POS Pricing

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5th corner

5th corner

CGF II, Certified Grumble Framer Level 2
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
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303
Loc
Australia
Wondering if someone can help.

Just purchased an F4212 suade mat. POS charges approx half of what the mat costs for a small piece about A3 size.

Also 200mm x 200mm of CS9583 are charged at about 3/4 price.

Is there any POS out there that at least charges for the price of the board.

It doesn't make sense to me to loose 30 to 50% every time you sell a smaller job.

The POS people argue that the waste will be sold later but as we know that may take some time. Is it normal to loose money on these sort of jobs in this way or are there other solutions?
 
What POS are you using?
 
Framesmart..........There opinion is that the cost is made up when you sell the waste...........This is not good business sense in my opinion as loosing 50% of cost can't be healthy. Software should at least default to cost of board on small sizes
 
I used Framesmart. It uses a combination of add-on, plus markup, plus waste. Using all three I think you have a good amount of pricing controls that allow you price both very small and very large jobs without freaky things like you describe happening to your prices. It's been so long since I've messed with it that I can't remember how exactly I did it. Ronny is great about helping with these things. Have you contacted him?

Anyway it seems that if you make the add-on exactly the cost of the board, then exactly the cost of the board will be added to your mat.
 
Specialty boards are where the greatest problem is and to have that many buttons would be messy. Ronny doesn't own the business any more

Are there other POS that allow simple application to charge for board cost as default?
 
5th corner said:
Specialty boards are where the greatest problem is and to have that many buttons would be messy. Ronny doesn't own the business any more

Are there other POS that allow simple application to charge for board cost as default?
Click to expand...

We use Frame Ready and we have ultimate control over individual mat boards if we want to. Many people set the Wholesale of the mat as a set price before any mark-ups are figured in. I'm sure other modern POS systems will do the same if that is what you want.
 
But from an accounting perspective, you have to match revenues with expenses. You aren't doing this by expensing the entire board. Your inventory will be understated, and your income will be understated because you are overstating expenses.

If this happens once in a while, no problem, but if you expense all your offcuts and sell them later without recording the cost of the mat, then you'll be off in your P&L again.
 
5th corner said:
The POS people argue that the waste will be sold later but as we know that may take some time.
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In my experience as a custom framer, around 60-70% of 'waste' in matboards never sells. Some businesses may be different and sell most of their 'waste'.

The method suggested by Jay might work for you!

Another method, that might work and it will rely on you remembering the cost of suede and other expensive mats, is to click the mat button twice or more until the cost shown exceeds the cost of a full sheet.
You could also have an extra button that just contains the cost of a sheet. These methods are a little crude, but may work until Framesmart can implement a minimum charge for mats. Maybe we need to request the newest owners to consider this?
 
Thanks Ormand I agree. Don't stock take my offcuts as what is purchased is what relates to the cost for that job. If sell offcut later on that is our bonus. Bit like getting discount of moulding or foam board etc. Dont' want to mess with ABC buttons. Deleted them not realising they were functional to the whole pricing system so don't want to mess with them. Was thinking other buttons too albeit clumsy and not an ideal solution. They have stated clearly they are not interested in resolving this issue any time soon. Not helpful in my opinion. Even a 500mm square board esentially half the total board still only comes out at cost or near to it. We need to be making good margin on all product purchased or we will go out of business. In theory you can onsell waste but as stated the never used 70% is probably accurate.
 
Our software, although way overdue for release (programmers have a time frame of their own) does have a function to consider the cost of the entire matboard.
Under our wastage section you can either select a wastage percentage ie 30%, which adds on to the quote, or you can select actual.
If actual is selected, then your markup is applied to size you are using and the rest of the cost of the matboard, becomes the wastage which is added to the job.
There will be a demo as soon as the site goes live and will post here when it does.

Cheers
Mark
 
i-FRAMER said:
Our software, although way overdue for release (programmers have a time frame of their own) does have a function to consider the cost of the entire matboard.
Under our wastage section you can either select a wastage percentage ie 30%, which adds on to the quote, or you can select actual.
If actual is selected, then your markup is applied to size you are using and the rest of the cost of the matboard, becomes the wastage which is added to the job.
There will be a demo as soon as the site goes live and will post here when it does.

Cheers
Mark
Click to expand...

