The Scope:
Purpose & Goal of Price Calculator:
The purpose of the estimate price calculator is to separate the roles of those who set prices from those who create estimates. It is to quickly, simply, and consistently calculate the prices a customer would be expected to pay for any job.
Requirements include:
- Such a calculator must take into account a wide array of variables, including retail prices for a number of unique services and supplies, customer and volume discounts, and print and ink coverage as distinct from the substrate (material printed on).
- This calculator must be available from any computer and on any platform (that is, from any available internet browser).
- It must be able to output an itemized estimate of retail prices.
- It must give a designated person (or group of people) permissions to such variables as price per unit, percentages of discount for volume (quantity, area, etc.) and for customer type.
- It must give the same person(s) permissions to add or remove services and products.
- It must give them permissions to add vendor information and original product costs.
- It must give another group of people permissions to read the same data without altering it.
- It must give this group permission to create and save customer information and estimates for later retrieval.
Current Status & Future Aspirations:
- We currently have a calculator for gang-run printing on wide format.
- The next development is to create a gang-run calculator for printing on single sheets of custom length.
This will permit estimating columns and rows of prints that sit flush next to each other, with or without margin surrounding the group of flush columns.
- Soon, we'll connect this calculator to a MySQL Database: Standard Roll and Sheet dimensions will be pulled from Paper Dimension Table; Impression and Ink Prices also can be pulled from a Price Table to automatically determine estimates.
- We will want auto-suggest boxes.
- We will want a simple calculator for estimating multiple-up on standard size sheets.