Print shop industry software: 10 steps from enquiry to production

In the printing industry, every euro counts. Savings potentials in materials have long been exhausted, in production your employees do an efficient job. So where else can you save? We’ll tell you: In job management. It makes a considerable difference whether you need 10 to 15 minutes for a single standard order or just a few minutes. Over the course of a year, that’s a whole lot of often underestimated working hours that your employees in commercial administration can certainly use differently.

We will show you how quickly you can run an order through from customer enquiry to production using an example from our ERP software advanter® print+sign.

Step 1: Incoming customer request by e-mail is assigned

An e-mail (e.g. an enquiry) arrives and is assigned to an existing address data record in the ERP industry software for printers or in advanter® print+sign via automatic address assignment.

Incoming customer request by e-mail

Step 2: E-mail with the integrated menu item “Create offer”

Due to the automatic assignment of the e-mail to an address data record, an offer or an order can be created immediately from the e-mail for the corresponding (assigned) address. All relevant document header data is taken over from the address data record.

“Create offer”

Step 3: The offer header is generated

An offer (offer header) is created from the e-mail with two mouse clicks. Positions will now be assigned to this offer.

The offer header is generated

Step 4: Insert offer position with set number

So-called “sets” help with the entry of items. By entering a set number (here “#rl80” in the Article No. field), the ERP software is prompted to load the individual set items, including their dependencies on each other, into the order. In the process, the article group created in this way is assigned a “title” via which the items are held together as a group.

Insert offer position with set number
Enter a title

Step 5: Standard set is resolved into set positions

After the automatic resolution of the set, all set items appear in the logically correct order and in the item list of the quotation. This can now be printed out with various options or sent to the customer by e-mail.

Standard set is resolved into set positions

Step 6: Offer is converted into an order

After the customer has accepted the offer, it only takes two or three mouse clicks to turn the offer into an order. The second image shows the position transfer in an intermediate step.

Offer is converted into an order
position transfer in an intermediate step.

Step 7: Order items with cost centre display, before release

The item list in the order now also contains information on the stored cost centres (= departments/machines for production) as well as some other information (e.g. dependencies of the individual production steps on each other).

Order items with cost centre display

Step 8: Define delivery date & give approval

The order only needs to be assigned a delivery date and given a release (second screenshot).

Define delivery date
Give a release

Step 9: Order items are planned for production

Before the release is given, the individual production steps can be pre-planned for the respective departments (ideally only two mouse clicks).

individual production steps

Step 10: Order goes into production

Through the planning of the order items for production and the subsequent order release, all order items are available in production as “finished” planning items. Here, either changes to the plan can be made (change of cost centre, change of production date, if necessary by drag’n drop); likewise, the production worker can “start” the job from here and thus trigger the recording of the PDC times.

The second screenshot shows an example view of order items in a cost centre list

Order goes into production
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As you can see, with Sets you can carry out the order process very quickly. Analogous to the conversion from a quotation to an order, a delivery note and an invoice can also be created. This is no longer a problem with ERP industry software for print shops.

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