Framiac is now called FramR and there is a new program called CustomR.
FramR continues to provide all the functionality of the old Framiac plus, heaps
of new stuff, but I want to talk about Framiac CustomR first.
CustomR has been designed to gather customer information for you by presenting
an easy to use screen that the customers can complete themselves, perhaps while
waiting to be served. Who needs CustomR?
Anyone who is busy.
Anyone who is slow at typing names and addresses.
Anyone who would prefer to look their customers in the eye, rather than stare at
a keyboard.
Anyone who has trouble getting names and addresses from customers.
Anyone who wants to market more effectively and Grow Their Business.
Customer details are sent by CustomR into your Framiac company file, so the
details are already there when you serve the customer. As an encouragement to
the customer, the screen can advertise a competition, monthly drawings etc. When
you install CustomR, you will see a rather garish screen that says Click Here To
Win. Replace this with your own tasteful enticement.
I do not know how many framing shops I have been into where they have about 5000
jobs in their database, but only about 10 customers. Your customer database is
your most valuable business asset ... And you should be working that customer
database through mailing lists. You now have no excuse for not collecting
customer information ... Go for it ... I'll be checking on you!
FramR ... Get used to the new name; group counselling can be provided if numbers
are sufficient
POINT OF SALE: Framers increasingly are diversifying. FramR supports this
diversification. Now you can sell anything through FramR. Click New Invoice,
select the customer and select the items to add to the invoice from the
drop-down list.
NEW IMPORT WIZARD FOR ITEMS. To help you get started with selling items through
FramR we have added an Import Wizard for Items. The Tudor Glass range of
specialty glass has made their catalog ready for import into the FramR Items
catalog. If you haven't heard of Tudor Glass, you have really missed something ... Their products are stunning!
Have a look at
Tudor Glass
STOCK CONTROL FOR ITEMS: you know what that means
FIXED PRICE JOB TEMPLATES: Job Templates are automatically added to your Items
catalog. You can then resell jobs based on those templates at a fixed price, by
selecting them from the Items list on an invoice. You can even sell multiple
copies of them on an invoice; and FramR will keep your stock up-to-date.
Templates original function of providing a basis for creating new jobs which are
then priced according to your current costs, also continues as before.
HOURLY RATE CALCULATOR: FramR now has an hourly rate calculator to help you work
out your hourly rate. Use the Labour Used Report (Reports/Summary Reports) to
find out exactly how many hours you have charged out over the last year. Enter
your charged out hours into the calculator, with your expenses, to calculate
your hourly rate. Click Settings/Labour Charges/Hourly Rate Calculator. Smart
framers (all of you) run the Labour Used Report every month or 3, to help fine
tune their business.
ON-SITE QUOTES: You can now disconnect your laptop from your network; do quotes
onsite and merge those jobs and customers into your main company file. Did I say
Company file? That's right, FramR now supports multiple company files. When you
first start FramR, you will be taken to the Companies form where you can create
a new company, or take a copy of an existing company. You may wish to use the
companies form to take a copy of your existing company file (Data.mdb), then
open the copy you create to
upgrade to version 5.
RECOVERY CONSOLE: No Framiac framer has ever accidentally deleted a job, or
customer, or invoice; so this new feature is totally useless; but if ever anyone
was silly enough to make such a mistake, you can now get it back using the
Recovery Console. Click Settings/Recovery Console.
IMPROVED STOCK CONTROL: Stock Control can now be turned on and off for
individual items/matboards/mouldings in your catalog. Turning off stock control
for a catalog, resets stock levels to zero.
LITTLE THINGS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE: -
Mailing lists are now multi-select; this means you can simultaneously mailout to
multiple lists, and customers who are on more than one list still only get one
letter. Are you getting the message that mailing lists are important?
Payments now record the staff member who took the invoice and the invoice type
(VISA, Cheque etc).
The Day Report is in 2 parts; one for Jobs and the other for Receipts; the Day
Report for Receipts summarises the receipts for each invoice type on the
selected day.
Framiac FramR will now calculate the mat border given the image size and cutting
size.
Glazing Type has been changed from the brand name Perspex to the generic name
Acrylic.
You can now hide the minutes labour budgeted for a job from appearing on the
Jobsheet; you can also hide all price information from appearing on the
Jobsheet, click Settings/Sundries/Jobsheet.
You can now show all jobs for a customer based on a date range. From the
Customer form, click Show Jobs; you can also show jobs for any material used
within a date range; for example, in the moulding catalog, select the moulding,
then click Show Jobs.
A special feature for the myopic framer, Totals are now bigger on the Job form.
Net and Total can now be edited directly, both on the Job form and on an
invoice; of course, FramR automatically recalculates GST etc.
The Customer form now allows 100 characters for the street address (up from 50)
and produces a very nice mailing label, which you can customise.
Those framers who mail-merge their mailouts (all of you!) will now see the
mailing label when they connect to their FramR mailing list from Word etc. This
saves you having to format the name/address in Word.
Those framers who struggle with mail-merge can now print Avery L7159 address
labels directly from FramR.
Framiac CustomR automatically adds customers to appropriate mailing lists. You
can choose which mailing lists to make available for customers to add themselves
through Framiac CustomR.
You can now choose whether to start a job as a quote or order;
choose whether to start an invoice as a quote;
choose whether or not to have jobs automatically added to invoices.
You can now adjust your markup according to job size.
Backup is now easier, if you have Windows XP; click Settings/Companies/Backup.
You will only see the backup button if you have Windows XP (which nearly all of
you do), or Windows 2003 Server (which hardly any of you do).