OnSite Posts Archives

Client Server or Cloud Hosted – What’s Better for Your ERP?

Posted on April 12, 2019June 10, 2024 by master

Cloud Vs. Client-Server ERP for Small Businesses

Small business ERP systems are available either as client-server or cloud-hosted systems. Each one has many benefits, and luckily OnSite is is available in both options. Find out if a cloud vs. client-server ERP is better for your small business.

Client-Server Advantages

ERP software solutions for small businesses that you host on a client-server are ideal if your business already has a strong IT infrastructure in place, and the resources to support and administer it.

Having your system and all of your electronic files on-site can be useful because everything is in one place. It’s more secure than an Internet-based solution because it’s harder to steal electronic information stored in a desktop system — the main way to steal offline information would be the difficult process of stealing the physical hardware. In contrast, anything connected to the Internet is at risk from hacking, although with advancing technology and more and more local computer-to-cloud connections, the difference in security between the two is diminishing. Many business owners also just like the fact that their important company information is consolidated and in-house.

Hosting your business software in-house also makes troubleshooting simple (assuming you have a competent IT department), since you can do it yourself instead of waiting for the host to do so at a remote location should problems occur. The costs of keeping your ERP on a server 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 continue as long as you use the business software.

The other option, a cloud-hosted ERP software for a small business, is equally popular and has many benefits. Here are some of the main benefits associated with cloud-hosted systems:

Cloud Hosted Advantages

A cloud-hosted ERP software for a small business is hosted offsite and is accessible from any computer through the Internet. This allows employees to use your system from any connected device, instead of just those computers in your office on which you’ve installed the decorated apparel ERP business software.

These small business ERP systems also take up far less space, since you don’t need an extensive IT infrastructure to host the entire system in-house, and they cost less upfront since there is a monthly fee instead of a large one-time payment and smaller yearly installments. Implementation can also be more streamlined, as the cloud-hosted solution is set up quickly by the pros at the ERP service provider and not a long installation process handled by your own IT department.

Cloud-hosted ERP systems are updated more regularly since they don’t require physical installation onsite. They also lower your payroll costs, since you don’t need such a large in-house IT department to support your entire business infrastructure, not to mention saving you the expensive headaches of maintaining and upgrading your own server and software. Your company information and files are also safe if something happens to your hardware, and even theft of your hardware doesn’t equate to loss of your business information.

As for security, cloud servers are more prone to hacking than desktop systems, but usually have a level of redundancy. Therefore, if someone does hack in, or if the server fails, the cloud system usually has backups and secondary servers ready to kick in to replace it. If you handle your ERP system entirely in-house, however, and the server fails, most companies do not have systems in place to deal with it, since extra servers cost much time and money.

Conclusion

The difference between the cloud vs. client-server ERP for small businesses is like the difference between renting and owning a car. You have all the benefits of transportation when you rent, but you don’t have to take care of maintenance. The trade-off is the higher monthly and overall cost in the long run. The decision between which is best for you depends on the nature of your business.

Whichever type of solution you choose, the best small business ERP systems are those that are comprehensive and can handle all your essential business tasks. Not only that, good ERP systems should include basic tools such as a calendar, backup, and recovery system (by far the most important part of any piece of software), a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system for leads, and web integration (particularly e-Commerce and email marketing integration). We at Shopworks developed OnSite and the rest of the Shopworks product lineup to handle everything your business needs to work.

For requirements for our client-side system, see our Hardware and Software Requirements page. For details on our cloud-hosted system, see our Documents page. For an overview of OnSite, see our OnSite page.

Notes Drive Efficiencies

Posted on February 8, 2019June 10, 2024 by master

The following guest article is by Marshall Atkinson, a 20-year veteran in the decorated apparel industry, Chief Operating Officer of industry leader Visual Impressions out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, long-time user of OnSite, and owner of Atkinson Consulting LLC. Read his popular decorated apparel business blog at atkinsontshirt.

Whether you are new to Shopworks OnSite or a grizzled old veteran one thing that can pep up your shop efficiency is the effective use of Notes in the OnSite order system. Why should Notes matter so much? Is this you? “They’re a pain to enter and just take too much time. I have phone calls to make! I can just print out the customer’s e-mails and staple them to the work order. That should do it.”

Think about that for a second. If you’ve ever had to explain “what’s that mean?” to someone in your shop because they don’t know what to do next I have an answer for you. It means you didn’t enter the order correctly. You have to make it easy for everyone to do the right thing. The better the Notes in the OnSite system, the easier it is for your staff to comprehend the next step for them to complete the order.

