comfortable while they are at the office, especially when it’s cold this time of year, but you can do this without breaking the bank. Buy coffee in bulk, instead of picking up a bag of Starbucks beans; purchase items from wholesale suppliers, instead of stores; and encourage employees to bring some comfortable items from home to decorate their spaces.
• Make sure you have signed up for accounts with the companies from which you typically order supplies, so you are eligible for free shipping. You should also contact the company and request a discount. If you are a big account and purchase large orders regularly, they are likely to give you one, to ensure your loyalty.

Best Business Software Tools

Software solutions for businesses have revolutionized the way that business is conducted in the past few decades. Whether you are purchasing screen printing software, apparel ERP or another type of business software, you are going to be using many of the same tools. Here are a few of the best business software tools that software systems such as these offer:

1. Accounting Services: One of the most useful tools that is built into every software system for businesses are accounting services, from tracking employee hours and wages, to withholding taxes, to storing all of your tax return information. Many systems come with a flowchart-based system that helps nonprofessionals in accounting handle their business finances with ease.
2. Blogging Tool: Many business software systems also offer you the tools to regularly create and post blogs on your website, which are essential for keeping your site up to date and drawing traffic on a daily basis. You can also install WordPress or Blogger to create this ability with many systems that don’t already include it.
3. Recovery and Backup: It is important that you regularly back up files to external hard drives or cloud-based storage accounts so that your entire business doesn’t get wiped out should a massive fire occur or should you get a particularly bad computer virus. Most business software systems have such tools already in place, and have an infrastructure that allows you to organize and store your records and financial information in a manner that is logical and easy to access.

Webinars are one of the most convenient ways to provide you and your staff with greater training in using your onsite software, such as sign business software or print estimating software. They are prerecorded and can be “attended” any time, with no advance notice.

Here are some of the pre-recorded webinars that are already available for you and your staff:

• Online Art and Document Proofing: This webinar helps you master art proofing through your OnSite system. Attendees learn how to set up the proofing process with customers, how to administer it throughout the process, and how to proof during processing. This is an important webinar for businesses that regularly deal with art proofs.
• Production Touch Screen Interfaces: This webinar was created for your production staff, and helps teach them how to use your OnSite system using simplified interfaces and touch screen monitors. This webinar will help your business and employees stay on the cutting edge of business solution software and technology.
• Business Software for Digital Printers: This webinar was created for digital printing companies, and demonstrates the useful OnSite 7 features for such companies. The features demonstrated are wide ranging, making this webinar perfect for employees at all levels of these businesses.
• Online Art Proofing: This webinar makes art proofing easy, and helps screen printers master proofing from start to finish. The functions included in this webinar include tracking art proofs and following up on them, and include setup, admin, and proof processing. This proofing is run by ShopWorks president Jay Malanga.

Take a look at our collection of Free Pre-Recorded Webinars.

Digital Business Printing Software

Having a successful, efficient business comes down to how well information flows through your company. To facilitate the smoothest flow of information, it is important to establish a clear chain of communication, consolidate your records and information, and ensure that all of your records are stored in one convenient place. The easiest way to do this is to get digital business printing software to help your streamline your business and make sure everything runs as smoothly as it should.

 

One of the main goals of ShopWorks is to provide the best software solutions for business in the screen-printing industry. To achieve this goal, we’ve combined software developers who have worked in the industry for years, and feedback from professionals currently working in the industry, to create a system that directly addresses the problems that regularly arise in your business.

 

OnSite 7 allows you to store more information for years to come in one, easy to find place in your system. This includes storing design and production variables like mesh count, ink colors, thumbnail images, and as many as fifteen custom parameters that you use during the job. By storing information for years to come, it’s easy to go back and recreate a successful job or learn from a not-as-successful job in the future.

 

Furthermore, OnSite 7 allows you to calculate prices based on margins like volume discounts, additional add-on prices and more, and track production through your print software based on several different factors, such as the individual working on the project, the department, the machine and more.

Onsite 7 Software for Printing Companies

If your business is in the digital printing industry, then ShopWorks has the perfect software for you. Our Onsite 7 software has features that are designed specifically for the digital printing industry. This print estimating software is exactly what your printing business needs, for many reasons, including:

• The ability to track production schedules, including tracking by machine or by department
• The ability to price and manage inventory based on different variables, such as linear feet and square feet
• Detailed cost analysis for every product ordered, including employee costs, to help you stay on top of expenses and profits
• The ability to store production information for future use and future orders — ideal for long-term customers that enjoy your services and always come back
• Overall, makes your printing company fulfill orders quicker and smarter — and we should all work smarter, not necessarily harder

The digital printing industry is a complicated industry. When customers come to you with a specific order, or a precise set of printing needs, you need reliable software to keep track of that order. You need the ability to manage that order from start to finish, to ensure that your company doesn’t lose money, but also to ensure that the customer gets exactly what he paid for. Our Onsite 7 software is perfect for digital printing companies, as well as embroidery companies and product distribution/manufacturing.

