Answers To Frequently Asked Questions
Why does Business Partner not include a time tracking module like so many other Estimating Packages?
It does seem that many estimating packages focus heavily on time tracking , and estimating seems to be an afterthought. Early in my cabinet manufacturing career, I learned that time tracking with employees created a level of ambivalence, and with some employees even mistrust.
I also learned that what you don't measure, you can't improve, which created a real dilemma. To measure or not to measure, that was the question. Early on I forced my employees to track their process times, subordinating their dislike of the process to my need for data, justifying it in the name of improvement. Fairly quickly I learned the old computer adage of garbage in, garbage out applied to time tracking.
It was easy to blame my employees for not being disciplined enough to provide good data, but after I got the message, the message being that tracking employee process times breeds mistrust like maggots breed in garbage, I decided to track my own times rather than theirs.
You know what, more than half my data was not usable (and I consider myself a pretty disciplined guy). If you are serious about your work, time tracking is a pretty serious distraction, and almost impossible to do well day in and day out while attempting to do a great job at whatever process you are participating in. My experience led me to believe that focusing on the task at hand and focusing on time tracking at the same time were mutually exclusive processes.
The one advantage to tracking my own time is I did know when the data was compromised, and could exclude it from the samples to be used. Another advantage was I was the most motivated person on my team, thus my times were not just good, they set a high bar for my employees to reach for. In other words, my process time became their target time.
It did not take me too many years to come to the conclusion that time tracking should be something we do for a limited time frame, just long enough to get a target time, then translate that time into our TAKT time, and provide a target to our employees rather than track their time. My employees were 100% in agreement that they preferred a target time for any given process to having to track their time. In the end, I found that time tracking into infinity was an expensive exercise in futility, providing me with mountains of data I neither had the time to analyze, much less utilize. I would find myself surrounded by data, and yet still starved for insight.
A pleasant byproduct of this TAKT time approach was that although employees have an intense dislike of being tracked, in contrast, they are innately motivated by a good TAKT time. The very nature of a target time compels even lazy people to try to beat the target time.
As a 12 year old boy, I got my first paying gig as a newspaperpreneur. I remember my first day like it was yesterday. I was terrified that my LIE (I told them I was 13, which was the youngest you could be to have a paper route, and as I mentioned above, I was 12) would be found out, and I would get fired from my first job before I ever got a chance to do my first job.
Well, my concerns were not relevant at all. The district manager pulled up in a butt ugly AMC Gremlin (the only car I can remember being uglier was the AMC Pacer), opened the back hatch, threw a few bundles of newspapers on the ground and said, "the last kid could deliver these in 45 minutes" and drove off. I was not only no longer worried about getting fired, I was fired up at the opportunity to deliver those papers in anything less than 45 minutes (an achievement that took me several weeks to achieve, but one I am still proud of to this day). We all like to know the score, and a target process time provides the scoreboard.
Why does Business Partner not include a material tracking module like so many other Estimating Packages?
I believe KANBAN's are a more effective way to track stock items (which is why it is listed as a future feature below), not to mention the same garbage in, garbage out phenomenon we see in so many areas of life. Business Partner does do a very good job of estimating needed materials, and even accounts for waste factors for many items, but in the absence of an ability to adjust for all the real world things that happen to materials, and the time it takes to make those adjustments, we would just be providing piles and piles of bad data again (I'm thinking you have enough to do already, and sifting through bad data to find the good data is probably not real high on your to-do-list).
For the Job specific items like decorative hardware, accessories, etc., we will be adding a Purchase Order report in the future.
Why are you moving from a stand-alone program to a hosted program?
To unchain you from your desk and office. To allow you to work from your office PC and your home office PC without concern of compromising your data, or having to lug a laptop back and forth every day, or purchase a multi-user version.
Also, for some of you, to provide a true multi-user solution. Multiple users can use the program at the same time, with no compromise in data integrity, or spreed.
The new monthly cost component you see listed is so we can host your copy of the database on a remote server. You simply install an app on each of your computers, and when you need to use the Business Partner, you open that app, which allows you to use your copy of the Business Partner on the hosted server. If your computer crashes, it has absolutely no effect on your copy of Business Partner. If your hard-drive crashes, or your computer is stolen, your data is safe on the hosted server, just waiting for you when you get access to another computer.
A hosted version also eliminates the need for you to install future updates and upgrades, updates will just happen, totally transparent to you. When upgrades are developed, you're only responsibility will be to purchase the upgrade, we will install if for you. As we move forward, we would prefer to bump the monthly fees up a little each year until monthly fee can support all Upgrades rather than us needing to sell you an upgrade every year (yes, we intent to upgrade a lot more frequently than our current users have experienced in the past).
