PrintSmith Vision

Vorteile

Easy to setup on a server or machine and share out to other systems

Nachteile

Great software to use for customer data, easy to setup and backup

Vorteile

The quick reporting, estimating, invoicing, are all great features. Job history is great too. I like that it comes in segments that work for small businesses like mine, so I'm not paying for a bunch of features I don't use.

Nachteile

Now that it is all web based (I also used PrintSmith Classic) it would be nice if updating the software version was automatic.

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Vorteile

I appreciate the GUI. I am also appreciative of ePS working and cooperating with PlanProphet.

Nachteile

It is not a simple MIS for wide-format, signage companies to use. It works, but it could be made more intuitive and user friendly for wide-format, signage companies that also do more traditional commercial print jobs. ePS/PrintSmith's insistence on locking their clients into long term agreements in an old-school model and out of date. Create a great product and you won't need to lash clients to long term agreements. In other words, dig deep wells and your won't need fences to keep us corralled.

Vorteile

The tech support I've received when I've run into issues with this software has been the BEST support I've ever gotten. I also appreciate that there is a community that is actually being monitored and responded to.

Nachteile

With the new update - I don't like how you save and then it pops you back to the screen. It is a weird change.

Vorteile

We have used Printsmith since 1997. Although there have been many updates and changes to the program, I have always found it invaluable in running our business.
The ease at which you can create an estimate (utilizing comparable past jobs and estimates from any client account), seamless conversion to Job Ticket, Invoice and ultimately post to billing saves hours of work each week. Printsmith stores all of our Client Account History, allowing us to predict what our client base is likely to be ordering in any given month, and allowing us to them in advance to confirm upcoming orders.
The built in accounting in Printsmith allows us to easily track profit and jobs won or lost, allowing us to print out comprehensive weekly and monthly close-outs that make the work for our Accounting Firm go off without a hitch.

Nachteile

I have no complaints about the system in general. When the purchased Program PRINTSMITH converted to on-line PRINTSMITH VISION, it was a learning curve that we managed to overcome and move forward with the help of the PrintSmith online support staff.

Vorteile

All the estimates and invoices located in one place makes PrintSmith very practical. Along with a Till function this is a very capable piece of software. The imposition tool allows any member of our staff to see how many items should be printed on any lay to achieve the required productivity.

Nachteile

When quoting large format work it would be great if the system could handle different sizes and orientations on a single printed board. As the system cannot handle this we have to guess at our production which is not always correct.

Vorteile

FAST PROCESS FROM START TO FINISH IN CREATING JOBS.

Nachteile

THE ABILITY TO DRAG AND DROP PRIOR ITEMS OR HAVE MULTIPLE WINDOWS, THE ABILITY OF THE SOFTWARE TO FIGURE WHERE IT IS BEST TO RUN THE JOB WHEN YOU HAVE MULTIPLE MACHINES

Vorteile

Good day

What I like the most is the versatility of the program, it allows you to have an integrated control center to monitor the movement of the company, and make decisions today.

Greetings

Nachteile

I can't export the reports to excel,
Sometimes I have to make detailed reports and being able to export to Excel would help me a lot.

Vorteile

I like the job ticketing and reporting functions

Nachteile

I do not like the costing feature with multipart jobs - i can't get total cost of job in preview.

Vorteile

Coming from PrintSmith classic, Vision has made a big difference. It runs fast and is smoother. The Pending Documents menu is such an upgrade with the flexibility to filter out data and find things fast. The quick access menu gives you a great snapshot of everything going on in the company. love it.

Nachteile

Connecting it to online ordering is not great. Does not give you a lot of customization.

Vorteile

PrintSmith Vision is so complete and robust. It handles all of the tasks we need from estimating/quoting client projects, order entry, tracking, invoicing, account history, etc. From our CSR, to pre-press and production teams, to accounting, this software keeps us on track, consistent and timely.

Nachteile

Since it's so complete and robust it can be a bit intimidating at first. However, once a user is accostomed to using the software and it's numerous features, it becomes apparent that EFI has done a good job of thoughtful development.

Vorteile

PrintSmith is flexible enough to not only provide good quotes, etc. for print on paper but also to help us enter orders for non-paper products like screen printing.

Nachteile

When we upgraded to Vision, PrintSmith has not kept the scanning of job tickets so it will function like under PrintSmith Classic. This is very important in our print shops to help us with production management. We are disappointed that PrintSmith has not made it a priority to address. We have been using PrintSmith since 2002 and have not had an issue like this until the Vision upgrade. Please consider how you can help us with this.

