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what does your Quotes
- Thread starter Chuck7772
- Start date
Texas_Signmaker
Very Active Signmaker
I use WAVEAPPS to send bids and invoicing and payments. Easy to convert a bid an invoice that can be paid online.
CanuckSigns
Active Member
QuickBooks online
dypinc
New Member
Another one which works great for Signs & Graphics. Various account levels including a free one.
https://createabid.com/html/
https://createabid.com/html/
Gino
Premium Subscriber
QuickBooks, also. Drawings and whatnot, generally come after a quote has been accepted. Do you work for free ?? Only someone sending drawings, layouts and such are taking a chance of freebie work. People today, more than ever, will take your information and shop it around. Regardless of watermarks, fine print or verbal scoldings..... people generally go with the best price, especially if you do all the design and they like it.
Tattoosleeve
New Member
This^^^^
It's easier for someone to beat or match your quote if you've put all the design work into it and all they have to do is copy what you layed out. Might have taken you an hour to figure out a layout that makes sense. They can copy it in 1/2 of that time and save labour costs. We'll do layouts for long term customers that we know are going to proceed but if you're fresh off the street we always quote first.
Goatshaver
New Member
I didn't want to make a new thread for this same thing. I'm a one man operation with no money to spend on monthly subscriptions or software for estimating right now. I do everything with pen & paper and log all my quotes in an excel sheet.
I tried www.createabid.com but I can't seem to adjust any of the pricing. I put in $0 for every chargeable part of the process and it still gives me the same prices. *smh* If anyone has experience with it please message me.
I'm gonna give waveapps a try since I can try for free.
I tried www.createabid.com but I can't seem to adjust any of the pricing. I put in $0 for every chargeable part of the process and it still gives me the same prices. *smh* If anyone has experience with it please message me.
I'm gonna give waveapps a try since I can try for free.
Stacey K
I like making signs
I use Wave also and I really like it. I entered in basic products at $1 and just adjust the price as needed. You cannot easily account for inventory so I use an excel spreadsheet for that. Eventually I will switch over the Quickbooks so I can track inventory all in one place.
Stacey K
I like making signs
Are you using this to track inventory too? It seems like a pretty difficult process.
Texas_Signmaker
Very Active Signmaker
No... I'm a one man show and don't track inventory... I just look around my garage if I need to know what I have.
dypinc
New Member
There is also Morning Flight https://www.printfire.com which might be some thing to look at free demo and low cost. It is local and not internet based.
ColorCrest
All around shop helper.
I've just taken a look at it (CreateABid) for about 20 minutes. It worked as expected without a hitch. I'm just annoyed by most web-based solutions with the fact they require so much page scrolling. It's very tedious and slow to get much accomplished when working with such.
You've chosen a business where your products are bespoke. They're built and charged from certain amounts of components. The quoted product may show as a single line item to the prospect but the business needs to know all the aspects which make up the product to charge for profitability. Lots of fact and figures to wrangle in the background which requires both the quoting software and the individual to know those facts and figures accurately.
So, the first thing to do is make a complete list of the resources with their costs for materials, machines, and labor. Not a trivial task to gather. From those facts, one could use pencil and paper, a spread sheet, or a database.
The latest trend is to use web-based databases nowadays. IMO, the current state of most sign industry offerings is early in their design and very cumbersome yet. Some of the best and most effective solutions were designed in the '80s. I would hope some current software developers could study and learn from the past. For example; single screen, tab to next field, enter key, no scrolling.
kcollinsdesign
Old member
Quickbooks online. Your estimates easily convert to invoices, includes a contact manager, keeps track of your expenses, has useful reports (profit and loss, accounts receivable, etc.). If you cannot afford the monthly fee, you should re-examine your business plan.
OPENSignsInc.
New Member
We use a pretty old version of Estimate software (www.estimatesoftware.com) when we need to submit formal proposals on larger jobs.
When we print/email the quotes, the main things that are on there are our logo and info, customer info, itemized list of finished product with per unit/total price, terms (like deposits, deadlines, etc.) with a signature line at the bottom. If they need a proof, we just print/email it separately with a watermark (we use Signlab 10 and just have a saved file that we import and scale it to fit over the image before we render it to a jpg since its easier than importing it back into the quote.)
Everything else just seems to be done on a notepad/bar napkin/email.
When we print/email the quotes, the main things that are on there are our logo and info, customer info, itemized list of finished product with per unit/total price, terms (like deposits, deadlines, etc.) with a signature line at the bottom. If they need a proof, we just print/email it separately with a watermark (we use Signlab 10 and just have a saved file that we import and scale it to fit over the image before we render it to a jpg since its easier than importing it back into the quote.)
Everything else just seems to be done on a notepad/bar napkin/email.
Death by 1000 cuts again. Monthly payments make you a gerbil running on a wheel. The more payments you have, the bigger and heavier the wheel is to keep spinning. I bought QB pro in 2007. I upgraded in 2014. Still using 2014 five years later.