One of the great functional features in OnSite is that each department has their own section in the system to fully enter any sort of instructions that can benefit the user in that department. Sadly, a lot of these areas are left blank. To work more effectively, try getting your staff to enter more Notes into the system about an order and train your staff to read the notes first when they encounter something that needs clarification. If they are used to running up front to help solve the puzzle this is a hard habit to break.

For example, let’s say the inventory for your order hasn’t arrived yet and the job is due to print tomorrow. When will the goods arrive? If your customer service rep or purchasing person entered the tracking number for the shipment in Notes to Receiving anybody in the building can click the UPS tracking hyperlink and know that the goods will not arrive until two days from now. Looks like we’ll need to move that date out… If you have your staff trained to look into the Notes for Receiving for information like this, your team can make better decisions with fewer interruptions and be able to move quicker throughout their day. There’s less panic.

So what are the best practices for using Notes in Shopworks? Here are some great tips:

Standardize your shop language. Start by getting everyone on the same page at the same time by agreeing on what terms should be used in the order. For example, a standard full front print could mean that it is 12” wide and prints 3” down from the bottom of the collar on a t-shirt. On order entry, if you enter “Standard Full Front” in the Notes to Art section, both departments can make easy decisions about what to do next for their tasks. Make a list of all the terms you use in your shop, and what they mean. Make sure everyone agrees and then set these as the shop standards you are using. All staff training involves using these terms and understanding how they relate to each person’s job.
Use the date stamp feature. When you log into your workstation, the system knows who you are and if you click on the date stamp when you enter a Note, ShopWorks will add the current date and your name in the area. This feature is a great addition to creating a timeline on who is doing what on an order. Every time someone gets into the order to do something, have them hit the date stamp and log their activity. This is mandatory for all customer service reps, as when the client sends new art, changes an address or even when you had to call the customer to remind them to approve their art…it all gets logged into the system. Other departments should add their Notes on their activity too. A few weeks from now when the customer calls you to complain about something, you can pull up the job in ShopWorks and read the diary of everyone that worked on the job, talked to the customer on the phone or e-mailed them a request for something. This solves a lot of disputes when you can speak intelligently about how your shop had to contact them three times just to get them to approve their artwork, the four mediums that were needed finally showed up, and they didn’t send the final ship-to address until the day the job was supposed to go and it was 3:53 pm when it was finally e-mailed. Do this a few times and you’ll hear “Oh, you track that?” This dumps water on a lot of brush fires.
You don’t have to write complete sentences if you don’t want or need to do so. It’s your system, make it work for you. Just make sure that everyone is doing it the same way and using the same abbreviations or shortcuts. This will allow other people to understand that LM means “Left Message” or P/Up means that the box is in the customer pick up area by the front desk in the lobby. You may want to write up a common abbreviation guide and make that handy if this works for you.
You can copy and paste entire e-mails into the system. Why keep things a secret when you can just cursor over the instructions your customer has written and paste them in? Select what you want or dump everything in…it’s up to you. I wouldn’t do this for every order, but on some occasions it makes sense. Especially with a picky client or big challenge on the order. Paste that e-mail into the system in the Notes area that’s relevant, so it is right there should anyone need the information. If your sales guy just prints out and staples the e-mails to the work order and expects the rest of your staff the read through all that mess to find the right information to their job, that’s just being lazy. Train him to cut and paste only the relevant information and include it into the Notes section for the correct department. It’s about making your lives easier. Hold those slackers accountable.
Some information that is entered into the Notes section will be mandatory. It just depends on who the Note is from or to, but it definitely should be entered. For example, using the word “Event” in Notes to Production allows your crew to understand that the order is extremely important and absolutely can’t miss the ship date. These jobs should be scheduled first and prioritized so they are completed on time.
One great trick to use to prioritize your orders is to key in a “$” in the PO field for any order that has to be completed and shipped on a certain day. This can be added after an order is entered should something change with the order, so it’s an easy way to call attention to important orders. Every department leader should run a “$” report several times a day to see what’s been added or updated. These orders immediately get prioritized and moved to the front of pile. It’s a great way to fast track your orders without having a production meeting and discussing anything. All it takes is the discipline and training on with your staff to run the query occasionally throughout the day. Run “$” with the “Ship Date” as a combo to bring up the entire list. Then action any items in your department.
In the “Notes From” section for the departments, you can include information post department completion: who worked on the job, how many misprints or defects, quality control check status, or other relevant notes to use for research later should there be an issue with the order.Whatever is entered, make sure the date stamp feature is used, as that’s a quick way of getting that personal information into the system as to who is leaving the note. This essentially is the action log of what happened with the order, and who worked on it.
Don’t delete Notes. Things can change on the order and you want to capture that activity, but what you don’t want to do is only have the current information listed. Get in the habit of listing everything, and just continually adding more information, all being prefixed by the date stamp. Just add some verbiage such as “Final” to the Note if that makes things clearer. You will want to keep all the Notes so you can open up the order a few months from now and understand what happened, and where a decision was made.