Hi Mark ...........thanks for response..............could you make a note to send me a reminder and I will consider changing over unless the yet again new owner of Framesmart does resolve some of the quirks and it is finally problem free .
 
i-FRAMER said:
Our software, although way overdue for release (programmers have a time frame of their own) does have a function to consider the cost of the entire matboard.
Click to expand...
Mark,
It's great that you have that facility in your software, but unfortunately, that may be one of the few facts we know about the software.

Promoting "software" that's not available yet is a bit like waving a bucket of unwrapped Lindt chocolate in front of a chocaholic then promising that they can have some in the future sometime, maybe this year, maybe next year, maybe sometime, maybe never!

I get the impression from your website that your software is 'cloud' based as it says 'No Software Installation'. That may appeal to some, but even if it was the best framing software ever, that would rule it out for me! Sorry!
 
Hi Ormond,
Yes it is cloud based. Several reasons why i chose to go that way.
As a framer i suffer from several bad habits. a) i was never good at updating prices on my last POS software - that is now taken care - no need for framers to update prices or software ever. it all happens automatically. b) can use on any platform, PC, MAC, IPAD, Smartphone. ( i am a MAC person). Multiple users, multiple locations simultaneously, with no need to setup up networks, or updating to the main computer etc. - If my computer dies, i jump on another, or buy one of the shelf and it continue where i left off.
C) i was also a bit slack on backing up my old POS software database - amazon cloud servers have a 99.999999999% redundancy. Great when we have our next cyclone- no worries about trying to back up, and store computers safely.

And yes i am sorry about waving it under your noses, and have kept quiet about it, as it was meant to be ready before XMAS. The programmers are working on the last stage now along with the new website.
I have been using it for 6 months now, and have several framers beta testing using it as well.

I have been visiting framers over the past 6 months giving demonstrations and the demand is overwhelming, so when we do go live, it will not be finished by far (i don't think we will ever be finished as i would like to see it grow with framers and there businesses).
As a framer myself and using it on a daily basis you can be assured issues will be be dealt with as i would be experiencing the same issues.
But i promise to say no more until it is live, and let framers try it free for month with no commitment.

Regards
Mark
 
i-FRAMER said:
Hi Ormond,
amazon cloud servers have a 99.999999999% redundancy.
Click to expand...
If I was part of it, my data would be in the 0.000000001%.


i-FRAMER said:
I have been visiting framers over the past 6 months giving demonstrations and the demand is overwhelming
Click to expand...
Great news! I hope it goes well for you! I wondered, how do you demonstrate it if it's not finished?

All of the POS software available down here has some dramatic issues for some framers, depending on their requirements. I'm pretty sure I have purchased and used all the Aussie made software and am still using an old DOS based system that works, but doesn't have some modern features.

It will be amazing if you come up with something that caters really well for the majority. Maybe I should give you a list of my expectations sometime!

It will be up to you to try to convince me Mark! I wish you all the luck in the world. As a matter of fact, I dare you to try! ;o) ;o)
 
challenge accepted

The software still has some bugs, and some of the features are still not in there yet ie some reports, email campaigning and a few others
But as for quoting jobs, customer database etc, it works fine. hence the reason we have been using it in the our shop, and have a few others using it too.

When i demonstrate it, i use our actual shop database. Framers can actually see other jobs being created from here in Cairns while i am somewhere else.

Feel free to give me a call sometime and i would be happy to discuss it more.
I am very reachable as far as service/support, we have a 1300 number which goes straight to my mobile, if i can not answer straight away, i will ring you back as soon as i am free, i SKYPE, I-Chat, and email.. If you ned help setting up, you can give me your login and i can do it for you (save all the emails back and forth, and trying to explain things on the phone).
Oh and i also make videos as i talk you through anything, so you can review it as well.

Interested yet???

Talk soon, perhaps PM.

Cheers
Mark
 
I would guess that the software has changed greatly though out the years. However you would not need multiple buttons. If the add-on is exactly the cost of the board, no matter how much the board costs, that amount would be added to the quote. I had three buttons. One for cheap boards with a higher markup, one in the middle with less mark up and one for expensive boards. You could use two though - or even one. Either way the actual cost of the board would be added to the price. At least that is the way it used to work.

