Features

 
Software Design
   ProFrame I is a desktop software product designed for wholesalers and distributors of picture frame moulding, glass, matboard, foam board, art supplies and framer equipment. With over fifteen years in development, it's a proven software solution that improves productivity and streamlines the entire process from order entry to delivery.
 
Accounting Design

  • Work Order/Sales Order.

  • Accounts Receivable.

  • Purchase Order.

  • Full Inventory Control.
Key Features
Other Features

  • Multi-User platform. (network compatible)

  • Multi-Company. (01 to 99 companies)

  • Un-limited customer billing accounts with un-limited ship-to accounts.

  • Customizable UPS Zone File Maintenance Table.

  • Customizable United Inches Chart and Widths.

  • Username & Password Security System.

  • US or Canada sales tax mode.

  • Global On Sale and Price Change Utilities.

  • Custom Sales Call Profile System.

  • Print Chop Labels. (during order entry) requires Zebra LP2844 Direct Thermal Printer

  • Print Ship-To Labels. (during order entry) requires Zebra LP2844 Direct Thermal Printer

  • Print Item Labels. (during order entry or from reports, Laser Printer) (corner samples)

  • Add-On feature for existing work orders.

  • Mailing Labels and over 20 Standard Reports. (Laser Printer, customizable report forms)

  • Most Reports can be Exported to many different formats or displayed.

  • Custom Work Orders and Invoices (Laser or DOT Matrix Printers)

  • Custom Statements (Laser Printer)

  • Custom Programs (hourly rate) see side note...

  • Purge History Files (user defined)

  • Global Discount Profile Control.

  • Export Inventory for Retail software products.

  • Credit Card encryption. (online validation coming soon)

  • Sales Commissions based on Catalog.

  • Pop-Up Code File - assign item pop-ups for order entry.
Compatible in US and Canada
 
Type of Items and Products
   This software can handle all types of products across the wholesale frame and moulding industry. That's because this product was developed and designed for wholesalers and distributors. We do not try to compete with retail software. Such as SpecialtySoft, LifeSaver or FullCalc. We specialize in the wholesaler side of this industry. After many years of development, research and tweaking. It's become a premium software product for many WDA members.
 

As you can see from this Inventory screen shot. All items fit and makes perfect sense.
Moulding
  • Chop
  • Length
  • Chop&Assemble
  • Box Price
  • Split Box
Glass, Matboard, Foam Board, Ready Mades, Prints, Supplies
  • Unit
  • Box
  • Alternate Pricing for Unit items
As you can see any unit type item can be setup with three alternate prices and Square Footage for mat-boards and glass. User is able to select during order entry.

Catalog System
   The Catalog Design is based on two levels, Group and Category. Each item is assigned to a Catalog. Each item is also assigned a Vendor that plays an important role of this design. So one could say it's actually a three level catalog system. This catalog design was one of the first phases of development of this product over fifteen years ago. It worked then and it still works today with very few changes.
  • Vendor

  • Group

  • Category

Catalog

Level

Code

Description
Group Header

1

400

Moulding
Category

2

401

Wood
Category

2

402

Metal
Category

2

403

Fiberglass
       
Group Header

1

500

Glass
Category

2

501

Bevel
Category

2

502

Non-Bevel
   The idea is to be able to control global pricing, discounting and reporting using this catalog system at any level through out ProFrame. Years ago in its conception, the thought of a online website order system was not a factor, but in recent years it has become an important competitive edge. The amazing thing about our catalog design is; not only will it control global pricing and discounting as designed, it works perfectly to control and maintain a website catalog order system.