A hosted version will also give us an opportunity to explore data updates on your behalf (with a hosted program, we may be able to get your vendors/suppliers to keep your pricing up to date for you if we can grow the user base to the point that it makes that worthwhile to them and us). With your data living on a hosted server, we can create back end sub-programs that we provide industry vendor/suppliers with, that allows them to update when appropriate, and it simply propagates to all users databases (if you have ever updated the Conestoga finishing prices, you know just how valuable this feature could be). This is not a current feature, but one that is pretty high on our list of things we think will benefit you the user.
Is the new hosted version of Business Partner Estimating Software secure?
You bet. Everything happens over a secure SSL connection (meaning you can create an estimate at a coffee shop with peace of mind). We also backup your data daily and ensure only you, your team, and your clients have access to your data.
How does the math work?
Unlike many estimating packages, even much larger and more complex packages, we do not calculate the cost of each item, then subtotal those costs and add your markups. For our detailed Estimates and Proposals to work as we intended, which is to allow a client to delete an item on the Detailed Item List and have their job cost reduced by exactly the amount of the deleted item, requires us to look at each item (i.e., cabinets, accessories, trim and moldings, hinges, drawer guides, etc.,) individually and add all the markups to each item, then add all the items up. It's actually quite simple in theory, but quite complex when it comes to coding the software.
Will Business Partner Estimating Software work on an iPad or iPhone?
The short answer to the iPhone is no, the long answer will not add value to your life, but is still no, it won't work. On an iPhone, using FileMaker Go, you could actually open Business Partner, but it would be nearly impossible to do anything useful, even to just look at your data (navigation would be just plain painful).
To my knowledge, at the time of this writing, FileMaker Go is not available for any device that does not use the ios operating system (i.e., Android or windows devices).
On the iPad, you might find a little success if you wanted to check a detail about a project, or make a simple change, but I think you would find attempting to create an estimate on an iPad very frustrating. Will we add an iPad interface in the future? The best answer is maybe, and that answer is dependent on how big we can grow the user base, and how much demand we see for a tablet based interface (all layouts, and there are hundreds, would have to be completely redesigned for the iPad, which would be a huge undertaking in itself, but would also double the work needed to do any updates or upgrades in the future).
So how awesome is your support?
You'll get same-day (usually same-hour), or next day support directly from one of the co-founders, who like you, knows a thing or two about working on client projects with deadlines.
What can we look forward to in the future, what do you have on the drawing board?
The following are things we have listed on the current Wish-List, in no particular order or prioritization:
Summary
Upgrades like these are only possible when there is a budget to support the development. Our past business model was dependent on us to fund all development with the hope we would see a Return On that Investment in the future. That worked OK in a good economy, but not so good in a bad economy. Our long term desire is to build a user base large enough to support the development costs, good times or bad, so we are having to take a little different approach than in the past.
In the early days of Business Partner, Mark Poole and I would simply fund the development, and then hope enough people purchased it to provide that ROI. With both of us being users of the program, we were so happy that we had access to it ourselves, we really never made any great attempts other than some trade shows and magazine ads for a couple years to market Business Partner to cabinetmakers. We did just enough to keep it afloat, knowing that all the other things we were doing were also bringing in the bacon.
Today, Business Partner is a stand-alone product, with no other products or services help support it. For it to be successful, Brad and I need a much larger user base than we currently have, which is where you come in. The more cabinetmakers using the program, the better the program will get for you. We promise to do our part in future marketing, but we need our current user base to jump on board with this new generation as the seed base for many more users, and we need you to Share your experience with Business Partner every chance you get. To join in the community, there is already a Business Partner Facebook page and Forum, but you will see us spreading out into all the social channels. If you do social, Like and Share every opportunity you get, if you're not part of the social networks, pick a few and get involved.
Help us build a community of like minded cabinetmakers who want to do more than get by, cabinetmakers who want to be CPO's (Chief Profit Officers) of their companies. It may seem counter intuitive, but we need your competitors on board. The bigger the user base, the better the software will become (and it never hurts to have competitors that know their costs, they are much less likely to spoil the market with low ball bids). Join us now, don't wait until the dust clears. Don't wait and see what others think, join us, get on board. Help us join high finance with craftsmanship.
Why does Business Partner not include a time tracking module like so many other Estimating Packages?
It does seem that many estimating packages focus heavily on time tracking , and estimating seems to be an afterthought. Early in my cabinet manufacturing career, I learned that time tracking with employees created a level of ambivalence, and with some employees even mistrust.
I also learned that what you don't measure, you can't improve, which created a real dilemma. To measure or not to measure, that was the question. Early on I forced my employees to track their process times, subordinating their dislike of the process to my need for data, justifying it in the name of improvement. Fairly quickly I learned the old computer adage of garbage in, garbage out applied to time tracking.
