EstiMate 2.0 - What's New



Sign & Garment Pricing Made Even Easier! EstiMate 2 is packed with a host of new features designed to make your life much easier and improve not only the range of products you can quote using the software, but the speed and precision with which you can do so. Some of our favorite new features are summarized below! EstiMate 2.0 is certified to run on Windows XP and Windows Vista. We are working on Windows 2000 support.

"As I was alpha and beta testing 2.0 I decided do what a good business person does, and make sure that the upgrade cost would be the best way to spend my money. I took the time to check out two competitors of EstiMate, and review their products. I can say that in my opinion, EstiMate is the most thought out, user friendly pricing option out there. You can really tell that it was created FOR sign people, BY sign people. It just takes into account factors that the competition doesn't. Another factor is that the price difference between EstiMate and the competition is unbelievable, and is by far the best investment you can make for the financial wellbeing of your company." -- Christian Slager, Budget Signs, Bradenton, FL

Completely Re-Designed User Interface EstiMate's new toolbar provides fast and easy access to all the features in the program, eliminating the need for complex menu systems. This mimics the new Microsoft-Style User Interface.

Simplified Product Selection
EstiMate Professional provides all of the following benefits: Easy quoting for all kinds of jobs using our myriad pricing plugins Professionally printed, faxed, or emailed estimates for your clients Easy determination of your hourly rate Consistent, accurate quoting by anyone in your shop Includes our Free Form plugin, Labor Rates plugin, and one other plugin of your choice.
EstiMate Enterprise includes all of the above plus: One click order entry, conversion of estimates to jobs Invoicing, Work Orders, and Material Lists Networkability via the Multi-User Server Multi-user functionality and multiple salespeople Ability to check data in and out of the shop network

Multiple Windows Open At Once You can now have as many windows open as you like, working on multiple quotes at the same time. This gives you the freedom and flexibility that you need to quickly and easily jump back and forth between quotes, lists, and other screens in the program.	QuickBooks-Style Lists You're now free to type in any list field and it automatically drops down and sorts as you type. To add new items to any list, just type the new item, hit the tab key, and you can add it to the list!

Easy New Licensing Terms
Now you don't have to call us anymore to unlock your copy of EstiMate! We are transitioning from a per-station to a per-user / per-location licensing model, where only networked installations of EstiMate require multiple licenses. Single users can install EstiMate on any number of machines that are intended to be used independently of each other, and you can quickly and easily download the license file when installing EstiMate. Not online? Not a problem. Our customer service staff can easily email you your license file, and then you can load it into EstiMate simply by dropping it on the desktop of the computer you're installing EstiMate onto. Easy!

Greatly Enhanced Plugins
Our new plug-in architecture makes development significantly easier, and right on the heels of the release of version 2 we will be releasing several new plug-ins that people have been asking for. Our current suite of plug-ins have been significantly enhanced and speeded up, with many new features such as templates, up charges, and many more configuration options for each plug-in. The overall plug-in design has been greatly improved and simplified, making it much easier for any employee in your shop to generate fast, accurate quotes. The up charges specifically go a long way toward replacing the general difficulty level and artwork complexity sliders. The sliders are still there for tweaking prices, of course! Two changes to be aware of: the "linear/square items" plug-in has been replaced with one called "dimensional items." This is because of the addition of three-dimensional items to the plug-in! Now you can price volumetric items such as awnings and other things sold in cubic measures. The other change to be aware of is that the "repeat labor items" plug in has been replaced by the simple addition of multiple labor rates throughout the system. These are part of the base system and do not need to be purchased.

Templates!
One phenomenal new feature in EstiMate 2 is the addition of templates! Templates can be created in a plug-in simply by pricing an item the way you normally would, clicking the templates button, and choosing "save as template." This will build a fast list of one click quotes. So, for example, a novice user can drop down the list, select a template, click "upcharges," a up charges relevant to the job. This guarantees consistent quoting between employees and makes pricing much, much faster! Every plug-in has the templates button built-in, as does the line item group screen. So now you can create a compilation of all your most common types of work.

Upcharges!
. Upcharges are a huge new feature in EstiMate 2. Every plug-in has an upcharges tab were you can enter any upcharges to a job. This effectively eliminates the general difficulty level and artwork complexity sliders, although they are still there for you to use if you choose! Upcharges are especially helpful for novice employees to quickly price a job.

Fast and Flexible Multiple Sales Tax Handling EstiMate 2 handles sales taxes in a completely new way. Not only are you able to create multiple sales taxes, and select them on a line by line basis for your quote,but you can even create sales-tax groups. When you print your estimate or invoice, the sales taxes are broken out line by line with a separate amount for each one used throughout the quote!

Line Item Groups Line Item Groups Are Here! Line item groups allow you to create a single line item on your quote composed of multiple items, much like a sub quote. This way you can do complex assemblies and easily attach them to a quote while they only print out on one line!

Integrated Deposit Handling Need to take a deposit on a job? No problem! Just click the "take deposit" button and enter the deposit amount, the date, and a note to go with it! It will automatically be applied and print out on the invoice. It's kept in its own special field rather than a line item on the job.	Separate Billing and Shipping Addresses Billing and shipping addresses are separate in EstiMate 2.

Multiple Proof Images In EstiMate 2 you can attach an unlimited number of proof images to your quote! They will be saved in the database so you don't have to keep track of your proof files anymore.	Proof Overlay You still have your copyright statement on your proof page, but you also now can place an overlay over the image so that your proof cannot be scanned by another shop. This protects your intellectual property.

