posted
I just get mine printed locally. A 2-parter ran me just under $100 for 250. My print shop has changed hands, however, and I was extremely dissatisfied with both the service and the quality. I provided a floppy with the file saved in several formats and they still screwed it up. The old owner was much more savvy. As for invoices, I get em from Viking. Have for years, nice little 2-part booklets of 50. I think they are about $40 for 500. love....Jill
Posts: 8834 | From: Butler, PA, USA | Registered: Jan 2001
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-------------------- Frank Smith Frank Smith Signs Albany, NY www.franksmithsigns.com Posts: 807 | From: Albany, NY USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I lay out my own in CorelDraw and e-mail the file to the local printer, who also uses CorelDraw. No mistakes that way (unless they are mine to start with).
-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
posted
Eric, Make up your own complete with logo. Have them printed locally. (Minute Man Printers) I have mine made 2 up on one page. Then they cut the page in half. That way I get twice as many. I have them with a second page yellow that is carbonless. Padded and collated in about 50 ea. Real cheap. I number my own as needed. This way if you need a "Special" one, simply print one on your own printer with pictures on it. For proposals / estimates I have a page in Corel, or any sign program, set up with all information and logo with border complete. Simply import a bitmaps or I often includ a similar type job picture. This is a very professional way to do estimates. On my "Drawing" page, I have all the small print and terms printed and ready to go. When I design a job that is ready for the customer to see, I always have this "Page" around the entire job because they ALWAYS want a copy. This way its ready to print with ALL important information, contact numpers, address, copywight, etc. Trust me. . . .this will stand up in court! I have got my money from customers who try to bypass the designer.
-------------------- John Arnott El Cajon CA 619 596-9989 signgraphics1@aol.com http://www.signgraphics1.com Posts: 1443 | From: El Cajon CA usa | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
Hiya Eric, I started many years ago with the Business Forms Pak from Signcraft. From there you can recreate them in your favorite software and taylor them to your needs.
Havin' fun,
Checkers
-------------------- a.k.a. Brian Born www.CheckersCustom.com Harrisburg, Pa Work Smart, Play Hard Posts: 3775 | From: Harrisburg, Pa. U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
I have them printed on triplicate carbonless paper white and pink paper copies and a hardmanilla w.o. for the shop...they run me about$200.00 each time we run them and they act as a work order (hard copy) a file copy (pink copy) and an invoice that goes to the customer (white copy).
Post your fax# and I'll send you one!
-------------------- "Werks fer me...it'll werk fer you"
posted
I use the 50 sheets proposal forms at office depot if its an invoice I run marker thru proposal. Its a 2 part form. I know call me cheap but after in the past wasting money on nice invoices i id not see the point.
I figure if Im giving them an invoice the impression and the job has been completed...besides they always seem to lose invoices or simply did not get them anyway...
-------------------- You ever notice how easily accessible people are when they are requiring your services but once they get invoice you can't reach them anymore
posted
Bruce, it may not be the waste of money you thought it was, unless you recieve payment on the spot for all your customers.
About 30% of my customers have terms.... schools, corporate, out of state sales for example, and research has shown that a professional looking invoice with color were paid faster on average than a plain home made invoice.
Personally, I prefer having a more professional look on all my forms.
-------------------- Dave Sherby "Sandman" SherWood Sign & Graphic Design Crystal Falls, MI 49920 906-875-6201 sherwoodsign@sbcglobal.net Posts: 5398 | From: Crystal Falls, MI USA | Registered: Apr 1999
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posted
research has shown...are you kiddingme. dont come at me with research. research is nothing to me. real world is what matters. I go thru the same bs and problems now that I did with expensive invoicing.
what did they do, send lab rats invoices for tests? this is not a flame on you dave, i am just sick to death of research!
and when it comes to pople paying bills I personally dont think they give a rats ass if your invoice is on notebook paper written in ink or typed professionally on rainbo brite 8.5 x 11....again no flame just my opinion, make a note of that
-------------------- You ever notice how easily accessible people are when they are requiring your services but once they get invoice you can't reach them anymore
posted
Invoices print out of my accounting software, estimates print out of Estimate.
I recently set-up my my own workorders in Corel. I've just been printing those out myself for now, few dozen at a time. That way I can use them for a bit to see if there is anything I can eliminate, change or add before I send them to the print shop.
-------------------- Chris Welker Wildfire Signs Indiana, Pa Posts: 4254 | From: Indiana, PA | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
Dave S..My situation is about reverse from you..30% of my clients are COD and 70% are on 30-60 days.
The only "stationary" of mine that is colour are the business cards. Those are things people keep.
Envelopes, stationary, invoices and estimate forms are all greyscale. Cheaper to have printed professionally and they all end up in a filing cabinet after being processed. (well, the envelopes go into the round filing cabinet immediately! LOL)
I use the triple carbonless system that Monte uses, but the third copy is not hard. Just an extra duplicate, in case I have to mail a second copy.