Sample from Inventory Maintenance Screen

Website Online Catalog Order System (optional)
   We can develop and deploy a website online order system that is database driven by the ProFrame Inventory Catalog System. By using the same catalog structure of ProFrame based on three levels,  Vendor, Group and Category to drive the website, makes it very easy to maintain and control. The website is a registration password protected site, the catalog main page is the ProFrame catalog Groups. The next page is Vendors and the 3rd is Items. Depending on the group, this last page will have filter options like color, category, sizes etc.. From here items can be added to the shopping cart process. It can handle thumbnail images and larger images for the detail item page. It has an online Administration Utility that allows the processing of orders and maintenance of user accounts. It includes a custom program that runs in ProFrame to build the website catalog file, that file is then converted to an MS Access Database to then be up-loaded to your website. This process can be automated so you can totally manage your own site. (automation may require 3rd party software).. Click here for Screen Shots of a working website

Discounting System
   By using the Catalog System you can discount products using the On Sale System (Global Level) or the Customer Discount Table (Individual Level) or the Item Level or the Quantity Type Discount level. The Discount Priority during order entry is OnSale, Customer, Item, Type. For example you could setup custom discounts for a certain customer for Vendor (ABC), Catalog Group (Moulding).. or Catalog (Moulding,Wood). The system has a Copy Discount Utility that allows you to setup standard discount structures and assign customers using the "Class" field to easily keep them up-to-date in a global fashion.
  In the past fifteen years, we've learn a few things about the wholesale side of this industry. If we've learned one thing; discounting is very important and complex. So from the beginning our design techniques has focused on the management of these complex discounting structures. We believe this is one of the most important features that any wholesale software product could offer. See screen shots: Customer (Discount Tab) ..(Discount Tab Detail)

Discount Priority

  • On Sale System, this and the Customer Discount works basically the same, this one is a Global discount table. It works across all customers and has the highest priority.

  • Customer Discount Table, this is unique for each customer and is 2nd in priority.

  • Item Level Discount, this is unique for each item and is 3rd in priority. But it's global in terms across all customers.

  • Quantity Type Discount, this allows Mats, Glass, Moulding and Foam Board type products to be setup with accumulative quantity break discounting. It's global across all customers and is  last in priority.

Sample from Inventory Maintenance screen.

ReportEASY & ExportEASY Utility
   This product is developed with Microsoft Visual FoxPro 8 and can share it's data by allowing you to export data out into many different formats. Including Excel, ASCII Text, Lotus, VisiCalc and many others. Our customers find this utility very useful to export inventory information into Excel for easy distribution to any of the retail software product vendors. This allows our customers full control over what information is exported.  You can also create custom reports with this utility. This feature does require some basic understanding of FoxPro commands and functions to filter the data. All these basic commands are covered in the Export section of the Reference Guide that will help you to quickly become an expert. Click here for screen shot One and here for screen shot Two..

Remote Site Utility
   This utility allows you to setup a Host site to control inventory items, accounts receivables and purchase orders while allowing each Remote site to run and operate independently. It does this by transferring files via pcAnywhere on a nightly bases. Each site will be able to run a Auxiliary  Inventory Utility of each sites inventory. Files that are transferred our optional.
Example: the Host could be setup to control all purchase orders for each remote site. Or handle all AR for all sites. The Host site could control the addition and deletion of all inventory items and catalog system across the entire organization.

tOne Plus Add-On (optional)
   This add-on product allows you to setup ProFrame to run on a T1 network across multiple warehouses. The customer files and accounts receivables are hosted from the host site. All remote sites will run ProFrame locally and will operate independently while maintaining its own inventory, work orders etc... Each database file path can be customized from the host tOne Plus setup so the control over shared data is in your hands. Each user can see and order from any warehouse during order entry in real time.

Side Note: Our product is over fifteen years old and many new features and enhancements have been incorporated into is design over the years. Each new feature came as requests from our customers.  Rather than customizing each one for that particular customer, we have always tried to incorporate that change into the product as a new feature. Sometimes the request is so custom that it makes better sense to offer it as an optional add on. These add on programs are installed and executed from a special Custom Reports Menu. This allows all our customers to keep themselves up-to-date with the latest version without affecting any custom programs.
   We never include the report forms, work order, invoice or statement forms with updates because these forms are all customizable.
 
What's Next?
 
02/08/2008