PTM-VISION

I love the functionality of the Work Orders and Sales Orders. It is so simple to go in and write a work order and to set up labor codes. Set up pricing. The program is fast in this regard. It flows well and makes the transaction with the customer go well also. For instance, if a customer asks for an estimate, it is very simple to pull them up, create an estimate and pull the unit from the choices previously entered in. Work orders, sales orders and processing them though is very simple. Accounts payable and accounts receivable are also very simple and straight forward. Pulling these reports is simple and easy to do to manage the business as well.

Some reports are difficult to find. Many keystrokes to get a report - for instance, to pull a commission report for my parts manager takes around 12 - 15 keystrokes and has me searching for the data. I have the process to pull it up written down and have to look at it every time as it is complicated. I have enough to do without complications from trying to retrieve data. I don't even know what reports I may be missing out on, because they are so complicated to retrieve. I need more data on inventory reports but I was directed that I should spend quite a bit of money and time to come take a class in Montana. I don't have time to leave my business for a class. We are in the middle of a Pandemic where I am hoping just to survive all of the economic downturn created by Covid 19, Riots and Anarchy. I just need a manual on what reports there are, how they may benefit me and the keystrokes to pull them up. That would truly benefit me.

The reporting features of this software are very good. The customer service is amazing, they are quick to return a phone call and to assist with any questions or training you may need.

We have had issues with making the work orders work with our Mitchell estimating program. We would love for our estimates to be able to be converted directly to a work order and then an invoice. We now have to process an estimate then enter a work order from the estimate and then close the work order and process the invoice.

I like that Vision is an install based platform. This means that even with network outages I can still operate my business. Vision has some features that after some time to learn them can be very helpful.

The GUI is very dated and certainly brings me back to the 90's. A GUI update in additiion to the simplifion of multiple features and the deletion of some old features that "no one uses anymore" would be highly appreciated. Their pricing structure for the software can be prohibitive to smaller business and adding features beyond the basic (very basic set up) adds up very quickly.

Implimentation was a bit of a nightmare unfortunately which we can certainly take some blame for however, we were put in a position of manually entering all of our data which would have taken months or paying them an extra fee to have them use their propriatary systems to do it for us. This hasn't been the norm for other software we have used or looked into. The required training was also fairly pricy especially considering the overall monthly cost to use the software.

As a Canadian user the overall cost is quite a bit more with the exchange rate as the company has no Canadian pricing structure.

Hardware integration has also been less than desierable as the list of compatable hardware devices (Printers, Scanners etc.) is fairly short. We would have to downgrade some of our equipment to be able to be compatable with Vision and take full advantage of the features.

When I first came on board, the Vision software was not very well liked by my company and some of its users, including our hi level management. The system had severe issues with lag time, crashing and other issues involved with the accounting functions. However over the past year I have worked closely with the Pluss Team and have been able to address a lot of those past issues. My First experience was with the Inventory Control functions. In a nut shell our inventory was way off, mainly due to procedure issues. The first step was to install the Vision Mobile App, that would allow to label and scan items, which helped in our reconciliation of the Inventory. At first I ran into installation issues with the hardware but after working with [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] from Pluss, we were able to get it running. Kudos to [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] who out in a lot of time and effort, as most of the issues we incurred were because of my IT Support. But [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN], was a champion and helped me also navigate the system. We now have a great system in place, we are processing the flow of parts exactly as intended and have actually started to see great results coming out of our parts department especially with returns and cores.

honestly since we upgraded to the onsite server, I have yet to find any major issues with the program.

When we made the change from Karmac to PTM the driving factor at that time was cost. We were forced to make changes due to Y2K and it was a much better choice to switch than to pay a high fee just to get a patch job from Karmac. My bookkeepers at that time had some experience with the accounting features of PTM due to our Florida branch was using the software. That alone had a large impact on our decision to go with PTM. Later we also learned to appreciate the inventory and point of sale features.

Trying to get software to completely fit the way we run the business is always a challenge. Attempts are made to make it more of a custom fit but you usually have to bend to the ways of the software since things are designed to fit the masses. Other than that the purchase order functions have always seemed to have some issues that we have learned to deal with.