Estimating

ANTARES estimating has been designed to radically reduce the amount of time required to produce estimates. Antares allows you to produce an estimate for a customer in a number of different ways.

• For regular types of work, quotes can be produced by use of a pre-prepared “template” quote.
• For enquiries where a similar quote has been produced for another customer, you can copy that quote and amend it’s specification where necessary (whilst leaving the original customer’s quote unchanged). These first two methods allow you to produce a quote without the need to start from scratch.
• Finally, for any unusual enquiry, you can prepare a custom quote containing whatever production operations and materials might be required using a blank estimate form.

All Antares quotes are made up from three parts.

• Customer’s address and up to ten quantities and a run-on to quote for
• Job specification – page size, number of pages etc from which Antares will calculate most of the costs, including make-ready times, material quantities etc. Jobs can have more than one section, where there is for example a cover and also text pages, which are of different specifications.
• Required profit add-on.

Quotes can be as complicated as you wish and can consist of any number of elements to a job (for example, cover, text pages and colour pages and possibly a jacket and inserts).

Antares will allow any number of special additional costs to be added to a quote for particular jobs and will allow any amount of “fine-tuning” until the final price is acceptable.

Quote Letters

For the customer’s copy of the quote, Antares can:-

• Print the quote for posting
• Fax the quote straight from your PC
• E-mail the quote again straight from the PC

Estimating on the move

Not only can Antares be installed on an office-based system, but Antares can also be installed on a laptop computer, giving you the flexibility to produce estimates while you are away from the office.

Using Antares remotely can be useful in a number of different scenarios.

Antares for sales reps?

Provide your sales force with a laptop computer and they will have the ability to produce quotations while away from the office. With a portable printer, they could produce their own quotations and print out letters to send direct to clients. When back at the office, they can update the main system with any quotations they have done on their laptop computers during the day.

Dealing with workload peaks

Have an Antares computer at home and you would then be able to prepare quotations at a quiet moment during the evening at home rather than having to work late at the office or start early in the morning. You would also enjoy the advantages of being able to complete a quotation without constant interruptions by the telephone or other staff members. Again, when you return to the office you can update the main computer with the quotes you produced at home the previous evening.

Estimating Wizards

Rather than relying on memory to ensure that all necessary items have been included in a quotation, you can create wizards. These guide the estimator through each quote and make ANTARES prompt the estimator for all production items that are likely to be required. You can setup these wizards to suit production sequences that are relevant and specific to your company. In addition, you can also create wizards that represent complete quote fragments which you can then add into any new quote that you’re working on. For example, you can create a quote fragment for an A4 cover (complete with it’s material, film plates etc), and then add that quote fragment as the cover into the next “book” quote that you create. In this way, you can simplify quote production enormously and help eliminate the risk of error or omission on your quotes.

Programmable estimating

Antares can be “customised” or “programmed” by the user to meet individual requirements. This is a major feature that sets Antares apart from its rivals.

For example, most people have their own formulas for calculating particular things. These formulas can be programmed into Antares.

This means that much work calculating quotes can be eliminated and estimating will automatically include you own rules, formulae and “ifs and buts”. This means that your knowledge and expertise is built into the system which in turn means that estimating can safely be left in the hands of semi-skilled personnel when needed.

Programming Antares as described here requires only the skills that would be needed to setup a simple spreadsheet.