-------------------- Dave Grundy retired in Chelem,Yucatan,Mexico/Hensall,Ontario,Canada 1-519-262-3651 Canada 011-52-1-999-102-2923 Mexico cell 1-226-785-8957 Canada/Mexico home
posted
We buy 2-part invoice booklets at Wal-Mart and rubber stamp them at the top with our info.
Price quotes/bids/proposals are signed sketches with copyright and date. The potential customer gets the original and we keep a copy.
Depending on the type of job, we require payment up front, all or half. Just about everyone pays the rest immediately, but we do have a couple of them that have to do the red tape thing and send the check in the mail.
Since we started asking for the money up front, no one has ripped us off. The real world here is generally, pay first and then we'll paint.
posted
purchase your carbonless paper and print your own when you need them,, no need to store them in mass quantities.. and you can change it anytime you wish. I didnt have to throw away any pre printed forms after the storm,, saved me a bundle..
-------------------- Leaper of Tall buildings.. If you find my posts divisive or otherwise snarky please ignore them. If you do not know how then PM me about it and I will demonstrate. Posts: 5274 | From: Im a nowhere man | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Like Checkers said: started out with Bus. Forms Pack from Sign Craft; now designed my own with Illustrator.
Dave, I do appreciate your input on the "color" comment as to the invoices that get paid faster. Interesting, I would have never thought of that.
99% of my work is COD. I have never really had a problem with folks not paying. My idea of slow pay is 30 days, and I strongly discourage that. I have had only one guy order something and then he disappeard...I have always wondered if he died?
-------------------- Stefanie Fox Fox Design Studio Atlanta, GA Posts: 181 | From: Atlanta GA, USA | Registered: May 2006
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posted
I can't believe that none of you guys use Quickbooks! I layed mine out with my design program and print them with the laser printer. your can make em whatever color you want that way plus it doesn't really cost that much to print em yourself. Quickbooks fills in all the rest of the stuff and keeps track of everything. It's way to easy. been using it for years! Almost all of my customers are on terms or they pay cash and don't care if they get an invoice anyway. In that case I just enter it into quickbooks and don't print it.
-------------------- Dan E. Kearfott KEARFOTT GRAPHIX 312 W. 8th St. Gibson City, IL 60936
Success comes in "Cans", Failure comes in "Cant's" Posts: 121 | From: Gibson City, Illinois | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I added a tip in another thread & thought I'd paste it here as well. It seems rather obvious now, but it took me many years to think of the advantages it offered, so I thought it may be useful to someone else too. It has to do with using Quickbooks for estimates, but speaks to one (or 2) drawbacks in quickbooks related to not being able to insert images among other things.
"When you want to email an estimate from quickbooks, you can save as a .pdf file, then you can email the client from your own email program, with the .pdf attached and any images inserted as well as any text. This way the correspondence will all be saved together in your "sent mail" folder. (sending a message with an estimate out of Quickbooks own email interface doesn't create any log of that message for you to refer back to) I used to have to send 2 different emails.. the drawing, & then the quickbooks estimate... & any text I added in the QBP email was lost from my records. I think emailing the drawing & pricing together in the same correspondence is far better from an efficiency standpoint as well as for a binding contract that I retain a complete copy of."
[ August 10, 2006, 02:54 AM: Message edited by: Doug Allan ]
I take my Quickbooks estimate, print it to a .pdf using a nice little utility called "CutePDF." It is free. It shows up in your printer list so you can make a PDF out of any program you can print from.
I also have a template in CorelDRAW for the design of the sign. I print it to a PDF also and email both of the documents as an attachment to the customer.
Couple of advantages: the PDF document is sized to an 8.5x11 that makes it easy for them to print. Also, like you said, I have a backup copy of the layout and estimate I can go back to in my email if I ever need it.
I use Gmail for doing this, so I have access to these documents from anywhere. If I stop in at their location and they say "We didn't get it" I can borrow a workstation, pull up my email, print it and hand it to them.
I used to carry a memory stick with me with projects I would want at home and work, etc. Now I just send up all that stuff to my Gmail account, type a few key words in the subject so I can search for it, and now can access it from anywhere. Works better than my FTP site also because it is searchable.
-------------------- Jon Jantz Snappysign.com jjantz21@gmail.com http://www.allcw.com Posts: 3395 | From: Atmore, AL | Registered: Nov 2005
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I use remote desktop connection, and an ftp to program to transfer files to & from my web server, but I have a gmail account too so I may just look into that idea. "Searchable" is good, & access from any computer is a real plus!
posted
As I didn't see it mentioned (might of missed it), I prefer that whatever program is used to create them, that they have the ability to use layers. I'll lock L-1 with all the pertinent info & type everything else on L-2. That way, you don't accidentally grab what you didn't want moved. Corel, is also, my preferred prog.
-------------------- Bill Cosharek Bill Cosharek Signs N.Huntingdon,Pa
bcosharek@juno.com Posts: 703 | From: N.Huntingdon, Pa, USA | Registered: Dec 1999
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