Vorteile

The ability to quickly create estimates, review order history and create helpful reports makes things run very smoothly.

Nachteile

Updating costing can be complicated/daunting.

Vorteile

We have used PrintSmith for over 30 years. It does what we need to do to run our business.

Nachteile

I still have trouble finding some reports and it takes me a while to find what I need. The icons and some items are hard to find or understand.

Vorteile

Consistency and simplistic support system.

Nachteile

That self hosted PrintSmith Vision servers are not yet supported on latest Mac OSX!

Vorteile

Once configured, it doesn't require an expert user to write up and generate jobs.

Nachteile

The system starts very bare-bones, and configuration of the system requires the ability to dive under the hood and understand what is going on behind the scenes.

Vorteile

Great UI. Easy to navigate for all departments.

Nachteile

Building custom forms such as invoices is antiquated and cumbersome on Crystal Reports.

Vorteile

The ease of access, and easy to navigate around

Nachteile

asks us to save and confirm each step. Should be auto save

Vorteile

Emailing - Several variable data templates for; Invoices, Estimates, Post Payments, Cash Register, Purchase Order and Statements. Will list all contacts within an Account, allows you to CC yourself. When setup will add outgoing email tracking to customer Logs
Pending List Search - No more scrolling, you can search from the column titles. Uses predictive text so just a few letters typically finds what you are looking for.
Notify Customer - Much improved over Classic. Ability to create tasks for yourself and others, having reminders when you log in, and email functionality make this a very usable light CRM
Digital Assets - A Classic feature grown up. Easy to attach artwork to each job makes pulling job history all that much better. You can submit those attached jobs directly to a compatible Fiery Device and monitor production from the WIP window
Remote Access - No more VPN, Team Viewer, Go to My PC, Chicken of the VNC. The ability to access the system from any computer anywhere is a huge benefit. For Support people the ability to access the system dramatically improves support service delivery. It includes a true mobile application designed for Phones and Tablets goes even further to cut the cord.
Customized Screens are Back - Dashboard, Pending List, WIP list are now all custom to the User...thank you
Dashboard - In Fast Track this now becomes a truly usable overall look at the Center, whether by individual user or the whole Center, good ability to customize as well

Nachteile

There has been a considerable effort to convert to HTML (the years spent on Flash were very unsatisfying and IMO the wrong direction to have gone) has left behind many bugs. I hope after October there will be a pause in new functionality to fix many areas of the program.
Stock Definitions - Once a rock solid functionality now suffers from development moving too fast and not enough QA. The Job Details Stock picker is a great concept that needs additional attention as well as the new Stock Picker screen trying to squeeze too much in too small a space.

Vorteile

The html5 update was long needed and helped put PrintSmith ahead of the competition when it comes to user interface. We use the EFI-hosted option which makes it a breeze to access from not only anywhere in the shop, but also makes it so much easier to access remotely. There are also integration options for Fiery RIP's if you take the time to set it up.

Nachteile

PrintSmith does a terrible job with handling production processes other than digital and offset printing. The way it processes wide format and merchandise production is clunky at best and leaves you wondering if the engineers ever even bothered to take into consideration the way that shops actually handle pricing and production.

There are many strange (and often very cumbersome) quirks throughout the platform that make it seem like EFI doesn't care too much about refining PrintSmith to operate intuitively or smoothly and that they're more focused on making the platform simply appear versatile and easy.

Vorteile

PrintSmith Vision includes every element needed to manage our digital printing operation, including estimating, invoicing, stock management, scheduling, shipping and delivery, and more. I love the way we're able to prepare estimates quickly and easily, and then convert them into invoices for actual job production. Once you get good at using the software, you learn how to create estimates/invoices so they contain all of the information needed for: the invoice the customer sees; the job tickets that each department of your production staff sees; the info needed to order stock; the info needed to ship or deliver the job and create packing slips.

Nachteile

There's very little that I don't like about PrintSmith Vision. There is a lot to learn and setup, but that is because the software does so much.

Vorteile

Transfer of data from Classic to Vision went smoothly; overall user friendly design; allows for broad range of digital & offset print functions; tech support is helpful

Nachteile

lags if your internet connection is not stellar; forms & reports are difficult to create & standard forms are not designed optimally; having to switch to Legacy for some functions is slow & frustrating; still finding glitches which makes me question integrity of the estimates I'm producing, especially if pulling from previously filed jobs; stock definitions are not easily maintained

Vorteile

This software provides account and order history to help us provide better quality customer service. It has replaced boxes and boxes of paperwork and helped us to keep jobs on our radar and eliminate duplication of effort or lost jobs.

