Custom MS Access Order Software for Centric Photo, Tucson Arizona

May 4, 2010 - PRLog -- Centric Photo was established in 1995 in the age of film.  Since that time Centric has evolved into a digital process and presentation lab.  Working with Professional photographers, Artists, and industry to provide top level image manipulation, printing, and presentation, including custom framing.  Think it, Design it, Print it, Present it. Centricphoto.com

In the words of Centric’s owner, Richard McBain, “Centric’s mission is to provide our clients with the services they need to bring their images from a film or digital format to the presentation they need and will enjoy.  

We serve the amateur as well as the professional photographer market, and corporate clients. Our growth and expertise is in developing products and services that "live" in the digital world. This includes services such as scanning, digital reproduction, and website development and maintenance, to name a few. Our products range from the traditional photo print to large format custom prints on a variety of substrates. We also help our clients choose their presentation, which can include many options, ranging from mounting or framing to custom leather-bound albums.”

New Order-Entry Program

Centric spent a year trying to find a partner to create a job scheduling, order entry program at a reasonable cost that could handle inkjet-printing with area and perimeter product builds.

They commissioned SimplyAccess.net to develop a custom version of their MS Access order database, Simply Orders, to meet their business needs.  This included an Inkjet printing kiosk, which enables Centric’s order-entry staff to easily select from the range of options available.  The options depend on the type of photo printing job (e.g. glossy paper, canvas, etc), and the custom developed printing kiosk is configurable to automatically calculate pricing for the options based on the photo’s area or perimeter.  

Centric’s employees had been using their previous system for 12 years, and had got very used to a number of features that were specific to its design.  In consultation with Centric Photo, SimplyAccess.net also incorporated these requirements into the new database – making the transition as smooth as possible for Centric Photo’s business.
Richard commented, “Working with SimplyAccess.net was impressive.  Our business is based in the US and SimplyAccess.net are based in Sweden.  Due to excellent communication through text and graphic display SimplyAccess.net built a very complex order entry system, quickly and efficiently.”

Real Business Benefits

In a tough economy, having current and accurate sales information is of vital importance. “Our existing sales system did not provide the reports needed to monitor our operations. Simply Orders provides timely reporting to enable us to better manage the business.  We needed a system that is easy to use, and Simply Orders is just that.
Since Simply Orders uses Access for the database, we will be able to quickly and efficiently download the needed sales information for upload into Peachtree, our accounting software. This will make our closing process quicker and more accurate.
The Simply Orders system is designed to be flexible. It is easy to make changes, from customer specific information to sales tax rates.

Having a Kiosk that graphically mimics our website calculator has saved the order entry staff a lot of time on complex order entry, and it has reduced job estimating mistakes dramatically.”

About SimplyAccess.net

SimplyAccess.net believe that software should help users to manage their businesses.  Founder Mark explained, “We believe in designing applications with a clear easy-to-follow layout that guides the user, and build into our applications the basic business management principle of plan - do - check – act.  We don’t hide management reports away in menus that you never see. We try to use a clear visual layout – so you can easily and quickly see what orders and products you need to despatch today, this week, this month and you will always know how your business is performing.

SimplyAccess.net was setup to provide simple-but-effective Microsoft Access based database software that doesn’t cost the earth.  Our philosophy is to include the basic functionality that small businesses need – in an MS Access database that you can add to / change to suit your business.”

Simply Orders is available for Microsoft Access 2003 or later, and is packaged in a professional installer that takes seconds to setup and start using.  As it’s based on MS Access, it integrates easily with other MS Office applications e.g. mail-merges to customers using Word, export order/invoice data to Excel for analysis, email delivery notes and invoices using Outlook.  Orders, Invoices and reports can be printed off, or they can be emailed in Acrobat pdf format.  With just one click using the built-in pdf functionality, a new email will open with the document (e.g. invoice) attached, ready to send to your customer.

Download the free trial version today from www.simplyaccess.net

Contact:
info@simplyaccess.net
http://www.simplyaccess.net