Images Magazine Digital Edition August 2018

www.images-magazine.com 82 images AUGUST 2018 SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS Alex Skinner, managing director Tell us a little bit about your business We‘re an embroidery business. We started up last year and are based in Exeter in Devon. We have a couple of Tajimas; we used to work for another embroidery company but we relocated back to the south-west. When did you start using DecoNetwork? Really recently – in June. Our workflow was starting to increase which is great, but our website was a template one, a Wix, and we were really struggling with getting our products up, and our quoting software was a bit all over the show. If you rang me for a quote, I‘d have had to ring you back because we had to go online to see the product, see the cost to us, add a percentage, add the embroidery costs... We were old school. Now, anyone can ring us up and we can give them a price there and then. What are its main advantages? I can create a quote and email it to the customer, giving them the price and underneath a visual of the garment and options for standard placements, which they can then approve, reject or add notes to. So if you‘ve asked for 30 polos, it tells you the cost and underneath how the logo will look. It‘s all on there, what they‘ve added and what I‘ve added – there is no need to search through emails to see what each of us has said. All the main suppliers‘ garments are on there, like BTC and Uneek. I can select what I want the pricing to be, and amend the pricing strategies too. What other systems did you look at? As this is quite a niche market, we looked at just one other supplier, but I was put off by the price. DecoNetwork is from £399 for the licence, then £99 each month, which is a lot less. This system automatically goes from quote to production right through to shipping – it prints out the shipping Everest Embroidery: DecoNetwork website label, updates our DPD account and also enters it into QuickBooks. It also automatically orders the garments from the supplier, whereas previously I‘d have to go onto their website and do it all manually. Everything is integrated into one system. Is there anything you‘d like to see in an upgrade? The only quibble I did have, which was of not being able to show prices exclusive of VAT, has been resolved, so as of right now…nothing! It was resolved as I sent them a suggestion and they updated to add the upgrade. How easy is it to use? They give you demos as well as a free one-hour run-through with a tech on a shared screen. There is also the option to raise support tickets or call them up, which is a UK rate even though you talk to the tech team in the US. If you can‘t do something, they‘ll do it their end and record what they are doing on their screen for you to watch. Their availability is 24 hours a day, Monday to Friday. It‘s great. What would be your advice to others thinking of investing in a new software system? I think for anyone in our industry, it‘s a no brainer: the amount of man hours it cuts out is great. We used to take quotes in the day, then because we were so busy, do the quotes at home in the evening – it was the only way we could keep up. It‘s saving us a hell of a lot of hours, and it literally knows the business inside out: production, where the placements are, sales on QuickBooks – it knows every stage of the process. www.everestembroidery.co.uk Alex uses DecoNetwork at Everest Embroidery It’s saving us a hell of a lot of hours, and it literally knows the business inside out