Nachteile

It is not intuitive enough for counter/front line staff to use effectively in a small operation. It is not intuitive for removing / catching duplicates or editing existing data. When asked to watch the training software for Fast Track, employees had a hard time understanding what the software was doing or how it would improve their work. It is missing a significant functionality to allow access to the data in the software, which can only be remedied by adding and expensive add-on "report writer" which consists of thousands of "reports" as opposed to data file extracts.

Vorteile

The point of sale information capture is what has been most impactful for our business. Having a workflow that eliminates touchpoints makes our daily operation more efficient. The need to use data for decision making is now possible and just like every process, it requires time to learn that skill. All in all, this system is what we needed to move forward because of obsolete operating modes.

Nachteile

The only difficulty with this system was finding the time to learn it while still operating. That is not a fault of the system but a paradigm change with our organization.

Vorteile

The ability to write up estimates for many various printing and bindery functions. Then able to convert them to Job Tickets and then invoices. After that able to track payments and receivables and merge that info with accounting programs. History of Customer orders along with contact info. Able to handle pricing from the smallest to very large complex printing jobs.

Nachteile

PrintSmith Vision is currently being rewritten in html, so there are functions that I'm used to that need to be incorporated in this newest version. But I already like many of the new features that are available.

Vorteile

Of the MIS systems available, this is the most cost effective solution. Some support representatives such as [sensitive content hidden] are fantastic. PS is a solid base product with long development history.

Nachteile

The development team, while good, is smaller so changes, bug fixes and enhancements take a long time. Third party solutions are needed to provide features that should be provided natively. Needs cost effective web-to-print option, better native CRM features, and better billing integration.

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Vorteile

Once it is fully set up, it is an easy-to-use application. Most importantly, it allows the end-user to place orders online via DSF, which makes the whole data entry process easy to oversee and maintain.

Nachteile

Some options are locked such as when searching Web Orders, the search option cannot be customized so instead of 'Invoice' as default, to change 'Web Order'

Vorteile

The software is very easy to learn for someone with no industry experience.

Nachteile

Some things don't quite work all the time or as intended.

Vorteile

The ability to look up account history
The ability to upload my paper suppliers price list
The templates are great.

Nachteile

I wish you were forced to enter the Invoice Title to include all items on an invoice, rather than it auto inserting the 1st item.
I wish that you could link A/R with Quick Books online at no extra cost.
The reports seem to be very complicated.
I wish there was a more cost efficent solution for online orders.

Vorteile

Various menus and numerous options for estimating when printing any type of products.

Nachteile

Not enough options for reports or options to change up what you need.

Vorteile

Having used PS for about 13 years I can say it has improved greatly over the years. I find it very functional and intuitive. I can take deposits, track orders and see our profitability. It is easy to do job builds and save presets. Looking up older orders and pulling them forward is very easy as well. I can take a job build and easily transfer to a different account for similar jobs. We have connected our PSV to SalesForce for sending out invoices, statements and following up on estimates. This has simply added to the functionality. We also have ShipExpress which allows us to ship right from an invoice and pull all the pricing into PSV as well as tracking numbers.

Nachteile

I am no a big fan of some updates made in version 7.0.0.6166. Most especially the number search bar at the top. This used to hold the number so if you typed in a number for an invoice but it was on the estimate selection you could just change the selection to invoice and hit search. Now if you click anywhere on the screen the number disappears and you have to retype it. Sounds like a small thing - and had it not worked beautifully before that maybe it wouldn't be so aggravating. Also when processing a credit card we would leave the invoice # in that bar so once processed we could click search and go right to the invoice to both verify and print a receipt (PSV won't connect to my printer for some reason for receipts). This version also has slowed down load time. We have 30 years of customer info in this program, since this upgrade it lags when loading account searches. Very annoying. Also issues connecting to Ship Express and losing printer specifications. Sometimes my notes disappear while saving. very annoying and time consuming when this happens. Sometimes it also happens when converting from an estimate to a job - but only on clients that have notes saved to pop into all tickets.

Vorteile

The interface is relatively straightforward to use, making it train someone on. The ability to make templates and copy from the account history is helpful in keeping consistency across jobs as well. In the last few years, the developers have really taken on a lot of feature requests from users and are making significant updates that we have been asking for to make our workflow easier.

Nachteile

It's a fairly buggy system to the point where we will have to make workarounds or a different process other than what is recommended to get the results we are needing. Support is helpful and fairly quick to respond, but sometimes the problems are hard to diagnose since there are so many ways to use the program (bug vs. user error distinction).

