Category: Blogs

Apparel ERP System

The apparel manufacturing industry is a complicated one, meaning a complicated apparel ERP system is needed to keep track of all of the factors of production. We gave you several vital software solutions for business functions that you should search for when choosing apparel software in our last blog. Here are a few more factors that should be included in your system:

1. Artwork Management: This feature is especially important for apparel businesses in the promotional product sector, as artwork and patterns make up the key differences between garments. Your system shouldn’t just store and track artwork, but it should also track which pieces and components are able to be copyrighted and which aren’t.

2. Component Management: Your system should keep track of each of the components of garments, meaning colors, sizes, trademarks, and more. This will help future orders go smoothly and will ensure that all of the required information about a garment is at your fingertips.

3. Safety and Compliance: Your system should be able to track whether your garment is compliant with all government requirements and compare your garments to the OSHA requirements for safety. It should also contain data sheets for hazardous materials that your employees may need to handle so that you can simply print them out and distribute them.

4. Garment Size Conversion: Even if you don’t use this feature often, it is helpful if your system is able to convert sizes from American to European, to UK sizes and beyond. These predefined sizes should be contained within the system.

How to Save Your Business Money: OnSite Business Software

Once you have your products and services all lined up, and you have created an ethical business mission statement and goal that you are pleased with, the next step is investing in software solutions for business that can streamline your business and make it more efficient. OnSite 7 from ShopWorks is a business management software capable of fulfilling print estimating software needs, Apparel ERP needs, and several other business requirements.

OnSite 7 can help save you money in the workplace in three main ways:

1. Lessen Expenditures: OnSite 7 helps to process transactions faster and reduce expenses per transaction. With a solid business software, you are able to reduce labor at your company and save money re-tasking your current work force.
2. Fewer Errors: Errors can be costly and are a very human thing. This system tracks all order processing details for you and is fully integrated, resulting in less human data entry and more communication between departments and employees in your company. Information is able to travel without hitch from order entry through to receivables, and customer service representatives have access to all of the information they need without a lengthy request and wait period. Essentially, efficient communication leads to reduced errors in purchasing and production.
3. Better Customer Service: With information more readily available, and communication made easier, your employees are able to provide better customer service throughout a customer’s entire interaction with your company. Customers are more satisfied and more likely to purchase again when customer service is more efficient, meaning OnSite 7 not only saves you money, but also helps you make more money in the future.

When you manufacture apparel, you need an approach that makes the process from designing a concept to shipping a completed product streamlined. Apparel ERP software is the answer to this issue. This software is a suite that offers an integrated approach to every step of the process in creating a finished product for customers. With this type of software, you can do everything from creating concepts to billing customers, and then manage inventory and create shipping labels.

Because of this multifaceted approach, your business will be more productive. Integrated software means that you do not have to worry about importing information between different programs that may not be completely compatible with one another. This adds extra steps in the manufacturing process that costs time, and time equals money. Instead, when you use ERP software, each step in the manufacturing process moves smoothly.

How the process of manufacturing clothing works with ERP software:

• The customer creates and submits a proof.
• This proof is uploaded into your system for you to edit.
• Once editing is complete and an order made, it submits the purchase.
• Inventory management keeps track of the inventory used.
• A shipping label is printed, and the package readied for pickup.

With everything streamlined, you can get products to your customers faster. This means increased profits, since your employees will spend less time on each step in the ordering process and more time readying products. Happy customers turn into repeat customers, and often bring in more business, with much thanks being to an integrated ordering system.

For more information on how an apparel ERP suite can help your business, contact us at ShopWorks.