To really make the Notes platform work, it’s important that your team handle them in a standardized way. If you aren’t utilizing this feature, get your staff together and have a brief meeting about it. Have each department discuss what they would like to see in the Notes area, the verbiage that should be used, and how or when the Notes should be written. It’s important that everyone agree on the procedure for your shop, and then make it the standard. Hold your employees accountable for writing the Notes in a certain way after that. It doesn’t work if everyone does it their own unique way, or if one person just always “forgets” to do it. on’t give people a pass; instead insist that this is part of doing their job just like any other task. Initially it may feel like you are herding cats, but eventually it will become the norm and you’ll look back and wonder why you didn’t implement using more Notes in the system sooner. Keep at it!

What is OnSite?

Posted on February 1, 2019 by master

OnSite is a completely integrated business management tool designed specifically for screen printers, embroiderers, promotional product distributors, award manufacturers and digital printers. We designed OnSite after owning our own shop for 10 years. This knowledge and experience with the industry has gone into all of the ShopWorks products. OnSite software manages every aspect of your business …not just accounting. All the functions and departments of your company are integrated into a single product. OnSite is a multi-user database that runs over your existing network. Because it is a client-server application, it is fast and allows multiple users to use your system simultaneously. All information is real-time…changes made by one employee are immediately seen by others.

Why OnSite?

Posted on January 8, 2019June 10, 2024 by master

What is the one tool every shop needs to handle every step of the way between taking an order, producing it on the shop floor, shipping it and getting that order invoiced and paid? A shop operating system (also known as an ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning system).

Most companies in the decorated apparel industry use a shop operating system. As most shops are too small to hire a full-time programmer to meet their system needs, using off-the-shelf business management technology is the way to go.

So which business software solution is for you? We’ve published a few articles on choosing a small business ERP system, as well as how to implement it. In this article, let’s explore why OnSite might be just the solution for you:

What’s Ahead for OnSite

OnSite manager software continues to evolve with at least one major upgrade every year. OnSite’s last major release in March 2015, which includes improved customer proofing, better touchscreen interfaces for the production floor and more accounting features. With over 750 customers actively using our product, most of our new features are a direct result of user suggestions.

The “next big thing” for later in 2015 will be ManageOrders.com, which is a “customer-facing” web portal. An end-user (the shop’s customer) can check on order status, see their designs, make payments, etc. Essentially, this will help streamline our customer’s operations because they can automate a lot of their customer service.

Tablet and Phone Support

Shopwork’s core product, OnSite, is accessible from a tablet using an RDP connection. It works great speed-wise and visually. Screen “real estate” on a phone makes it not as practical because everything is so small, but this will change as phone screens are getting bigger. Both of Shopwork’s web products, ProofStuff and ManageOrders, sense the device you are using and adjust the screen size (“Responsive” in web programming jargon).

Linking to Web Orders and Other Cloud-based Information

The OnSite ERP can take orders from any other website or program its built-in proprietary EDP interface. This is not a new feature, though; we’ve had it for years. Essentially, it allows a shop to use whatever product they want as an order-taking “front end,” and that order can then be processed and tracked on their main system.

OnSite Software Customizations

OnSite is very customizable for each company that uses it because there are so many types of companies and embellishments in our industry. For example, shop managers can set up OnSite to handle contract work (customer brings in the goods), subcontract work (sending out your production to someone else but buying the goods from another vendor), traditional production (buying the goods and then embellishing them) and traditional promotional product (buying both the finished good and the embellishment from a single vendor).

Users can customize icons used for orders, and what they name the machines, different departments, different “design types” — almost all the core system is customizable in this fashion. We have an online “repository” for Shopwork’s customers called ShopWorksCentral.com. It’s a website for three primary purposes:

First, customers can reach and watch videos online for training.
Second, Customers can reach documents, recorded webinars and other training materials when we release them.
Third, when Shopworks release new versions, we post them here so customers can learn about the new features and download the upgrade.