It was easy to blame my employees for not being disciplined enough to provide good data, but after I got the message, the message being that tracking employee process times breeds mistrust like maggots breed in garbage, I decided to track my own times rather than theirs.
You know what, more than half my data was not usable (and I consider myself a pretty disciplined guy). If you are serious about your work, time tracking is a pretty serious distraction, and almost impossible to do well day in and day out while attempting to do a great job at whatever process you are participating in. My experience led me to believe that focusing on the task at hand and focusing on time tracking at the same time were mutually exclusive processes.
The one advantage to tracking my own time is I did know when the data was compromised, and could exclude it from the samples to be used. Another advantage was I was the most motivated person on my team, thus my times were not just good, they set a high bar for my employees to reach for. In other words, my process time became their target time.
It did not take me too many years to come to the conclusion that time tracking should be something we do for a limited time frame, just long enough to get a target time, then translate that time into our TAKT time, and provide a target to our employees rather than track their time. My employees were 100% in agreement that they preferred a target time for any given process to having to track their time. In the end, I found that time tracking into infinity was an expensive exercise in futility, providing me with mountains of data I neither had the time to analyze, much less utilize. I would find myself surrounded by data, and yet still starved for insight.
A pleasant byproduct of this TAKT time approach was that although employees have an intense dislike of being tracked, in contrast, they are innately motivated by a good TAKT time. The very nature of a target time compels even lazy people to try to beat the target time.
As a 12 year old boy, I got my first paying gig as a newspaperpreneur. I remember my first day like it was yesterday. I was terrified that my LIE (I told them I was 13, which was the youngest you could be to have a paper route, and as I mentioned above, I was 12) would be found out, and I would get fired from my first job before I ever got a chance to do my first job.
Well, my concerns were not relevant at all. The district manager pulled up in a butt ugly AMC Gremlin (the only car I can remember being uglier was the AMC Pacer), opened the back hatch, threw a few bundles of newspapers on the ground and said, "the last kid could deliver these in 45 minutes" and drove off. I was not only no longer worried about getting fired, I was fired up at the opportunity to deliver those papers in anything less than 45 minutes (an achievement that took me several weeks to achieve, but one I am still proud of to this day). We all like to know the score, and a target process time provides the scoreboard.
Why does Business Partner not include a material tracking module like so many other Estimating Packages?
I believe KANBAN's are a more effective way to track stock items (which is why it is listed as a future feature below), not to mention the same garbage in, garbage out phenomenon we see in so many areas of life. Business Partner does do a very good job of estimating needed materials, and even accounts for waste factors for many items, but in the absence of an ability to adjust for all the real world things that happen to materials, and the time it takes to make those adjustments, we would just be providing piles and piles of bad data again (I'm thinking you have enough to do already, and sifting through bad data to find the good data is probably not real high on your to-do-list).
For the Job specific items like decorative hardware, accessories, etc., we will be adding a Purchase Order report in the future.
Why are you moving from a stand-alone program to a hosted program?
To unchain you from your desk and office. To allow you to work from your office PC and your home office PC without concern of compromising your data, or having to lug a laptop back and forth every day, or purchase a multi-user version.
Also, for some of you, to provide a true multi-user solution. Multiple users can use the program at the same time, with no compromise in data integrity, or spreed.
The new monthly cost component you see listed is so we can host your copy of the database on a remote server. You simply install an app on each of your computers, and when you need to use the Business Partner, you open that app, which allows you to use your copy of the Business Partner on the hosted server. If your computer crashes, it has absolutely no effect on your copy of Business Partner. If your hard-drive crashes, or your computer is stolen, your data is safe on the hosted server, just waiting for you when you get access to another computer.
A hosted version also eliminates the need for you to install future updates and upgrades, updates will just happen, totally transparent to you. When upgrades are developed, you're only responsibility will be to purchase the upgrade, we will install if for you. As we move forward, we would prefer to bump the monthly fees up a little each year until monthly fee can support all Upgrades rather than us needing to sell you an upgrade every year (yes, we intent to upgrade a lot more frequently than our current users have experienced in the past).
A hosted version will also give us an opportunity to explore data updates on your behalf (with a hosted program, we may be able to get your vendors/suppliers to keep your pricing up to date for you if we can grow the user base to the point that it makes that worthwhile to them and us). With your data living on a hosted server, we can create back end sub-programs that we provide industry vendor/suppliers with, that allows them to update when appropriate, and it simply propagates to all users databases (if you have ever updated the Conestoga finishing prices, you know just how valuable this feature could be). This is not a current feature, but one that is pretty high on our list of things we think will benefit you the user.
Is the new hosted version of Business Partner Estimating Software secure?