Home businesses can be a good avenue for income, but you may want to grow your business beyond your humble abode. We gave you three tips on how to grow your in-home business in our last blog, including opening a physical store, hiring a sales and delivery staff, and investing in software solutions for business, like embroidery business software or an online proofing system. Here are a few more tips to expand your business beyond your home:

• One thing every businessperson hears, over and over, is that networking is key. You may be tired of hearing it, but it’s true. Start forming relationships with other local businesses, members of your community, and distribution processes. These connections can turn into business connections, which can help you begin to expand your company. Distribution partners can be particularly helpful if you own a small, home-based business since they can offer discounts and help you bring savings back to your customers.

• In addition to growing your sales, you need to make sure you have steady funding. Figure out what your overhead costs will be, regardless of your plan, and then calculate what you need to do to generate that money. This may include taking a loan, asking for investments, or building your home-based business at a very slow pace.

• Finally, whatever your plan is, make sure you map it out in detail and then follow it. Businesses do consistently better if they have a clear plan to follow, including details about financing, sales goals, and a plan as to how much they want to grow and how they are planning to achieve that growth.

Modern Business Solutions

Before technology really found a footing in business, several years ago, competition was simply about offering good products and services, and having a good marketing campaign to tell customers about your company. Today, though, you need to also make sure you are as current with technology as possible.

Software solutions for business can range from gadgets like smart tablets, to machines that allow you to run credit cards on your phone, to print-estimating software and apparel-management software. Whether you already have business software to help you run your company, or you are in the market for one, here are several functions that you should prioritize:

• Your business software should automate many menial tasks, reducing expenses of equipment and human labor. This is a great function, as it also reduces the chances that you or your employees will commit small errors.

• Software should allow your staff to communicate more effectively. All notes and communications for certain cases and orders will be kept in one place, and the chain of communication should be made clearer by software, instead of more confusing.

• Even though you may have a hard time letting people go, this is one of the best ways to save money and streamline your business. Business software eliminates several archaic jobs, makes your entire staff more efficient and will save you a lot of money in the end.

• Your system should also facilitate easier communication with your customers, no matter where they are located.

OnSite Screen Printing Shop Software

If you own or manage a digital printing company and are looking for software solutions for business, the best thing you can do is to search for digital printing systems that were designed specifically with companies like yours in mind, like OnSite 7. Here are a few of the features that help set ShopWork’s system apart from other business software suites.

• You can set pricing or gather inventory information based on many different factors, including square footage, square meters, linear feet and more.

• With OnSite 7, you can also store production and design variables, ranging from material types, file location, imprint locations to an unlimited number of custom variables. This gives you the freedom to easily revisit past projects, at any time, without having to conduct complicated searches.

• You can provide quotes and final spreadsheets with detailed job-costing per order, based on many different variables. This digital screen printing system captures detailed costing information through each step of an order, as it flows through your store and its manufacturing process.

We have aimed to create software that pinpoints the specific problems companies in your industry face on a regular basis, while also going a step further, to help simplify your business processes. Information is stored logically, and in one, consolidated space, you can personalize jobs or pricing based on minute, customizable details, and you can access or provide information on the order throughout its manufacturing process.

With a system this specialized, your company will run smoother and more efficiently, and you will find you have more free time to devote to tasks that truly need your attention.

Apparel ERP Software Solutions

Apparel Manufacturing isn’t just about having a great t-shirt design or a great new fashion line; it is also about meeting dozens of government regulations, royalty and licensing management, consumer demands and standards set in the apparel industry. Since American clothing has started using “vanity sizes,” sizing is no longer constant, either, creating one more variable to keep straight.

To help keep track of all of this and make sure your business runs smoothly, you need to have a reliable Apparel ERP system. Here are a few key requirements that apparel manufacturers should use when shopping for software solutions for business:

1. Size and Color Matrix: Apparel inventory systems must use a matrix of modifiers, including size and color, to help you successfully run your business and maintain useful files on past jobs. Once a description is entered, colors and sizes should be available in a list as modifiers to a basic description of your product, and each item should be tracked as a separate SKU in the inventory.

