SOFTWARE SELECTIONCommon Mistakes to Avoid Mistake Number One: Buying Generic, Off-the-Shelf Software Off-the-shelf
generic systems can be purchased for as little as fifty dollars but may
run as high as several thousand dollars. Inexpensive software tempts
budget-conscious storeowners for obvious reasons--low In addition to many lesser shortcomings, generic software has two major, fundamental flaws: 1) you cannot adequately describe the furniture pieces and 2) you cannot adequately track merchandise through the entire process of ordering the item, receiving the vendor's acknowledgement of your order, receiving the item, scheduling delivery for the customer, delivering the item, and handling any of the customer's service needs. The ability to adequately describe your merchandise is essential for looking up an item to see of it's in stock, where it's located, when it will be arriving, how well it's been selling, how many you should keep in stock, how long it's been taking to arrive (lead time), and what kind of GMROI (Gross Margin Return on Investment) it's been producing. The ability to adequately track merchandise from start to finish is essential not only for accurate accounting, but also for "must-have" management & marketing reports. Many generic
programs cannot perform accounting for multiple-store operations.
Often there is no way to distinguish between a sale that is written and a
sale that delivered--thus you are forced to enter a sale only after
it has been delivered. The bottom line is this: the more you look at generic software, the more you will realize the benefits of true, full-featured, furniture-specific software. Mistake Number Two: Selecting Software Designed For Other Types of Retailing Buying software
designed for apparel stores, hardware stores, lumberyards, art galleries,
auto-parts dealers and the like is just as much as a mistake as buying
off-the-shelf generic software. EasyChair Software understands that
furniture retailing is unlike any other business. Mistake Number Three: Trying to Reinvent the Wheel You may have an in-store person who fancies him\herself as a computer programmer. Or you might encounter computer-consulting companies and/or CPA firms who offer their services to develop programs from scratch or modify existing generic software. This is perhaps the most costly mistake you could possibly make! Competent in-store people may know the furniture retailing business, but their computer skills simply cannot compare with professional programmers. Conversely, a local computer "guru" may know something about software in general, but is not likely to know anything about furniture retailing--you'd have to teach him/her the furniture business before s/he could even begin programming! Anyone who claims they can produce or modify full-featured furniture software for less money than you would spend on even the most expensive ready-to-buy furniture specific software doesn't know the furniture or doesn't know programming--or perhaps doesn't know either! Professional furniture software developers have both software and furniture expertise, yet still they devote many programmer-years to produce and maintain their products. It is foolhardy to think you can do as good a job as the pros without spending a minimum of many tens or thousands of dollars--and even then there is no guarantee that you will end up with a usable product. Besides, what happens to you if your programmer decides to retire in Tahiti? Mistake Number Four: Buying an Operating System Instead of an Application Operating system software and applications software perform entirely different tasks. Application software, if properly designed, provides functionality and ease-of-use of the end user; operating system software--if efficient and powerful--provides speed, reliability, security, and Internet/network connectively for the entire enterprise. Your employees do
not spend their time interacting directly with the operating system;
rather, they work with The most popular operating systems today are Windows and Unix. Unix is the system of choice for demanding business use; Windows is more popular among home users. From its inception, Unix was designed as a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system; Windows, on the other hand, has evolved from the limited and archaic single-user, single-tasking MS-DOS. Although there are many varieties of Unix, Linux is perhaps the best known. It's a version of Unix that is specially enhanced to perform Internet operations. Eighty percent of the world's data is stored on Unix/Linux systems; it is the fastest, most powerful, reliable, secure, efficient, and Internet-friendly operating system available. Any Operating system has good and bad points, but the operating system itself can only impact the speed, reliability, connectivity, and security of the application software and data; it cannot affect the applications features or user friendliness. Beware of any furniture software company that touts a pretty Windows face as its primary selling point; odds are their software is a disappointing "empty suit" Mistake Number Five: Doing Inadequate Research Some promotional furniture can look pretty on the outside, but knowledgeable furniture people usually wouldn't buy it for their own homes. Promotional pieces usually lack durability, comfort, and serviceability. In the same way, you shouldn't buy any software just because it has a pretty face. At EasyChair Software, we make sure that you have a hands-on-chance to actually use the program with a qualified trainer before you commit to purchase. Are other programs this confident?
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initial cost!
Also, if you happen to be looking for office help you may find many job
applicants have already used one or more generic programs. Add to this
the fact that many CPA's are familiar with generic software and the
temptation is just too great for some retailers to resist.
Unfortunately, many furniture retailers take the generic route only to
find it leading to frustration, extra errors, lost time and added
cost. Generics are fine for many operations, but they cannot handle
even a small fraction of the special features required by home furnishings
retailer. You can try to plug holes by purchasing additional
programs or modules, but the result is usually added hours to learn and
use the extra software, added labor costs to double-enter the data, added
frustration ferreting out data-entry errors, and the store-crippling costs
that come from trying to manage with inadequate and/or inaccurate
data. The one thing you will gain through the purchase of a generic
package is an appreciation of the special benefits offered by
furniture-specific software.
Usually there is no way to write a purchase
order, receive and invoice for part of the ordered items, match up the
costs on the purchase order with the costs on the invoice's, and have the
purchase order automatically create the A/P invoice. You end up
either duplicating your data entry (which doubles your chances of creating
data-entry errors) or not doing the data entry at all until everything is
finalized (which eliminates your chances of knowing where you stand at any
given moment). Generic software simply cannot handle special orders
for upholstery, where a particular sofa might be sold hundreds of time per
year but yet no two of the sofas are exactly alike. A true,
full-featured furniture-specific software program will allow you to
describe each item's manufacturer, department, type, size, shape, grade,
pattern, fabric and finish. You need the option of assigning many
different fabrics or finishes to a single SKU. And you should be
able to identify each piece by the manufacturer's model number, the
computer-assigned product number, or your own, private, in-house alternate
code. Finally, a furniture-specific software company will have
training personnel and telephone/Internet support engineers who actually
know the furniture business. You won't have to explain every detail
of what you're doing and why to someone who has talked to hardware stores,
apparel stores, lumber yards, bakeries, gas stations, attorney's offices
and architects--but never a furniture store.
Since 1990 we have
specialized exclusively in giving you the features, support, and industry
knowledge that is required for furniture operations to stay on top of
their demanding needs.
application software--word processors,
spreadsheets, and accounting programs. The greatest operating system
in the world cannot add features or ease-of-use to a bad application
program; conversely, the best application in the world will seem tedious
and tenuous of founded on a slow, inefficient, and unreliable operating
system that is plagued with viruses and other security problems.