You bet. Everything happens over a secure SSL connection (meaning you can create an estimate at a coffee shop with peace of mind). We also backup your data daily and ensure only you, your team, and your clients have access to your data.
How does the math work?
Unlike many estimating packages, even much larger and more complex packages, we do not calculate the cost of each item, then subtotal those costs and add your markups. For our detailed Estimates and Proposals to work as we intended, which is to allow a client to delete an item on the Detailed Item List and have their job cost reduced by exactly the amount of the deleted item, requires us to look at each item (i.e., cabinets, accessories, trim and moldings, hinges, drawer guides, etc.,) individually and add all the markups to each item, then add all the items up. It's actually quite simple in theory, but quite complex when it comes to coding the software.
Will Business Partner Estimating Software work on an iPad or iPhone?
The short answer to the iPhone is no, the long answer will not add value to your life, but is still no, it won't work. On an iPhone, using FileMaker Go, you could actually open Business Partner, but it would be nearly impossible to do anything useful, even to just look at your data (navigation would be just plain painful).
To my knowledge, at the time of this writing, FileMaker Go is not available for any device that does not use the ios operating system (i.e., Android or windows devices).
On the iPad, you might find a little success if you wanted to check a detail about a project, or make a simple change, but I think you would find attempting to create an estimate on an iPad very frustrating. Will we add an iPad interface in the future? The best answer is maybe, and that answer is dependent on how big we can grow the user base, and how much demand we see for a tablet based interface (all layouts, and there are hundreds, would have to be completely redesigned for the iPad, which would be a huge undertaking in itself, but would also double the work needed to do any updates or upgrades in the future).
So how awesome is your support?
You'll get same-day (usually same-hour), or next day support directly from one of the co-founders, who like you, knows a thing or two about working on client projects with deadlines.
What can we look forward to in the future, what do you have on the drawing board?
The following are things we have listed on the current Wish-List, in no particular order or prioritization:
- Assemblies and Sub-assemblies (example: a corner cabinet from the cabinet database that includes a lazy susan from the Accessories database when added to a job). In other words, you could add multiple sub-assemblies from the Accessory database to a cabinet, and when you add that cabinet to a job, those items would be added at the same time.
- Multiple levels of reports from very basic, short and sweet Estimates and Proposals to the current dense, data rich Estimates and Proposals and a few in between.
- KANBAN's (simple signal cards based on the items in the database that you can print and use throughout your plant to manage inventory).
- Purchase Order Report.
- Load List Report.
- Invoice.
- Sub-program for vendors to add, subtract and update their items and pricing for your database.
- Ability to toggle any or all markups to reciprocals (we currently only use a reciprocal for the early payment discount).
- Project Management and in this example Sales and Marketing features like Tickle Reports for Unanswered Selections (email reminders sent to client of requirements needed to move forward). Over the past 7 years, I have been listening, even if it does not seem like it. I have heard you guys say you need help with Sales and Marketing, I have heard you say you need help with Project Management, and we will be looking at ways we can support you using Business Partner in any way we can.
Summary
Upgrades like these are only possible when there is a budget to support the development. Our past business model was dependent on us to fund all development with the hope we would see a Return On that Investment in the future. That worked OK in a good economy, but not so good in a bad economy. Our long term desire is to build a user base large enough to support the development costs, good times or bad, so we are having to take a little different approach than in the past.
In the early days of Business Partner, Mark Poole and I would simply fund the development, and then hope enough people purchased it to provide that ROI. With both of us being users of the program, we were so happy that we had access to it ourselves, we really never made any great attempts other than some trade shows and magazine ads for a couple years to market Business Partner to cabinetmakers. We did just enough to keep it afloat, knowing that all the other things we were doing were also bringing in the bacon.
Today, Business Partner is a stand-alone product, with no other products or services help support it. For it to be successful, Brad and I need a much larger user base than we currently have, which is where you come in. The more cabinetmakers using the program, the better the program will get for you. We promise to do our part in future marketing, but we need our current user base to jump on board with this new generation as the seed base for many more users, and we need you to Share your experience with Business Partner every chance you get. To join in the community, there is already a Business Partner Facebook page and Forum, but you will see us spreading out into all the social channels. If you do social, Like and Share every opportunity you get, if you're not part of the social networks, pick a few and get involved.
Help us build a community of like minded cabinetmakers who want to do more than get by, cabinetmakers who want to be CPO's (Chief Profit Officers) of their companies. It may seem counter intuitive, but we need your competitors on board. The bigger the user base, the better the software will become (and it never hurts to have competitors that know their costs, they are much less likely to spoil the market with low ball bids). Join us now, don't wait until the dust clears. Don't wait and see what others think, join us, get on board. Help us join high finance with craftsmanship.