Unlimited Custom Messages on Quotes You can add any number of custom disclaimers, cautions and other such verbiage to your quotes.

Integrated Spell Check Spell check all your quotes with just one click before you send them out to your customers.

Flexible Handling of Line Items Line items can be directly edited on the estimate screen. Need to change a quantity? Need to change an amount? Adjust a description? No problem! Line items can also be moved up and down and reshuffled.

Networking And Data Management Drastically Simplified and Enhanced
In EstiMate 1, networking was done by directly connecting each individual install of estimate to the same data folder. This created possible networking issues. EstiMate 2, on the other hand, uses a multiuser server (which is licensed separately) that connects to the data and accepts multiuser connections from client installs of EstiMate. EstiMate will automatically detect and connect to the multiuser server on your network! EstiMate can even connect to multiuser servers across the Internet. What this means to you, for all practical purposes, is a rock solid networking environment free from data corruption issues or troublesome networking steps.

Data Check In / Out Now you can check data in and out, taking your data in the field on a laptop and checking it back in when you get back to the shop, all the while allowing your employees to continue working in the software while you're gone. You can even e-mail your change log back to the shop for merging.	Standardized Backup Format Instead of the old .ebk file format, EstiMate's backup files are now stored in common .zip files for ease of access and standardization.
Easy Contact Import Import contacts from QuickBooks or any text file with ease.	EstiMate 1 Data Seamlessly Imported Your EstiMate 1 Data can be imported in about one minute (for the average shop) with our simple wizard.

Integrated Drag-And-Drop Drag-and-drop has been integrated throughout the program, allowing you to to drag line items from one quote to another and items from one list to another!

Automatic Refreshing Whenever something is changed in the program, any screen it appears on is refreshed!

Completely Overhauled "Overhead Worksheet" The overhead worksheet has been completely overhauled, and is now called the hourly rate wizard. This is much more in the style of our program ProfitWatch and allows you to fill in your employees, the hours they work, the profit you are looking for in amount or percentage, and your income tax rate to come up with a much more accurate hourly rate.

Fast, Flexible, Sortable And Filterable Open List Have you ever wanted to just see a quotes for a single date? Or a single customer? Well now you can with a very fast flexible sortable open list that can also be filtered using many criteria! Drill down and get exactly what you're looking for, fast! This new feature makes it very easy to get to your quotes and jobs in just seconds.

Fully Customizable Cover Pages Now your cover pages are fully customizable using fonts and styles. You can also save cover letters for later retrieval so you don't have to type them over and over again!

Better Estimate And Job Number Handling EstiMate 2 handles estimate and job numbers differently than the first version. When converting from an estimate to a job, the number is retained. Also, estimate and job numbers can contain any character, and are not just numeric.	Multiple Quantity Discounts You can create any number of quantity discounts in the system, and apply them to individual quotes.

Activate/Deactivate Items Now you can make customers and items active and inactive, so they stay in the system but no longer appear in lists.	Categories Added To Lists Customers and items now have a category field, allowing you to categorize and group by category.

Copy and Delete Multiple Items Now you can select multiple items in a list, and copy or delete them as a group. This is a real time saver!

Streamlined User Management Multiple users can be defined, with general, manager, or administrator permission levels.	Flexible Unit Handling Now, instead of selecting on install whether you want English or metric units, units are flexible throughout the program.

	Three Dimensional Item Pricing Three-dimensional items have been added into EstiMate 2! Now you can price volumetric objects as well as the traditional one and two dimensional items!

Massively Simplified Vinyl Sign Pricing
The number of vinyl drop-down lists has been expanded to four, and you can now specify the number of colors and whether or not the vinyl is shadowed or outlined. In version 1, for outlines you had to choose the vinyl twice and specify the coverage percentages. Version 2 does this automatically when you check the box!

Multiple Transfer Tapes
You can now enter as many transfer tapes into the system as you like, and select them on individual jobs, rather than having one default global transfer tape.

Many New Customer Defaults Now you can set several defaults for each customer. You can set your default terms, default discount, and default sales tax. You can also indicate whether or not a customer is tax exempt. This is a real new timesaver!

Customer Notes Straight From The Quote Screen Need to see the notes for a customer quickly? The button to the right of the customer drop-down takes you straight to the notes screen. That way you can quickly make notations about a customer, or check what others have said before quoting a job.	Integrated Archives No longer are the archives separate from the open list. To view archived items, just pop up the open list and toggle whether or not they're visible or not!

Multiple Machines In Several Plugins
	In the Embroidery, Screen Printed Garment, and Screen Printed Signs plugins you can now define multiple machines/presses and select them for individual quotes! This makes pricing much faster as you simply select the machine you are using and EstiMate automatically knows how to price the production of the job.

QuickBooks Link Greatly Improved
. The QuickBooks link has seen many improvements, including that estimate automatically marks transactions as having been exported to your accounting software and filters them out of the list in the future. In addition, you can now export transactions as estimates, invoices, or sales receipts. Set up of the QuickBooks link is much easier as well, as you simply create associations between the EstiMate items and QuickBooks items as needed. Probably the most important thing about the new QuickBooks link is that it no longer uses the .iif file format, but rather talks directly to QuickBooks and shoots your estimates and jobs right over, so they must be on the same computer. Note: the QuickBooks Link currently only supports U.S. editions of QuickBooks.