JobBOSS²

JobBOSS as an ERP

Comments: Overall we like the product and have good results with the support teams.

Pros:

JobBOSS as a standalone is good, with some nice Crystal Reports added on. What makes it great is that there are quite a few add-ons available (for Quality, CRM, etc.) , plus it it stores all of its data in a SQL format that works well with Microsoft products.

Cons:

I work mostly in the Finance/Accounting side of the business. There are some basic things that could be added in the next version upgrades.

Excellent Product

Comments: We are happy with the software and look forward to the future. The consistent upgrades are promising and encourage users to stay, but we hope that the price does not go up exponentially with the merger with ECI.

Pros:

The software is powerful and easy to use a majority of the time. Support is helpful and readily available. We use E2/Jobboss2 for all of our estimating, order management, quoting, purchasing, scheduling, and more. After 6 years with the software it is definitely sustainable and a needed tool in our shop.

Cons:

The homepage user interface is difficult to look at. There is a lack of customization options concerning fonts, text size, etc. Right now we have to use third party extensions to try and adjust fonts so some of our users can read the text properly. These extensions tend to cause problems with the logos so navigating becomes a little more difficult if you aren't familiar with where the buttons are. Implementing higher contrast homescreens would be beneficial and/or having an ingrained option for text size customization.

Entry level manufacturing software for shops willing to change to fit their ERP

Comments: It's not that our sales volume has outgrown JobBoss, but our processes have. The lack of flexibility and customization are forcing us to work outside of JobBoss (e.g. custom software). The more that happens, the more obvious it is that JobBoss isn't right for us. I always consider JobBoss as a first source for our processes. Most of the time it can do something similar to what we want, but we would have to make serious concessions to make it fit. Ps. Stop sending "Important JobBoss Updates" that are primarily selling custom utilities.

Pros:

In general, it's easy to use. Each module has similar buttons and interfaces. I think the AR/AP modules work well since it's not the primary focus of the software.

Cons:

Quote entry has extremely limited ability to adjust margins (it can do it, but it's not easy). Adjusting margins are key for job shop environments. After speaking with support about my needs, they told me to quote outside of the system. Which means, I was literally told not to use your product. Legacy fields get stuck in the system. There's a lot of clutter in our system because we need to change user defined fields but they're not available in the find/replace utility. Scheduler is very poor. Difficult to use, glitchy. Doesn't (automatically) schedule for available labor resources, which is a huge part of a job shop environment. Reviewing scheduling during quoting doesn't account for current back load (or didn't at the time we last considered it). The recent "facelift" was atrocious. It's actually a huge deterrent to updating versions. What benefit is this facelift to me? My perception is that there will be no feature additions to the core product. Any improvements come in the form of custom utilities with additional cost.

JOBboss review

Pros:

Shop floor management. User friendly interface.

Cons:

Can only report on the accrual basis. No cash basis available for reporting. Some report are tricky to produce.

Alternatives Considered: ProShop ERP

Switched From: QuickBooks Enterprise

Steve Cate

Comments: We can quote jobs so fast with E2 it has become the way we control the pace of our business. If we want to be busier we submit a quote within hours of the RFQ. If we are too busy we take longer to submit quotes. It also helps a lot with scheduling but scheduling is the most difficult function to use.

Pros:

Ease of use and good tech support. Very similar to quickbooks

Cons:

When allocating stock to jobs, unless it was purchased specifically for that job, it is a bit cumbersome so we had a custom report written to allow the tag number of the inventory to be scanned.

Alternatives Considered: Global Shop Solutions and Shop Boss

Reasons for Choosing JobBOSS²: JobBOss tech support was terrible and they were very expensive to add data collection modules.

Reasons for Switching to JobBOSS²: Tech support's demo of the product