Quoting & proof approval

Two things decide whether a print job is profitable: quoting it correctly and printing the right artwork. These screens cover both.

The job calculator

Print Shop → Job Calculator prices from the method, substrate, size, quantity and finishing. It applies your Quantity Tiers, so unit price falls as volume rises, and adds Setup Fees for the work that happens once regardless of run length.

Size can be entered in inches, centimetres or millimetres. It only changes the price for substrates sold by area or length — by the square inch, square foot or linear foot. Sheets, garments and pieces are priced per unit whatever their size.

Sheet imposition and spoilage

Give a sheet substrate a press-sheet size and the calculator prices the job by sheets rather than pieces. It works out how many finished pieces fit on each sheet — allowing for the gutter between them and trying both orientations — then the sheets the run needs, plus spoilage overs at the substrate's waste percentage. You can override the overs percentage on an individual job. In production, stock is drawn down by the press sheets used, overs included.

Ink coverage

Enter an ink coverage percentage on a job — up to 400% for heavy full-colour work — and the printed area is charged at the print method's ink price per square foot. Leave it at 0 to leave ink out of the price.

Delivery and shipping

Each job is set for customer pickup, local delivery or shipping. For delivered or shipped work, record the ship-to address and add a shipping fee, which is included in the job's price.

Setup fees matter more than they look. Short runs are mostly setup, and a shop that quotes short runs on unit price alone loses money on every one.

Garments, screen printing and embroidery

• Size breakdown — enter how many of each garment size the customer wants; the quantity is the total. Larger sizes can carry their own upcharge, set on the substrate.
• Colours and locations — screen printing is priced per colour, per print location, per piece, plus a one-off screen fee for each colour in each location. Both rates are set on the print method.
• Stitch count — embroidery is priced per piece for every started 1,000 stitches, at the rate set on the print method.

Customer pricing

Trade and repeat customers can hold their own rates under Customer Pricing, applied automatically instead of remembered by whoever answers the phone.

Quote requests

Customers submit specifications through Quote Requests from your website with their artwork attached. Converting a request creates a job at the quote stage with the customer's details carried across. Every job starts as a quote — including one raised under New Job.

Proofs

Send a proof from the job. The customer approves it or asks for changes from the link they receive, and responses land in the Proof Inbox. Approval moves the job to Approved; a request for changes sends it back to Quote so you can send a revised proof.

Only the newest proof on a job can be actioned. Sending a revised proof retires the earlier link, so a forwarded or out-of-date email cannot approve artwork that has since changed.

Proof limits

Two optional limits in Print Settings keep proofing under control. Set Included proof rounds to the number of proofs the price covers, and sending a proof beyond it asks you to confirm first — a good moment to add a revision charge. Set Proof link expiry (days), and a customer who opens an expired link sees a message instead of the approve buttons; resending the proof renews the link.

Approval is also your protection. When a customer approves a proof containing their typo, the reprint conversation is a completely different one.

Requiring an approved proof

Under Print Shop → Print Settings you can require an approved proof before production. With it on, a job cannot move into production until the customer has approved a proof. Where a customer approved by phone you can override it, and the override is noted in the job's history.

Deposits

Set a default deposit percentage in Print Settings and approving a job raises a deposit invoice for that share of the total, less anything already paid. Set it to 0 to turn deposits off. If the job is cancelled before anything is paid against the deposit invoice, the invoice is voided.

Under Deposit accounting in Print Settings, choose how deposits are booked: as revenue when the deposit is invoiced, or deferred until the job is picked up — the choice for shops that keep accrual accounts. Deferring needs the general ledger turned on.

Artwork problems

Most artwork issues are the same handful: low resolution, no bleed, spot colours in an RGB file, and fonts that were never outlined. Catching them at proof stage costs a message; catching them after printing costs the run.

Templates

Templates holds set-ups for jobs you produce repeatedly, so a repeat order starts from a known-good specification rather than being rebuilt.

Reorders and the artwork library

Reordering or duplicating a job carries across its latest artwork and print-ready files, so a repeat order does not wait on the customer to resend them. To reuse artwork more widely, save a job's artwork to the customer's artwork library and attach it to any later job for the same customer. Customers see their saved artwork under My Artwork in their customer account.

Your online storefront

Mark a template Show on online storefront, give it a description and a minimum quantity, and it appears on your shop's public ordering page. The address of that page is shown under Online storefront in Print Settings, ready to copy onto your website.

On the page, customers choose a quantity, a size where the stock is priced by area, and garment sizes where it is sold by the garment, and see the price update as they go. They upload their artwork and place the order. It arrives as a job at the quote stage for you to proof, with an invoice the customer can pay online. The template fixes the method, stock and finishing, so customers can only order what you have set up.

Discounts and the minimum order charge

A job can carry a one-off discount amount, taken off after any customer pricing. It is for that order only — repeats and recurring copies don't carry it. Set a Minimum order charge in Print Settings and any order below it is topped up to the minimum, shown as its own line.

More than one item

Add the rest of an order to a job with Add more items. Each item has its own method, stock, quantity, size, colours and stitch count and is priced like the job's first item. Items can be changed while the job is a quote; after approval, a change order does it.

Names and numbers

For jerseys and personalised garments, paste the list — one person per line as name, number, size — into Names & numbers on a garment job. Each name and each number is priced at the rates set on the print method, and the work order prints the list sorted by size.

Sending the quote

Send quote emails the customer — and any approvers on the job — every item, the total, your quote's validity and an Accept button. Accepting moves the job to Approved, raising the deposit invoice if you use deposits. A quote can only be accepted at the total the customer was shown; if the job has been re-priced since, they are asked to reload. After the validity period the link says the quote has expired; sending the quote again starts a new period.

Change orders

An approved or scheduled job can be changed with Change order: say what changed, adjust the job or its items, and the new price is emailed to the customer to accept. Until they do, the job is held, so nothing goes to press at a price the customer hasn't agreed. Once a job is in production it can't be changed this way.

Artwork files and resolution

Besides PDF, Illustrator, EPS, Photoshop, PNG, JPEG and TIFF, jobs accept embroidery machine files and cutter or sign files (DXF, PLT, CorelDRAW). Photos and other pixel artwork are checked on upload against the job's print size: under 150 dpi you are warned, and the warning is noted on the job.

Mockups

Make mockup places the customer's artwork on a photo of the garment, sign or wall — drag it into place and set its size and opacity — and saves the result as the job's next proof, ready to send.

Note: your business can rename menu items (Settings → POS Configuration → Menu Labels), so the names in your menu may differ from those shown here.