Estimating Software

[J Hill Designs]

remote control drone servers!

 

[signswi]

Oh no guys my bank knows how much money it routes in aggregate! Surely this means...something.

*puts on tinfoil hat, hides under mattress until dinosaurs return*

 

[MatthewTimothy]

Oh no guys my bank knows how much money it routes in aggregate! Surely this means...something.

*puts on tinfoil hat, hides under mattress until dinosaurs return*

really?? Thats what you put?? Than tell your top clients you dont know where their data, files, and info are being stored... See what happens. In no way does this have to do about what a bank knows. Im sorry, but I do not ever see a reason to pay a fee for a cloud service that I do not have full control over, monitor, and store data, especially paying a 1500 a year bill. Price is not the major concern down the road but not being able to actually own something in no way is worth the price. Its a nice program dont get me wrong but you cant tell me the security is fully there nor give me a reason why you cannot make it driven other than on an FTP. I would like to see it go to an actual software application with one cost and I own the software.


EDIT:

Or an FTP client session. I could see paying for user access levels, etc, etc....

 

[john1]

Oh no guys my bank knows how much money it routes in aggregate! Surely this means...something.

*puts on tinfoil hat, hides under mattress until dinosaurs return*

lol

Dinosaurs are back! Run!

 

[J Hill Designs]

All Im saying is it would be good to know how much contact info, CC #'s, etc is being stored on their servers...what if they *gasp* get hacked?

 

[MatthewTimothy]

All Im saying is it would be good to know how much contact info, CC #'s, etc is being stored on their servers...what if they *gasp* get hacked?

not just that but what about:

redundancy?
back up recovery?
do they actually own the servers or are they leased??
encryption?
whats their plan for a data disaster?
where is everything hosted, globally, locally, in the US??
if they dont own the servers and are leasing what else is on there??
can it harm my info??
how often do they backup, hourly, daily, weekly??
what are their server attack protocols??
is this hosted with Linux or Windows??


I really hope the ones that bought the software can actually answer these questions.

 

[signage]

redundancy?
back up recovery?
do they actually own the servers or are they leased??
encryption?
whats their plan for a data disaster?
where is everything hosted, globally, locally, in the US??
if they dont own the servers and are leasing what else is on there??
can it harm my info??
how often do they backup, hourly, daily, weekly??
what are their server attack protocols??
is this hosted with Linux or Windows??

Well John1 can you answer these?

 

[J Hill Designs]

oh snap!

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Wow how much other info is being tracked in the cloud?

I have to chime in on his out of morbid curiosity. Why does it matter if they know how many dollars the program invoices or how many clients are stored or any other information? It's not like anybody under the sun can access that info, of course they have access to it, it's on their server. And of course they're going to track usage and performance metrics like this, they're in business too. They track this info just like you or I track how many banners we've sold this year and how many vehicle wraps we've sold, etc., same difference. I don't see how it affects you or I in any way, let alone negatively.

Not trying to start a flame war, I'm just genuinely interested in this. There are people who seem to hate or be terrified of anything "cloud" based because of security reasons or for fear some information will get out "in the open". I don't understand it and have never heard a really logical argument against cloud software, I'm curious what fuels this feeling.

 

[MatthewTimothy]

Im sorry, but if you look at the numbers it throws me for a loop. We all buy thing to last, lets say our average life of equipment and hardware are 5-10 years. Can you logically tell me you are ok with spending (129.00*12=1548.00yearly / 1548*5=7740.00*2=15480) 7740-15480 after 10 years which doesnt guarantee they will be around or inflation, PLUS you never own it??

 

[MatthewTimothy]

I have to chime in on his out of morbid curiosity. Why does it matter if they know how many dollars the program invoices or how many clients are stored or any other information? It's not like anybody under the sun can access that info, of course they have access to it, it's on their server. And of course they're going to track usage and performance metrics like this, they're in business too. They track this info just like you or I track how many banners we've sold this year and how many vehicle wraps we've sold, etc., same difference. I don't see how it affects you or I in any way, let alone negatively.

Not trying to start a flame war, I'm just genuinely interested in this. There are people who seem to hate or be terrified of anything "cloud" based because of security reasons or for fear some information will get out "in the open". I don't understand it and have never heard a really logical argument against cloud software, I'm curious what fuels this feeling.

BECAUSE IT MEANS YOU WILL NEVER KNOW IF THEY WONT SELL THE DATA TO YOUR COMPETITOR OR CREATE A PROGRAM THAT TRACKS WHAT PEOPLE ORDER. Not saying they would, but it could happen and it has happened in the past. Its just like making leads that are sold to credit card companies best friends that send you info in the mail. Who do you think gets the data from?? Plus DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW SECURE IT IS AND IF IT CAN BE HACKED OR HAS IT?? That info that is yours can be sold to someone else, period!


EDIT:
Just like when people send you spam email that sweeps your computer for credit card numbers. Those number get sold on the black market for 2 bucks a number and a well geared hacker can get 100 numbers in a day easily.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Im sorry, but if you look at the numbers it throws me for a loop. We all buy thing to last, lets say our average life of equipment and hardware are 5-10 years. Can you logically tell me you are ok with spending (129.00*12=1548.00yearly / 1548*5=7740.00*2=15480) 7740-15480 after 10 years which doesnt guarantee they will be around or inflation, PLUS you never own it??