Vorteile

We have been using PrintSmith since the early 1990's and while it has had some bugs, the tram is responsive and it consistently gets the jpb done.

Nachteile

1. Updates require an entire manual reinstall instead for thr self-hosted server instead of the more familiar single click authorization, then the software handles the updates seemlessly.

2. Forms require a third party app and specialized skill. while enterprise sized business may have the resources to "program" and make changes to fors, small family owned companies do not. Everything has moved to simple Codeless programming with drag and drop capabilites and the forms should as well, without the third party software.

Vorteile

I love the program as a whole. everything is clear and easy to use and accurate.

Nachteile

The cost is very high and it needs a website as part of it so everything is one place. i know you offer a web site add-on but its not cost effective for most small printers. I have a website that is not attached to the printsmith system that is very reasonable but it doesn't integrate into you product so i have to run separate books for it. I don't even have the web site customers on the printsmith software because its too tedious to double up work.

Vorteile

It's a great platform overall. It's pretty intuitive to use once you get the hang of it. It has a lot of data available in the database if you get into creating your own reports, which is very useful. I had positive interactions with support as well.

Nachteile

The reporting module is not great. You have to really know how to code in inet designer and all the reports are static. We had to purchase another product (Plan Prophet) on top of PrintSmith to give us all that we need. PS has a very archaic system for tracking customer followups and team collaboration and there is no way to automate any customer followups or pretty much anything. I really dislike the super long term contracts whenever you ask for a new user license. Support hours are ridiculously expensive. You have to pay a lot of money for training. PS does not have any good video training. You have to heavily rely on the user manual, which is a great manual if you are a super technical person. Videos would be a lot more helpful. It also takes a long time to get new features implemented.

Vorteile

Great software - excellent support - have using PS for 20 + years - glad it is self hosting. Have the cloud option but will never use it.

Nachteile

Does not have a report writer built in. I am able to use the i-net report writer as well as write sql statements to retrieve the data I need; however, a more intuitive simplified report writer would be nice.

Vorteile

Comprehensive software for printers specifically with the ability to be used in many ways.

Nachteile

Highly complicated but it has to be in order to conform to so many different companies that work in so many different ways.

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Vorteile

Was (as in past tense) a really good system. But it seems like development and even support have declined.

Nachteile

See "pro's" to understand the con's to the system.

Vorteile

Encompasses all areas of our business, improved productivity, inclusion of signs.

Nachteile

Report writer (I'm not a programmer), confusing setup for wide format, doesn't write directly to QuickBooks without paying more money, website no longer user friendly.

Vorteile

Ease of creating Estimates and Workorders, still so much to learn.

Nachteile

Not knowing how to getting pricing correct.

Vorteile

Solid product. We like that it is very flexible and not as rigid as other programs.

Nachteile

Bindery pricing. We REALLY need it to price like any other machine. Pcs/hr@$/hr.

Vorteile

There is very little to like about this software - but it is virtually the only game in town for most printers so we are stuck with it.

Nachteile

VERY un-intuitive software that seems to be designed by people whom have NEVER done any printing in their life. Expensive, poor updates, non - existent technical support.

Vorteile

I like that you can copy an invoice to a new one

Nachteile

I don't like that you can't just copy a line from an older invoice. I don't like that you cannot go back and change something after doing a close.

Vorteile

The convenience, consistency and accuracy of estimates and invoices.

Nachteile

Some menu items can be confusing, as well as difficult navigating in some menus, etc.

Vorteile

Monthly detailed reports, Browser based access.

Nachteile

Difficulty of use, poor UI, Extremely difficult to setup.

Vorteile

Printsmith is very user friendly. All the information about your job work is at your finger tips.

Nachteile

Not much. Their always a scope of improvement.

Vorteile

Very simple and easy to use it. never have trouble with print smith.

Nachteile

estimating invoicing and accounting. Tracking all estimate and invoice also account history.

Vorteile

It is very easy to use, Invoicing customers and keeping track of payments saves me lots of time.

Nachteile

I can't use it if the internet is down. Doesn't happen very often but a pain when it does.

Vorteile

emailing to customers. The look of the invoices

Nachteile

Harder to use than the original one that I purchased. Hard to find things.
I don't mind paying for the monthly fee for the version in the cloud but I resent having to pay to upgrade it. All the other companies do not charge for that.

Vorteile

Very efficient to use. Breaks down prices as needed.

Nachteile

Set up, including reports is very cumbersome