PrintSmith Vision - Avis

I love the program as a whole. everything is clear and easy to use and accurate.

The cost is very high and it needs a website as part of it so everything is one place. i know you offer a web site add-on but its not cost effective for most small printers. I have a website that is not attached to the printsmith system that is very reasonable but it doesn't integrate into you product so i have to run separate books for it. I don't even have the web site customers on the printsmith software because its too tedious to double up work.

Having used PS for about 13 years I can say it has improved greatly over the years. I find it very functional and intuitive. I can take deposits, track orders and see our profitability. It is easy to do job builds and save presets. Looking up older orders and pulling them forward is very easy as well. I can take a job build and easily transfer to a different account for similar jobs. We have connected our PSV to SalesForce for sending out invoices, statements and following up on estimates. This has simply added to the functionality. We also have ShipExpress which allows us to ship right from an invoice and pull all the pricing into PSV as well as tracking numbers.

I am no a big fan of some updates made in version 7.0.0.6166. Most especially the number search bar at the top. This used to hold the number so if you typed in a number for an invoice but it was on the estimate selection you could just change the selection to invoice and hit search. Now if you click anywhere on the screen the number disappears and you have to retype it. Sounds like a small thing - and had it not worked beautifully before that maybe it wouldn't be so aggravating. Also when processing a credit card we would leave the invoice # in that bar so once processed we could click search and go right to the invoice to both verify and print a receipt (PSV won't connect to my printer for some reason for receipts). This version also has slowed down load time. We have 30 years of customer info in this program, since this upgrade it lags when loading account searches. Very annoying. Also issues connecting to Ship Express and losing printer specifications. Sometimes my notes disappear while saving. very annoying and time consuming when this happens. Sometimes it also happens when converting from an estimate to a job - but only on clients that have notes saved to pop into all tickets.

Ease of creating Estimates and Workorders, still so much to learn.

Not knowing how to getting pricing correct.

I like the ease of use and set up. how it makes my company run more efficiently and helps gain and track profitability.

i cannot say there are too many cons with the software. If we come by a problem or glitch, we let the support know and they work their best to correct it or show us where we were looking at it wrong.

The best feature is the new ShipExpress integration. The ease of use over the years has gotten better for the experience Print industry professional.

Relying on Report Writer to create some of the basic operations that should be included in the working platform in the form of a dashboard. Report Utilities is an example of an improvement but as the information does not link to the next level of information that should be available, especially as you are trying to manage your AR.

I like that you can copy an invoice to a new one

I don't like that you can't just copy a line from an older invoice. I don't like that you cannot go back and change something after doing a close.

It was a promise to really help us, but falls short and there is a lack of customer support. This product falls very short. In order to create good estimates one needs to understand the labor to complete the tasks of a job. The Time Tracker in PrintSmith does not allow one to state when a job has been completed. The report does not break down the time by job task. I have been trying to no avail to get help in creating an appropriate report from PrintSmith support team and am getting nowhere. No one answers phones. PrintSmith Support does not respond to emails.

Really bad support alls very short. I have been trying to no avail to get help in creating an appropriate report from PrintSmith support team and am getting nowhere. No one answers phones. PrintSmith Support does not respond to emails.

It's faster than PrintSmith Vision Legacy (the Flash-based one, not Classic).

Operational security is terrible. Vision requires a connected browser with Flash and Javascript active. In 2020! Also, since all print output is generated as PDFs loaded in the browser window they can be reopened across sessions from history. Not good!

Search is weirdly inconsistent. Sometimes you have to use special characters like % to search for partial matches, sometimes not, etc.

Controls are inconsistent. Some dialogs are worded that clicking "Yes" is destructive, while in others "No" is. Columns in lists jump around when you change views and cannot be accurately resized. Why are some buttons round, some oval, and some rounded squares? Why are some controls buttons, others fly-out menus, and still others completely hidden unless you mouse over them? There doesn't seem to be a consistent reasoning behind these decisions.

Many, many features that existed in PrintSmith Classic are non-existent or severely limited; likely all due to making this a web app instead of standalone client software. For instance: still no key-command equivalents for much of anything. Still no "Open previous document" command. Still cannot copy jobs from one pending document to another pending document in any way. It's extremely difficult to edit the templates for invoices, estimates, statements, etc. and requires different software (and training!) to do. It wasn't real easy to do in Classic, but it was better than this.

I never thought I'd pine for the days of PrintSmith 6 on MacOS 9...

We didn't lose our history, we are still supported by EFI, it still has the same functions just located somewhere else.

I really Like that EFI for the first time in 20 years put a space between Fast and Track. And spelled both words correctly. It's about time. And easier to find when doing an internet search.

I don't mind the buttons, but definitely don't like:
Looking all over God's country to find what had been easier to locate with drop down windows.
DISLIKE the confirm my change to bindery addition (everyone of them, every time), then confirm it again on returning to job window on the second tab, confirm the change or no change to account information on the first tab, then going to third tab to save it. Were there real printers who are busy folks, test trial this version?
DISLIKE the whole account history; don't like having to go to account history to add temporary contact in a new job ticket. When it was right there before.
FT is a 4-wheel road to finding functions while driving a Euro car. I do take responsibility that I haven't used it long at all. As a rule, I don't ever have problems to figuring and finding what I need in any new software. I'll take the ease of adaptability of the Classic version any day over scouting what I need, and having far too many buttons/tabs to select to do a simple ticket. Loses all the ease. The stock selection is just a whole different deal.
I personally have lots of work waiting on me. don't mean to beat it down, but the Classic only needed some mods, not a whole revamp. Color is nice FT.

I appreciate that this product while it can stand alone and support a print shop. The most important thing about this software is that it integrates with MDSF which is our virtual print shop "front door".

My teams least favorite thing about the software is the limitations we have as it relates to making modifications for ease of use for an in Plant Operation.