i like the
sign / print shop managing topics. As everyone has a different way of business,
Here's my take...
There really is no 1 solution to fit all businesses. There's a number of solutions out there, and heaps of people use them. Often not, there's complaints about "software should do this or do that"
I've broken my system down into modules. This way each piece of software does a specific task.
For example, if i was running a small
sign shop. id do something like this:
A CRM: hubspot. has a free and a cheap starter tier. you can grow with it. Use this to manage customers.
Accounting: Xero, Myob, Quick books etc. most integrate with most CRMs so you can quote though hubspot and send the invoice to xero.
Database tool: Excel, Google sheets, Airtable, (there's so many) this would be to store pricing, consumables. any data you need to reference.
Job Board: Trello, Asana. 2 most popular free tools you can use as job boards.
with these 4 basic things, you can mostly replace any signshop tool.
Why not just go with a sign shop tool as it's all in 1?
As mentioned earlier, if you dont like aspects of it, you can't just change it. you need to swap out the whole package and migrate everything. (A royal PITA)
using a module based system, you dont like the CRM? no problem, swap it out for something else.
want to upgrade from excel? easy,
Dont like trello? no problem you can change that.
The drawbacks,
If you're 1-2 people. having a lot of software to juggle can be annoying.
With some IT skills, you could run all this on a micro server with opensource apps and have a pretty solid system... but that's another topic.