QMI - Quote Manage Invoice

Precision Record Pressing (PRP) is a leading vinyl record manufacturing plant offering a wide range of vinyl and print options with a dedication to quality, service and speed. Based near Toronto in Canada, they specialise in both limited quantity runs and complex large volume orders, and from cutting, plating, pressing, printing and packaging they cover the full lifecycle of a vinyl project.

QMI was born out of need to replace a cumbersome manual approach to quoting new projects to customers. The old system was error prone due to its manual nature, and the amount of time required to prepare a quote was a drain on PRP's sales team, distracting them from their core function. CWC was approached through a mutual contact to build a proof of concept quoting tool app, which was implemented using an industry standard Microsoft ASP.net / SQL Server backend for the API, and a Typescript/Knockout.js single page application on the front end.

The prototype was well received, so we then picked up the mantle to develop it further into a fully fledged configure-to-quote tool covering an astounding variety and complexity of possible projects. The tool handles complex colour mixes, bespoke jacket printing jobs, multiple variants per project and complex pricing and validation rules to ensure the resulting quote is both clear and accurate.

Expanding the scope

Established in 2016, PRP has experienced explosive growth, and shortly thereafter started exploring options for an ERP system to replace their current spreadsheet approach. Through the detailed knowledge of the company operations we'd already gathered, CWC was in a unique position to help with this endeavour. The QMI project scope was expanded to include the full gamut of ERP functions, with just accounting being handled by Quickbooks software through an integration module we already had available.

The wider project is now well underway, and we have achieved major successes in time saving and increases in accuracy through an integrated Order Management and Invoicing module, as well as a workflow system with automation to track projects, from the simplest to the most complex, from end-to-end. Due to go live in 2021 are Shipping and Purchasing modules, with Warehousing, Manufacturing and Production control to follow in 2022.

We have also, as a separate project, developed a Portal solution for PRP's customers, integrated with QMI. See here for more details on this project.