Management software for joinery and fit-out companies

What your trade computes that others do not

You do not sell a catalogue, you sell a piece that will exist only once it has been measured. The chain runs from site measurement to drawing, drawing to cutting list, cutting to manufacture and then to installation, and each link depends on the last. A dimension corrected after release to the workshop does not cost a correction, it costs a remake — which is why traceability of the measurement and its approval is worth as much here as the pricing.

Workshop load is then the real production constraint, and it does not read in a calendar. A job consumes machine hours and bench hours over a given period; accepting a delivery date asserts that capacity remains in that period. Without a consolidated view of load, the promise made to the client is a bet, and that bet is paid in overtime the following month.

Then come supply and deposits, which govern cash. Panels, ironmongery, glass or worktops arrive with long and sometimes immovable lead times: an order placed too late pushes installation back by weeks. Facing them, the deposit on order, the balance on handover and any retention set the rhythm of receipts. Bringing those two calendars together job by job is what separates a firm that meets its dates from one that endures them.

What most workshops work around by hand

None of this is dramatic: these are the places where a job loses two days nobody can account for.

• Site measurements are taken on a notepad and re-keyed at the office.
• Workshop load is estimated by eye in front of a wall planner.
• Supplier orders are placed when someone remembers the lead time.
• Deposits are tracked in a spreadsheet separate from the job.
• Workshop hours and installation hours are mixed into one total.
• A job's cost price is known when the bookkeeper closes it.