2. Licensing and Royalty Management: If you use trademarks, then you must hold up-to-date licensing agreements. To use these trademarks, you have to pay royalties to the owner of the trademark. Good apparel software will track these licenses for you and calculate the amount you owe to each owner. These amounts should then be automatically transferred to the accounts payable. Business software, such as apparel ERP software, is supposed to eliminate menial tasks such as tracking and calculating payments and eliminate human error.

We outlined several of our most popular pre-recorded webinars in our last blog, including Online Art Proofing, Production Screen Interfaces, Online Art and Document Proofing, and Business Software for Digital Printers. These free business webinars are all useful for helping train you and your employees in different functions that are available through your OnSite 7 software solutions for business.

Here are some more pre-recorded shop management webinars that will help you better utilize your onsite software system:

• OnSite 7 Marketing: This webinar allows attendees to see exactly how our print estimating software can be used to manage company customers, prospects, salesperson activities, and quotes. ShopWorks does more than just manage your business internally; it also helps with marketing and external operations. This webinar helps teach you how.
• OnSite 7 Efficient Purchasing: Attendees of this webinar learn how their system can be used to streamline the purchasing department and control the cost of goods. This helps you use your system to make your company economically airtight at every step of the business process.
• Improve Your Customer Service Using OnSite 7: Our onsite software allows you to serve customers without a hitch and, since customer service makes all the difference in today’s competitive market, it is important that you know how to use these functions. This webinar teaches you and your employees how to use your software to take your customer service to the next level.
• Proactively Manage Your Business: This shop management webinar is meant for management-level employees, and helps demonstrate how our software can help your company reduce expenses, grow your bottom line, and increase revenue.

ShopWorx is available as a client-server software or a cloud-based system and there are many benefits to both options. While there often isn’t a right answer, there most likely is one that is best for your company. Here are some of the benefits of client-server software.

Benefits of Client-Server Software

Software solutions for businesses that are hosted on a client-server are ideal if your business already has a strong IT Infrastructure in place, and the accompanying support resources to administer it.

Having your system and, essentially, all of your electronic files on site can be useful because everything is in one place. This eliminates the threat of hacking and information theft from your sign business software or apparel ERP system, as the easiest way to steal electronic information would be to steal the hardware on which it is hosted. Many people like this client-server software option, as it is consolidated and in-house, which makes it secure. It is run via your own Intranet, making it more secure than using an Internet connection; although, with technology at the point at which it is, the difference in security between the two is diminishing.

Hosting your business software in-house also makes troubleshooting simple, since you can perform it yourself instead of waiting for the host to do so at a remote location should problems occur. The costs are also lower in the long run, since you pay a single upfront cost and then low monthly or yearly costs afterward. Cloud-hosted services typically have higher monthly costs that are required as long as you use your business software. Call us at 800-526-6702 with any questions you have about our client-server software.

How to Incentivize Employees and Staff

Your business can’t succeed if your staff members aren’t working as efficiently as possible, and they won’t be doing so if you don’t provide the proper incentives. They need to appreciate and respect you and your company before they are going to treat it like their own. Here are four ways you can encourage your staff to work to their fullest abilities and ensure mutual success:

1. Make sure you have software solutions for business and an on-site system that both actually work. If you have the right On-Premises software, everyone’s job will be easier. Your employees won’t have to waste their time completing tedious, menial tasks that can be completed more quickly and much more easily by a computer program.

2. If you have a business that operates on large purchases, a commission-based bonus system can be very successful in encouraging your employees to work hard. They still receive a salary to live on, but they get extra help when they work extra hard. This system is fair and often sees results.

3. Target-based bonuses work in a similar way, and work best for industries that make regular sales but not particularly large sales. Your on-site system can keep track of how much each staff member is making, and the system makes it easy to figure out who gets a bonus at the end of each month or period.

4. Make sure you pay your managers enough. If they don’t have incentive to work hard for you, they are not going to effectively encourage the employees beneath them to work hard.