What Challenges OnSite Can Solve

The biggest challenge that all of our customers have is that before buying our product, they are using four to six different systems or pieces of software to run their business. Typically they use forms for order entry, spreadsheets for purchasing, Excel for job quotes, magnet board or Excel for production scheduling, and QuickBooks or something else for accounting. This is inefficient and leads to lot of errors on orders, both of which limit how much their company can grow. Our challenge when switching a customer over to OnSite is for them to embrace the “integration” concept.

With OnSite, they enter information once and it travels through the company. It is what they need to grow, but they need to re-do procedures, employee training and sometimes look differently at the way they process orders. It is a lot of change management and we are honest with customers about the process and try to “shepherd” them through it.

One of the many advantages of an integrated system is that pricing, stock, and scheduling information is always right there and accessible to salespersons, production managers, shippers, and management. A sales rep can give a price upfront, secure a deposit

How OnSite Can Help Your Shop Become More Competitive

There are three main ways OnSite can help your shop become more competitive. The first is to cut the costs dramatically to process a sales order. Less labor per order means they can move more volume without increasing costs linearly.

The second is fewer errors on producing orders. OnSite keeps track of everything related to a sales order and all this information is available with the click of a mouse or swipe of a finger. Employees are less prone to make mistakes when paperwork is the same every time and not hand-written.

Lastly, Shopworks is a better end-user experience. Customers who have our software produce orders consistently and on-time and their customers appreciate that consistency.

Customer Access to Billing Information, Jobs on the Schedule or an Image Library

Customers can’t access Billing Information, Jobs on the Schedule or an Image Library in our current system but they will later in 2015 when we release our ManageOrders.com product.

What Sets Shopworks Apart

Shopworks culturally is from the industry and we understand it. That understanding translates to the software and even when you talk to our support staff. We understand very intimately what our customers do.

The platform we develop on is rapid development — three to 10 times faster than other platforms. This means we can deliver upgrades faster and cheaper than our competition, which is important when you talk about a changing industry like ours.

We are 100% committed to “integration” in our software. A lot of software companies think of integration more as a flat file export because with OnSite all the modules from marketing through accounting are all connected real-time because everything is in a single integrated package.

Where the Industry’s Headed

A lot of growth! The demand for embellished products will continue to increase and our industry will be a direct beneficiary of that. Technology will continue to evolve on the production floor as inventors continue to come up with new and interesting ways to get logos on things. This is the one aspect of our business that really makes it fun — the creative side. This is probably why we are all drawn to it.

The Biggest Daily Hurdle Shops Face – and How OnSite Helps

The biggest challenge is for the small-business owner to commit themselves to being exactly that: a business owner. This is especially true if they want to grow their business. A lot of people start a small business as an escape from the “regular” work world and they are doing themselves a disservice in the long run when not committing to the process. If you are going to own a business, embrace being an owner. Things you never thought of, like “systems,” “procedures” and “management,” are the key to your growth. Our manager software helps with this challenge by giving them a starting point for their company infrastructure. This is not all just for “big business;” these concepts are important for small operations as well. Our software is very configurable for different business types, but once it’s set up correctly, it will work whether you do $100,000, in sales volume per year up to $50 million. We have many customers across that sales volume spectrum and they all use the same software.

A Day in the Life of OnSite

OnSite’s production scheduling has a philosophy behind it: it’s almost impossible for a computer to handle 100% of scheduling production because there are so many variables. For example, in screen printing, not only are you looking for an open spot on a schedule, but you have to consider the number of heads, screen size, flash units available and maybe even who is the crew running a particular press to see if it is right for a job.

OnSite basically works this way. You set up all your equipment in OnSite and your production teams. Equipment has properties associated with them, including production rate. We recommend that all new customers set up a “scheduling machine” for each department as a best practice. For example, they would have a press setup in OnSite called “Schedule Screenprint” that would have average production rates associated with it. When a new job comes in it will automatically be scheduled for the “Scheduling Machine” based on the dates required by the person entering the sales order. You can set up the system to back this off by a few days if you want, avoid weekends, etc.

Procedurally, the production manager on a daily basis sees the jobs that have come in on the “Scheduling Machine” and moves them to a real machine based on their schedule. The benefit is that the manager can check every order before scheduling to make sure everything is there. For example, if the salesperson left off a key piece of information, the manager would be able to put the order on hold and send a message to the salesperson — all from within OnSite. Everything is documented on the order. This is all procedural and varies exactly in how it’s implemented from company to company.

If you’re interested in OnSite as a potential business software solution, discover more on our OnSite page and schedule a demo.