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Buying
Software Guide
Which software should we buy ?
With have noticed software for roof estimating is all over the internet, we will provide some tips and
information. Every roofer needs different things from software and most specialize
in certain types of roofs. For instance a roofer with only a couple roofers who
mostly does re-roofing does not need software that keeps tract of plan numbers
and lot numbers. On the other hand a large company with a 100 roofers doing
tract work does, but both roofers can use a address book to enter information
for repeat customers.
So
we will start with what we feel is what every roofer has to have to do a roof
estimate.
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Easy to use. (Most roofing contractors are not computer
wizes)
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A place to enter the customers name, address and
contact information.
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A place to enter roof measurements.
The software needs to total these measurements into something useful.
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A way to determine how the measurements display
meaningful information.
Eg; 20 feet of valley = 2 pieces
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A way for the roofer to determine and change how
measurements do calculating.
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A way for a roofer to enter and pre-set prices so the
software will calculate a bid price.
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A way for a roofer to change the name of the item being
calculated.
Eg; 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 dripedge to 2"x 2" dripedge etc
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Flexible, to allow a way for the roofer to figure any
kind of roofing material.
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A way to save the estimate with a meaningful name with
little effort.
Eg: Smith 167 Oak Ave.bid.
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A way to print the estimate with meaningful
information.
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A simple way for a roofer to
find and recall the bids.
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A easy way for a roofer to
get specific help on anything at any specific item.
Policies of the company
or website selling the software.
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Can you try it before you buy
?
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Can you get a full no
questions asked refund if you are unhappy?
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Are upgrades free?
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How are updates obtained?
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Is this the last version of
the software?
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Can you use the software on
more than one computer?
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What are the response times
to emails?
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What other ways can they be
contacted?
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What are the business days,
hours?
Experiences we have had
buying software-services on the internet.
We bought some software a
few years ago that downloads your whole website with just a button click for
$29.95. We were not given the option to try it before buying. We thought this
would be great for backing up our entire website. After using it we found that
it only copied pages with an extension of .htm and most of our pages are .asp
pages. We contacted them by email wanting a refund. After a couple days we received
a reply saying too bad.
We have determined that software vendors that
sell software cheap with no recourse if unsatisfied count on people like us to just
forget it rather than hassle trying to get satisfaction for a small amount of
money.
We have had a couple other
similar software buys and have received the same response or no response at
all. A small portion of our software was made with software purchased
from other companies. eg; Software to create help files, software that creates
setups that installs our software on users computers. These are very
good.
Our policies for buying services software on the internet.
Try it before we buy.
We send them a couple emails asking some minor questions just to determine
their response times to emails. Full day is too long and over a day is totally unexceptable.
One company responded in 10 min. We asked another question and got a response
in 3 days.
We now will not buy anything
without trying it first or if we get slow responses.
Our information:
We answer emails usually within an hour, never more than 4 hours 7 days a week
9am to 11pm.
Our instant chat is online the same hours. (See the top of this page)
We offer free downloads and a 30 day full refund no questions asked guarantee.
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