Quote & Print improves profits, improves quality of life

An integrated management information system with appropriate local support adds more benefits to your business than simply boosting the bottom line. Dave Bell believes you must also factor in the lifestyle bonus.

Quite often people make the decision to invest in an MIS system on a purely economic basis, ie

• What will be the return on my investment?


• How will it improve my profit or bottom line?


• Can I maintain or increase sales by helping retain my existing customers and attract new ones?


• How much extra work will I bring in because I can now turn around my quotes in two hours?


• How many staff I will save?

What is harder to calculate and so often ignored is the many intangible benefits gained by installing an integrated management information system that has local backup, training and support. These intangible benefits apply both to printers who are still using manual systems and to printers who are using a variety of non integrated computer systems (the vast majority of printers would fall into this category).

Here are some of the intangible benefits. I am sure that most printers and managers will be able to identify with at least one of them:

No more long hours spent at the office after normal working hours catching up with the paper work.

I have come across printers who regularly will do two or three hours extra work each night, three or four nights a week. You don’t pay someone to do this so you can’t make a saving here in terms of salary, but an integrated MIS system automates many of the reports for you. For example, your staff has already processed invoices and payments. With Quote & Print you can now print out your Business Activity Report in a few minutes.

Regular holidays

I am constantly surprised by the number of owners and managers who have not had a holiday for many years. One admitted he had not had a holiday for over 10 years. With an integrated MIS system you will be able to start taking breaks. Using the internet it is possible to log onto your system from an internet cafe any where in the world. The program to enable you to do this fits onto a floppy disk. I did just this when I was away at drupa and on a post-drupa holiday. You can then see all the reports that you would normally see when sitting at your desk. If you have the correct email software you can also send and receive your email from any where in the world (as long as you have internet access).

Happier staff

Your existing staff will enjoy using up to date software using Windows. After all, this is what they were trained on when they were at school.

Your production staff will appreciate the extra time they get to print the job due to the reduction in time from receipt of order to the printing of the job bag.

Less stress

How often have you been torn between doing an urgent quote and having to sort out a production problem? While you are carrying all that information about machine rates and paper prices in your head no one else will be able to do an estimate. Using an MIS system forces you to put that information into the computer. You will then be surprised how quickly other staff will be able to pick up how to do straightforward quotes or revisions on complex quotes.

Reduction of training time for new staff

If you advertise for someone with the relevant MIS skills they will start the job pre trained. No need to spend several weeks training them on your antiquated estimating system and then waiting two or three months until they come up to speed.

Money saved by having your accounting system integrated with your production and estimating system

You can quickly print an invoice to go out with the job knowing that the correct invoice details will have been already posted to the correct debtors account. You will not have arguments or delayed payments with your debtors because a wrong amount or the wrong details were rekeyed into your accounting system. You will be able to close off your accounts two or three days after the end of the month. You will not have invoices and hence payments delayed by 30 days because you had to close off your month and some invoices could not be rekeyed until the next month.

Time saved that would otherwise be spent explaining to your staff how various spreadsheets work and then having to modify them for the tenth time. Here at Quote & Print we actually enjoy programming and our regular updates ensure that your software is kept up to date. If you have some special reports that are not supplied with Quote & Print we can do some customised programming for you.

Peace of mind

Knowing that there are qualified support staff who are able to help you when you have a question and qualified trainers available to train your new staff. Also, knowing that your investment in your software is protected by the constant enhancements that are being brought out.

Will this be your view next year ???