Good luck.
 
tedh said:
But from an accounting perspective, you have to match revenues with expenses. You aren't doing this by expensing the entire board. Your inventory will be understated, and your income will be understated because you are overstating expenses.
Click to expand...
That makes the assumption that the remainder actually has value, which it often doesn't; you just hope that it will. And if it does end up having some future value, you won't know what that is until the time comes.

tedh said:
If this happens once in a while, no problem, but if you expense all your offcuts and sell them later without recording the cost of the mat, then you'll be off in your P&L again.
Click to expand...

Actually, your P&L will be fine because you already expensed the material so the whole (mat) job is Gross Profit.

Unless you use a limited number of colors/boards and cut a predetermined number/size of mats from them, there is no entirely accurate way of tracking the costs for partial mats through a system. And if you're in that situation you aren't likely to need to keep track of partial sheets...

If Framesmart can't allow pricing to accommodate a minimum of the cost of the board then I too would be considering another package. However I think it highly unlikely that it can't. You just need to dig into the pricing controls to figure it out, or find the right person to help you.
 
David N Waldmann said:
Actually, your P&L will be fine because you already expensed the material so the whole (mat) job is Gross Profit.
Click to expand...

Except if you are looking at that job trying to figure out if you're within the 30% COGS, the numbers will be distorted in your favour because there will be no mat cost. You've already expensed the whole mat. Usually this is not material, but suede mats are three times the cost, and this is significant.

The reason I don't expense the entire mat when I cut it is because I have a gallery: We'll use that offcut on a gallery job that will go on the walls on spec. The retail price is set using all material costs, so we don't want to give someone a free mat.
 
I also have tried all the Australian framing software.

A North American company is working on adding Australian suppliers to their system. They have Antons,Megawood,LJ etc. Just need to get a few of the smaller wholesalers on board then I will be happy.

We use a combination of our old fashioned book system and POS software. Not ideal but as we Hand finish frames from raw maoulding and use several small companies, this seems to (sort of) work for us.

Also , we do a lot of complicated framing and the POS does not seem to work so well for this. It would be OK if I was a small operation and could be responsible for all the pricing offered to clients as i know the costs etc, but when I have 5 staff also doing the pricing , I find POS falls short in some instances. Puting the same margin on a 3.6metre long frame as a 30cm frame does not cut it.

There are several people around Australia (all framers) currently trialling new software, but given our previous Australian experience, I really want long term reliability before I commit fully to one of these packages.

The guys in North America seem to be ahead in many cases.No Australian software covers raw mouldings as weel, for instance.
 
Miranda Smith said:
...A North American company is working on adding Australian suppliers to their system. They have Antons,Megawood,LJ etc. Just need to get a few of the smaller wholesalers on board then I will be happy....
Click to expand...

Hi Miranda,

FrameReady is one of the "Big Three" in North American and has made a serious effort in being part of the Australian market... Getting Antons, Megawood and LJ on board is a big step to their success and convenience for the shop users in Australia. To your point, we're a bit spoiled here in the U.S. where virtually every moulding suppliers sends in their data to all of the major POS folks on a regular basis. (Be patient...I'm sure that it will be coming soon) :thumbsup:

Miranda Smith said:
...Also , we do a lot of complicated framing and the POS does not seem to work so well for this. It would be OK if I was a small operation and could be responsible for all the pricing offered to clients as i know the costs etc, but when I have 5 staff also doing the pricing , I find POS falls short in some instances. Puting the same margin on a 3.6metre long frame as a 30cm frame does not cut it. ...
Click to expand...

I honestly do not see your concerns on this point, as we also have many different staff members capable of writing up an order on our POS (SpecialtySoft Framing Pro). Each will input whatever mat margins they deem appropriate on each piece of artwork. If you have defaults dimensions set for convenience, they can more than likely be changed or turned off completely.

As far as "complicated" framing goes, we are able to add as many specialty charges as is necessary - this modifies the software for our needs - I'm sure you should be able to do the same.

Miranda Smith said:
...The guys in North America seem to be ahead in many cases.No Australian software covers raw mouldings as weel, for instance.
Click to expand...

I would think that most POS software allows you to input your own mouldings into the database, adding a "supplier code" that is you. You could create one for your raw mouldings and one for a small local supplier that might not participate in updates. Which POS program are you currently using partially?

John
 
Check out www.artframer.com.

You can download a demoversion if you would like to plad around with it. I think it's and excellent program, well priced and very versatile with many good features.

Their pricing options are awesome. There are three options for the way you can price mountboard, which will do exactly what you need.
 
