Quotation system idea

[overscan]

I was thinking of creating a web based quotation system based on our own in house quotation system which I developed several years ago. It would include a personalised database for paper and pricing. It's not going to be an all singing and dancing system but certainly beats working things out by hand. See below for an idea of what it would look like.

Anyway... my plan would be to allow use of the system free of charge. The only catch would be the requirement for a website link to one of our online businesses (xmas cards and wedding stationery). Would anyone be interested?

[Craig]

FYI, you might want to look at Morning Flight, it's not web based, but he beat you to the punch on the free part.

[rpl1991]

Hi overscan, I have tried using the free version of morning flight, but im having some difficulties, i cant add the presses that we have or adjust the ones preset to our sizes, i dont know if its easier in the "paid for version", are you willing to share the estimator you created or give me some advice on how to create one, thanks much.

1 2 color MOZ
1 4 color MOVP
1 4 color speedmaster 102
1 2 color Abdick 360
1 1 color GTO

[overscan]

Sharing it in its current form would be quite tricky. All of the profiles are hardcoded to our business, or at least to our business as it was before we escaped mainstream print.

Having said that, it's not terribly difficult to create something similar if you have a bit of programming and database knowledge (PHP & MYSQL in my case). You need a database of typical papers (cost per 1000, size etc). Decide on a paper size to base everything on (A4 = 1, A5 = 2, A3 = 0.5) and then multiply/divide your stock size and press size (SRA2 = 4), (GTO = 2). Then you need a database of static costs (plates, makeready, washup). Maybe even work without a database until you get you head around it.

Also, if you have a website hosted on apache, you probably have PHP already so creating a folder on your webserver and experimenting would cost nothing.