I can. I'm not paying for a tangible product I can touch and feel. I could not care less about having a box with a disk in it sitting somewhere on a shelf here, or the program running on machines here in the shop or being hosted on our server. That is not in any way important to me. Signvox is a service. It's a management service that makes my business run smoother and more efficiently with less down time, lost orders, double entry and mistakes. It's lowered my overhead significantly.

So it costs me $15,480 over 10 years. Like I've already pointed out, it's eliminated a $25k/year position here. Without adjusting that salary for inflation or cost of living that $15k investment over 10 years saved me $250k. That is an ROI that is rarely if ever realized, and it doesn't take into consideration the time it frees up for me and my staff. I don't have a hard number, but my best estimate after about 6 months of use is it's freed up approx. 40 hours of time per month for my company. That's 40 hours we used to spend hunting down paperwork, chasing people's tails, following up on proofs or quotes, double or triple entering data, etc., that's now become 40 billable hours. That's 480 billable hours per year. Let's conservatively say we can bill an average of $50 per hour on those 480 hours every year (our hourly rate is $85 so I'm selling us short here), that's an extra $24,000 dollars every year. Now all of a sudden that $15k "expense" over a decade just netted me a half mil. And that's not taking into consideration expansion of the company, adding more staff, capacity, etc.. Those numbers will grow exponentially as we grow.

The only thing that matters is ROI.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

BECAUSE IT MEANS YOU WILL NEVER KNOW IF THEY WONT SELL THE DATA TO YOUR COMPETITOR OR CREATE A PROGRAM THAT TRACKS WHAT PEOPLE ORDER. Not saying they would, but it could happen and it has happened in the past. Its just like making leads that are sold to credit card companies best friends that send you info in the mail. Who do you think gets the data from?? Plus DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW SECURE IT IS AND IF IT CAN BE HACKED OR HAS IT?? That info that is yours can be sold to someone else, period!


EDIT:
Just like when people send you spam email that sweeps your computer for credit card numbers. Those number get sold on the black market for 2 bucks a number and a well geared hacker can get 100 numbers in a day easily.

I get that fully, but I guess at the end of the day I have to ask "so what?"

My credit card number can also be stolen at the gas station or supermarket. It can be stolen when I buy something from Amazon.com or from iTunes. I can be mugged tomorrow. I've had my business broken into twice, both times they stole my credit cards. I've had my debit account number compromised 7 times in the last decade.

If someone wants the info they're going to get it, short of living off the grid in the Cascades there's not much you can really do to completely protect yourself or your business.

And I will still say that even the most ****-poor hosting companies still have much better data security than 99.9% of us with our small in-house networks and servers. I feel a million times safer having my accounting information stored elsewhere than here. Heck, if nothing else, if my data gets compromised I may have half a leg to stand on if I had to fight for financial compensation... If my network gets hacked here, I can't exactly fight myself...

 

[Joe Diaz]

We used to use Estimate and we loved it! Then they went to subscription based. Our thought was since our version was bought and paid for and worked for us, why on earth would we want to "upgrade" to the subscription version? Then we started noticing glitches in Estimate. It wasn't saving our values anymore for some reason. We had a hard time getting support especially since we weren't using the newer subscription based version. Something about that just felt wrong. Last time we used it, it still wasn't working right.

Anyway, now we created our own Excel pricing guide and It works great for us. The nice thing is, since we created it, it's custom tailored for our needs and we have a better handle on our costs and prices. But that's just us. I can definitely see the other side of the coin.

 

[HulkSmash]

No offense to some, but this is where the experienced, and inexperienced comes into play. I've saved 2,500 on an accounting every quarter. that's 10k... a year I'm saving using this software. I was paying for my old awful software, 900 bucks every other year, to upgrade to their newest versions, and then 75 a month for support. Guess what - their support sucked, and even their owner didn't know how to fix their own software. Bunch of rude snotty people if you ask me.

Signvox has live chat, someone is there 99% of the time to INSTANTLY answer questions, and if they miss you - you get a call within 10-15 minutes. To me that's worth the money. I can't afford to not have good support.

Lose internet? Use a cell phone or a tablet. Don't have one? Time to get with the times.

In any case, Signvox is Great. Not going to call anyone dumb for not getting it, but i can promise you, that.. you are missing out. I've tried many others.. this one is by far the best.

If some can't afford it - i completely understand... but think of it as an investment rather then an expense... that's how it's worked out for us so far.

 

[David Wright]

What happens if the service is discontinued at some point, do all the records stay there or is there some sort of transfer that can take place?

 

[john1]

Well John1 can you answer these?

I am not a worker only a customer of SignVOX, I will let the workers speak on those points.

 

[MatthewTimothy]

I am not a worker only a customer of SignVOX, I will let the workers speak on those points.

so in other words you pay for 1500 bucks for a service you dont know anything about then???

 

[signage]

I am not a worker only a customer of SignVOX, I will let the workers speak on those points.

Being a customer would make these some of the questions I would have asked, and wanting answers to before I subscribed to it!

So what were the questions you asked them?

Like stated above what happens if they decide they have earned enough and stop offering it? Will you even have the info you put in to get your estimates and what about all of these records?

 

[tsgstl]

How long before you are late on your bill do they lock you out?
Unfortunately that is a decision a lot of folks have had to make over the last 3 years.

Or if you choose to cancel the service is the info available or would it be all paperwork forcing you to manually enter it in?