Contact us today at ShopWorks for more information about Onsite 7 and how it can be an asset to your digital printing company.

The longer you do something, the better you get at it, and ERP business software is no different. In order to cultivate a reliable, secure system, you must test and develop the software you are developing for an extended period of time. ShopWorks has done just this, building software solutions for businesses and adding features as business leaders have submitted feedback throughout the past several years.

Through this feedback, the expert developers have been able to create features that personalize the OnSite 7 system for a range of industries, including embroidery companies, promotional productions manufacturers, screen printers and more. In order to continue developing and improving the system, the ShopWorks experts continue to welcome feedback from clients and are always looking for new features that they can add to make the system even more user-friendly.

Explore the rest of the site for more information as to what the software system can do for your business.

If you are trying to expand your business, you are most likely looking at how to expand your line of products and services. However, a new study suggests that sales increase when customers are given fewer choices, particularly if you are a new company.

One example of this is Smuckers Jam. Instead of offering customers 40 different flavors and flavor combinations, they tend to stick to the classics: grape, strawberry, raspberry, apricot. While customers think they like choices, research shows they purchase more without any negative feedback when you do the thinking for them and offer them fewer choices.

In fact, one of the most important considerations for customers while shopping is decision simplicity, meaning people are more likely to purchase when the ease with which they can get information they consider to be trustworthy is high. This is why you will find you get more impulse business when you offer already made designs for custom t-shirts, instead of asking your customer to decide on each element and color for their t-shirt within your Apparel ERP system when they place an order.

Another element of decision simplicity is having software solutions for business that make your website very user-friendly and easy to navigate. If items are too difficult to purchase from your site, customers will find a website that is easier to navigate. Having a strong promotional products business software and helpful applications integrated with that system will help draw customers to your website and keep them there. Beyond that, it’s up to you to offer the right amount of products and services to tempt them without confusing them.

When you finally do implement an apparel software suite, there are many different applications rolled into it that you can use. Explore the software and figure out the best ways you can use all of its functions to make your business run more smoothly. Consider using the following tools if your ERP software has them:

1. Calendar. The ERP software should have a calendar built into the email application. Use the calendar to outline work goals, deliveries, and business meetings. You can even make your calendar available to the whole organization, to streamline important events.

2. Backup and recovery. Make use of the backup and recovery software every day to make sure you do not lose anything important, such as orders, customer designs, and contact information. All your files should go to an external server, just in case anything happens to the computer systems.

3. CRM. Customer relationship management software is useful to track orders, track leads, and issue follow-up emails and calls. Use this software in the sales department of your company for better success than keeping your own records.

4. E-Commerce. You should have a part of the sales software that automatically processes credit cards and collects sales tax. This removes one major step from the sales process that you do not have to do, which means you are saving time and money.

5. Email marketing. You should have a program that allows you to create templates and marketing materials, such as newsletters and other emails for those who opt in. This equates to more sales per quarter.

For more information on how software can help your business, contact us at ShopWorks.

How to Run a Business Smoothly as a CEO

Running a successful business is challenging, and there is a lot of stress that comes with the title of CEO. Here are some tips that can help you run your business smoothly as a CEO:

• Make sure you delegate. If you hire the best employees you can find, you shouldn’t have to worry about doing everything yourself. Make sure you hire competent individual leaders who have a sense of who they are, and who mirror the company’s ethics and goals.

• Whether you need a print estimating software, apparel ERP or other software solutions for business, find one that you trust and use it. Software is one of the greatest tools for reducing stress and paperwork at a business, and can help consolidate and streamline your business. You still need a competent staff to work with the software, but your program will help keep information stored in a logical place and make it accessible again when you need it.

• Make sure you love the company you work for. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, then you are unlikely to do it well. Similarly, if you don’t like the company you work for, this will show in your work ethic.

• One of the most important qualities you can have as a CEO is being adaptable. Make sure you are listening and paying attention in any situation, so that you can change and adapt. This will help you make better decisions for

Digital Printing System Software for Business

If you own a digital printing company, it is important to get digital printing system software that has been specifically designed for businesses like yours. ShopWorks has built their office printing software solutions for businesses in the digital printing industry by hiring people who have worked in your industry for years. They then work together with companies that are currently in the industry to carefully develop features and applications that exactly meet your needs.

Among the digital printing applications are the ability to enter units for each item in an order, being able to store design and production variable information for each job you process so that the information can be recalled easily in the future and easily capturing detailed job costing information for every order you run.

Many of the applications work towards giving you greater flexibility, allowing you to enter information for individual items in each order instead of having to enter information once and have it apply to every item that is ordered. They also enable you to save information for years to come, helping your business to build on its past successes and failures.