Sunday 26 June 2016

Keeping upto date

We woke up on Fri 24th June to hear that a huge change had taken place in this country. Whether your view is that "Turkeys have voted for Christmas" or "The bright dawn of a new era" as framers we need to keep upto date with what could be large price swings. (Much of the materials we use are imported and subject to currency fluctuations.) If we don't then our businesses will very quickly become unprofitable and untenable.

Wessex Pricing Program makes it easy to keep up with any price changes.

When you get an invoice for a moulding order check the cost against the database ("Tools">"Manage Database">"Mouldings" and enter your moulding ID in the yellow box. Click "Find" and the record will appear. If the whole cost/metre is different then click "Edit" (the boxes will turn yellow to indicate they can be changed) change the Cost and click "Save".
Some suppliers still price in imperial, so the program has a calculator ("Tools">"Calculator") one of its functions is to work out price-per-Metre from price-per-Foot.

You can also bulk update supplier's mouldings from an Excel file (there are a number of posts on how to do this), but bear in mind that even the supplier list may not be upto date.

Other costs are entered in "Setup">"Values". Including the Moulding markup and the various "base" costs for Moulding, Glass and Mount. Think of these fixed "base" costs as the cutting charge or minimum charge to cut a mount (or glass, or join a frame).
Below the "base" cost is the variable cost - this is the cost per sq. Cm. to the customer . So, if the cost of glass or mountboard rise this is the place to alter your price. Just put in the new figure and click "Save" for each item.

For some thoughts on pricing and pricing strategy have a look at this post.

Saturday 25 June 2016

More Mac

As you may have gathered from the previous post Wessex Professional has now been optimised to run on a Mac computer, using CrossOver Mac by Codeweavers.
The only piece of the program that is not quite right is the WorkTicket list in the full version. In Windows the entries are coloured (Red for overdue, Blue for to-be-completed, Black for completed), whereas on a Mac they are all black. In practice this is not too much of a problem. Codeweavers have, however, flagged this up and hope to get the list showing correctly on their next update.

It is very simple to install the the pricing program using this app, particularly as Codeweavers have added the Wessex program to their database of compatible programs.

The Mac installation method is as follows. -
Download and install the free trial of CrossOver Mac from Codeweavers.
Download the 30 Day Trial of the Wessex Pricing Program to the Download folder on your Mac.


Start CrossOver and click on "Install Windows Application".
In the search box type "Wessex"and select "Wessex Pricing 4.x" and click "Continue".
And that's it!
Crossover knows which extra files to download and install (for the record - dot Net Framework 2, MDAC & Jet 8).
It finds and installs the Wessex download in your Download folder.
In about five minutes you are good to go.
You have 14 days to check you are happy with CrossOver before you need to buy it, and 30 days for the Pricing Program.
The cost of CrossOver varies depending on how much support you want to purchase, but this is the most cost-effective and simple solution to running Windows programs on a Mac that is around.
Give it a go!

Ch - Ch - Changes

A new version of the Wessex Pricing Program has been released (ver. 4.4.0). So what are the changes?
The main ones are to help the program run better on a Mac computer.

The print functions now work correctly. The problem stemmed from the "GraphicsUnits" used by the program (they are the co-ordinates that tell the printer where to print on the paper). These units needed to be changed to ones that both Mac & Windows understood.
The "HowTo" videos in the "Help" section have been changed from "wmv", a Windows format, to "mp4", a format both systems understand.

There are two other changes.
You can now list work-for-completion by item. So, you can see all the jobs that need Conservation Glass, for instance. Very useful for planning your work ahead.
The Footer message at the bottom of the invoice is now increased to 115 characters/spaces (from 50).

Head over to the Wessex website to download and remember to take copies of your Database and Labels/Values file (v3.mdb & user.xml) before you run the file, just in case!