David N Waldmann said:
If Framesmart can't allow pricing to accommodate a minimum of the cost of the board then I too would be considering another package. However I think it highly unlikely that it can't. You just need to dig into the pricing controls to figure it out, or find the right person to help you.
Click to expand...

No it does not accomodate cost of mat board and is very difficult to work something out and they are not about to create this anytime soon (their words). Apparently how this software works is it goes looking for a mat at a particular price and picks the closest it can find.

Tried setting up other buttons but because the main mat button relates to price point and the new buttons messed with the price. So deleted those and had the service guys set me up some special buttons but pricing is still a stab in the dark. Small jobs v's expensive jobs and getting the price right. Currently 100mmx100mm or 4 inches using a $12 mat is $16 and full sheet is $50. Not sure how those prices compare and may be too expensive. You see the problem? Any feed back would be appreciated.

It really is not that difficult. It is bad business to loose money and if one can't charge at least the cost of the board regardless of job or type of mat and if software can't do this simple task the software is flawed and one does start to consider looking at other software.

I shelved their Visualisation for this very reason too buggy and too complicated and the most annoying thing was how the finished rendering bounced around to show the glass. I now use the one from Wizard. Very quick and simple and works a treat to close the sale. Gets lots of u and r's and wide eye amazments. People much happier and more confident going home knowing what they might be getting. It does crash from time to time but mostly works pretty good.
 
5th corner said:
...Is there any POS out there that at least charges for the price of the board. It doesn't make sense to me to loose 30 to 50% every time you sell a smaller job...Is it normal to loose money on these sort of jobs in this way or are there other solutions?
Click to expand...

It seems that you rely on your POS provider to determine your prices. If that is correct, then I suggest you reconsider your pricing policy. The prices in a POS system are usually intended to provide a reasonable starting point, but there has never been any reason to believe that those prices would assure a profit to any framing business. In almost every case, the "system" prices are either too high to be competitive, or too low to assure profit.

There is no POS provider, business expert, or genie-in-a-bottle who could guess all the details about your business that affect its profitability. It would be unreasonable to expect anyone unfamiliar with the intimate details of your company to establish profitable pricing for you.

As a business owner, establishing prices may be among the most important and most difficult ongoing tasks of operating the business. If you need help with that, then it may be necessary to invite a professional business consultant to learn everything about your business and recommend the necessary changes. Even so, profitability is a moving target.

It is quite likely that calculating retail pricing is only the beginning of the work necessary to assure a balance between fair prices and a fair profit from one fiscal quarter to the next. You also have to review and revise prices as your business evolves.

Rather than looking for the non-existent POS system that assures you profitable pricing, look for the POS system that best enables you to do that essential work for yourself.
 
OzFramer said:
and that is expected to be ...???
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HI Ozframer, the new website is being finished with the registration process to allow free trials within the net 2 weeks.
Once that has been done and uploaded, framers will be able to start trialling the program.

We are in Perth next week, and if Nicole has not contacted you yet, please let me know and i will be happy to come and see you.

regards
Mark
 
Jim Miller said:
Rather than looking for the non-existent POS system that assures you profitable pricing, look for the POS system that best enables you to do that essential work for yourself.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jim.

Am stuck with this one for now as it cost a good chunk of money and can't afford to upgrade right now. It is too hard to make it resolve the issue at hand. Will be looking for other software at some point.

I threw their visualise away and went with someone elses and have not looked back since. Works really well and helps me quickly and efficiently close sales.
 
i-FRAMER said:
HI Ozframer, the new website is being finished with the registration process to allow free trials within the net 2 weeks.
Once that has been done and uploaded, framers will be able to start trialling the program.

We are in Perth next week, and if Nicole has not contacted you yet, please let me know and i will be happy to come and see you.

regards
Mark
Click to expand...

It's been 3 weeks now, and your website hasn't changed - any further updates...

Would have loved you to call when you were in Perth, but I'd say it's a bit late now?..

I would have expected you may have called anyway as I did register with your site and even talk to you when you were about to go live last year.. Anyway, please let us know :)
 
Sorry we missed you while in Perth, but we saw over 20 framers in the week we were there.
There was no way i could tell who you were from from you profile, and asked that you to contact me

Please send me an email with your details so i know who you are and can contact you directly

Regards
Mark Surman
 
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