Estimating Program

[Steinmetz]

Hi everybody, I am looking for an estimating program that includes inventory. What are you all using? Thanks!!

[Miles]

We just bought Stone Profits System. Still in set up phase though. We tried others that didnt meet our needs.

[Steinmetz]

could you post the website / contact. Thank you!!

[Miles]

https://www.stoneprofits.com/

We havent started using it yet. Butit was the best system we found that integrates inventory , accounting, estimating, scheduling, and production.

[Darryl Miller]

Wow Miles, you've been quite the guinea pig on software over the past few years. Hope this one solves everything for you.

[Miles]

Yes Darryl, it's been a long two years being the guinea pig too. Never got to where it needed to be. It's been a very painful process.

[mark s]

I'm still using a custom Excel spreadsheet. It is "shared" so it can have multiple users and we use it to track bids, sales, slab inventory, slab orders, and measure and shop schedules.

We do not schedule the shop job by job or part by part. The shop schedule shows the job delivery date and relevant details which would significantly impact the time to complete (mitering, hand polished edges, quartzite, etc.). The shop personnel are responsible for being there enough to complete everything (preferably a day before actual install but that doesn't always happen.) It a "self managed team" concept I borrowed from my early training as a production manager at Procter & Gamble. Mostly works well. It did take a while to train the guys to look farther than one day ahead. (We've had a few occasions where everyone was gone at noon on Friday and Monday work was fine but Tuesday was more than a shifts worth of work to complete monday.)

Not scheduling the shop job by job reduces the effort required for scheduling considerably.

I've looked at various commercial packages but none of them do everything we're already doing with our homebrew solution and a 2nd custom Excel spreadsheet for estimating. I'd love to find a commercial package that does everything we're already doing and also integrates the accounting and time clock/payroll functions but so far such a product doesn't exist to my knowledge.

[Miles]

Do a google search for ERP software. Then send an email out to one of the websites that you're looking for a software solution. That will keep you busy for a month or two fielding calls from sales reps wanting to set up demos!