Attention All Frameready Gurus!

Framing Goddess

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Jul 18, 2000
Posts
4,317
Loc
Cleveland, Ohio
I have been in the process of setting up my Frameready program and I have a few questions for those of you who have been using it for awhile.

Fabric Wrapped Mats:
What method do the rest of you use for setting this up?
Do you gang the board and labor together as one UI price?
Do you price out the fabric by the UI or Square Inch?
Does the program have the fabric price lists (i.e. Raphael's) preloaded in a way that they come up in the wholesale box in the price codes?
What is a sensible way to set up pricing for raw liners to be covered with fabric? I see that Raphael's price list lists each raw liner shape with each fabric wrap- should I just plug my markups somwhow into that?

Glass:
The way I have mine set up right now, a 31x39 piece of regular glass costs a titch less than a 32x40 piece of glass. I would like that to be the same. How can I set it up to price glass accordingly when the cut-offs are worthless? (as most of mine are)

I think I will post this on The Palette as well. Many thanks to Mel and FGII and DiverDave for all your help thus far...
edie
 
Edie,

You can price the catagories in chop or length, but it won't be nearly enough to cover both cost and profit if you order continuous coverage. Just beware of that, because if you are like me, you like to sell the continuous coverage.

What is "The Pallette" ?
 
Jo,

I didn't know that you used FrameReady!

The Palette is the user forum that FrameReady has on their website. It is fairly new, being opened just this last February.

I price my fabric/papers by the sq. yd which covers sizes up to 36 X 36. I have another entry for 1.5 yds. and one for 2 yds. to cover the larger ones. But I enter in the mat/liner and fabric/paper as separate line entries. That way, when the liners or mat #'s are updated, they are reflected as they really are. If I buy a really expensive fabric/paper, I have to enter in another item to cover the cost. But, most times the per yd. cost will cover the fabric/paper with room to spare.

Edie,

If you find out anything further about pricing wrapped mats/liners, please let me know. I have been giving this some thought since we talked and I am not sure that my pricing structure is reflecting the actual cost of each fabric AND raw liner. Since I don't buy much fabric from Harveys or Raphaels, I don't know if the fabrics are updated periodically. I usually go with some of the hand made papers, bark papers, and fabrics bought from fabric stores locally. (I like to "feel" the fabric before I buy it.) So my pricing is more generic for these items and I can enter them in with the raw mat/liner charges that I keep in that category.

FGII
 
Edie, After much angst I have been able to get my glass priced so you can charge for whatever size you are going to use. I am at home right now and can't remember how I set it up but if you still need the info I'll post it tomorrow. I'm sure one of these other people are more able to answer anyway. I love the Frameready but I have had limited results learning from the manual. I am definitely more hands on.
 
We don't use Frameready....but we do use Lifesaver.

I think Frameready has most of the same vendors.I would think "Franks Fabrics" is in Frameready also. ..... If it is you just use their fabric MATS and fabric LINERS. They are all numbered. We even have them bar coded.

Judy Nansel
Artshoppe
 
Hi FG,

I spoke with Bert today and he suggested that you enter in each size of lites (glass) that you usually stock with a RETAIL price per lite for each size. The program will kick out the suggested nearest size for each workorder and you would have to do one extra step after that which you don't do with the automatic UI pricing. You would have to pick the lite size that you want to use.

So, a 14 1/4" X 16 1/2" frame would indicate a lite size of 16" X 20". But it won't automatically enter in that lite size, if I understood him correctly. You have to manually choose that size and it will consequently price out a full sheet of 16" X 20" glass at whatever retail price you entered in for that size lite.

On the wrapped mats, you would figure the mat separately and then go to the listings for Raphaels or Franks Fabrics and choose the fabric wrap as needed. For wrapped liners, you choose the liner from the list that is provided by either company and then choose the fabric as such and it will calculate according to what you put into the entries for those items in the Price Codes tables.

I hope I didn't confuse an otherwise simple entry issue for you.

FGII
 
Tom,

We don't use Framready, we use Lifesaver. Before I closed my store I was going to go with Frameready because I could use it with Macs. I think it is an outstanding program with good people behind it.

I just read this topic because I like to read computer stuff. :eek: I can read the Mac forums for hours. Maybe I have geek potential.
 
We found that by setting up a dummy item under the mat group for the type of fabric mat we offer has solved the problem.

We set up an entry for---fabric on rag, basic board, foamcore, well & deep mats. These all have entry's for method of mounting.

Each group was assigned a "code letter".

We choose this method because we offer fabric from four sources and using a standard mark-up did not work for us. By using this method we were able to mantain our profit by covering all cost item.

The other method we tried was to re-assign a code to all fabric by the amount of fabric need to cover a given size mat with the amount required to purchase. Simply, if you purchase in 1/3 yards--a 1/3 yard will cover about 10 1/2 inches, 2/3 about 22 inches and a yard will cover a 30 mat, etc. By taking this information we added the fabric cost to the mounting materal and labor factor to arrive at a price per mat. All mats under 11" had one level of fabric cost and so on up to full yardage. I don't think I've explaned this very well, but we found it just took to much time to keep current--so we changed to the above method.
 
Originally posted by William Ross:
We found that by setting up a dummy item under the mat group for the type of fabric mat we offer has solved the problem.

We set up an entry for---fabric on rag, basic board, foamcore, well & deep mats. These all have entry's for method of mounting.

Each group was assigned a "code letter".

William,

Would you mind explaining the above in excruciating detail for those of us who need it? I use Frank's Fabrics, and the liners are each listed with a specific fabric, but the stuff that gets entered into the matboard catagory is only the cost per yard of each fabric, plus a $5+ charge, and a multiplier. The price I get seems to relate to nothing that means anything.

I need step by step instructions, if you have the time (... I have the money, honey...oops.) Anyway, I've lost my b*** too many times on these mats, so I'm very interested in getting this straight.
 
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