Print · Signage · Packaging · More than 20 years in South African print
In print, the margin is decided at the estimate.
A fixed estimating module built for print, signage and packaging — waste, ink, machine speed and shop-floor overhead priced before you quote — and the stock, purchasing, scheduling and books that run behind it.
The problem
General business software was not built for this.
A system designed for repeat products assumes the thing you are selling has been made before. In print, signage and packaging it almost never has.
Every job is a one-off
Different size, stock, finishing and run length. No history to price against, so the estimate is built from first principles — usually under time pressure.
The substrate maths never lines up
You buy by the tonne, the ream or the roll and consume by the sheet or the square metre. Every conversion is a place to lose a few per cent unnoticed.
Nobody costed the waste
Make-ready, run spoilage, offcuts, roll ends, the reprint when colour drifts. Real material and real machine time, and on most estimates a round number added at the end.
Half the day goes to "where’s my job?"
Customers ring the person they know, who walks to the floor to find out. Multiply by everyone in the building and it is a working day a week.
The benefit
Quote it right the first time, whoever is on the desk.
Every job is bespoke, so there is no second chance to price it. Three things that change.
Waste priced, not guessed
The exact cost of unavoidable waste goes into the quote to the cent, and BOS shows you a layout that produces less of it.
A junior quotes like a senior
The machine speeds, waste factors and overhead recovery live in the system, not in the head of the one person who has been there twenty years.
Nobody walks to the floor
Work in progress is visible to everyone, so whoever answers the phone can answer the question.
The solution
The estimator is the product.
BOS Professional carries a fixed estimating module built for printing, packaging and signage — not a generic quoting screen with print-sounding labels on it.
- It prices the waste, not a guess at it. Wastage is calculated as part of the estimate, and the exact cost of unavoidable waste is carried into the quote.
- It shows you how to lay the job out. BOS suggests an imposition that reduces wastage, so the saving is found before the job is committed rather than after the offcuts are in the bin.
- Ink consumption is a cost, so it is costed. Coverage is priced as material instead of being absorbed into an overhead rate that flatters short runs.
- Machine speed and shop-floor overheads are in the model. Each press recovers its own overhead, so a digital job is not priced as though it were going on litho.
- Multi-quantity and multi-currency in one quote. Price 500, 1 000 and 5 000 together, in the currency the customer buys in.
- Paper price updates are included in the subscription for South African print companies, so the estimator is not working off last season’s rates.
Three trades, three sets of arithmetic
One system — configured for the one you are in.
Print estimating software
Sheet against press, imposition and ganging, make-ready plus run waste, ink, click charges and outwork.
Read more →Signage software
Lineal or square-metre pricing, media waste off the roll, plus the install labour and travel a press-shaped estimate cannot hold.
Read more →Packaging ERP
Multi-layer specifications, tooling amortised across the run, MOQs and call-offs against a blanket order.
Read more →The close
Twenty years in South African print — and the honest answers.
QuickEasy has been building business systems since 1998, and supporting printing, packaging and signage companies in South Africa for more than twenty years of it.
- "We cannot stop production to implement an ERP." Installation is quick, and BOS is configured to match the transaction flow you already run rather than forcing you onto a new one.
- "It will be priced for a big printer." Month-to-month, per user, no capital outlay — published pricing that works for a single-user shop as well as a factory floor.
- "We will need the expensive edition for estimating." Every module is in every subscription. The print estimating module is not a paid extra.
- "Our machines and rates are specific to us." That is the point of the module — speeds, overhead recovery and waste factors are set to your equipment, not an industry average.
- "Cloud or our own server?" Either. Your local network, or a managed cloud server we host, patch and back up daily.
- "What is not in the subscription?" Configuration, custom reports and templates, and training — all quoted and agreed up front. The full FAQ spells it out.
Bring us a job you quoted last week
Send us a real job and we will estimate it in BOS alongside you — waste, ink, machine time and all — so you can compare it with the number you actually quoted.