Customer stories


Business Printers of San Diego

Commercial printing company keeps up with the daily demands of doing business with powerful FileMaker Pro 8 job tracking system

With a full range of commercial printing services, Business Printers of San Diego offers its clients detailed, personalized service from the moment the order is placed until the finished printed materials are shipped. The company specializes in all types of printed marketing matter, including brochures, presentation folders, and similar corporate-identity products. A FileMaker Pro 8 database system tracks each ongoing job.


Business Challenge

First-class service with a workforce of just seven people – that's the objective at Business Printers of San Diego. "We want to be able to respond to a customer's questions about current and previous jobs without having to put down the phone," explains company president J. E. Sequera. "We need to be able to give our customers instant feedback when they request information on the details of previous and current orders, and to be able to predict customer needs based on previous history."

That level of service can't easily be attained using pen-and-paper methods, nor can a small company afford to spend time and money on expensive, overly elaborate data management software that might take years to master. What's needed is an efficient, user-friendly, and scalable database application – one easily developed on the fly, and one easily learned by non-technical staff. That's why the company turned in 1997 to FileMaker Pro. "Nothing else comes close to our requirements," declares J. E..


Successful Solution

The application in daily use at Business Printers of San Diego covers job entry, work tracking, and processing, every step of the way, including details of proof cycles, pre-press, production, binding and shipping. "Our system not only tracks all our orders since 1997," J. E. notes, "but also prints job tickets, packing slips, proof sheets, and packaging labels. And we have instant access to a customer's history with every re-order."

The database contains 5 tables, and a total of more than 10,000 records, and is entirely home-grown. "I wrote the scripts myself in 1997, " J. E. says, "using version 3." The system's grown and evolved with each succeeding FileMaker Pro upgrade, with a full rewrite last year with the advent of FileMaker Pro 7. And now, with the arrival of FileMaker Pro 8, even greater innovations are planned.


"Costs are reduced due to instant access to information, and customers become dependent on us to keep track of their order histories. We look like a big organized company when we're really just 7 people doing all the work."

J. E. Sequera, President, Business Printers of San Diego


Customer Benefits

Following a transparent migration from Version 7, J. E. is already exploring the new features of FileMaker Pro 8 – and is finding plenty to enhance the daily work experience. High on that list is the new PDF Maker feature, a tool which figures to see a lot of use in the Business Printers of San Diego work environment. "Before we’d print a proof sheet and save it as a PDF file," explains J. E. "Then, we'd email the PDF proof sheet and a PDF of the print job to the customer. With version 8, we wrote a script to create the PDF proof sheet and then send an email to the customer, picking up the address information and subject line from the job record. PDF Maker also picks up for the message area the job information from the job record – all we have to do is attach the PDF proof, and it's on the way!" J. E. estimates that each use of PDF Maker saves the staff at least five minutes of manually keying in information for each proof, and with an average routine of 10 to 30 or proofs a day, that time savings adds up fast.

The new Tab Control function in FileMaker Pro 8 is another valued enhancement. "My assistant is visually impaired," J. E. says, "and we have to make our layouts display large and white on black on her monitor in order for her to see the job record. We used to put that record all in one layout, but in FileMaker Pro 8 we'll add Tab Control, and put each section of a job in its own tab – making each section larger so that our visually-impaired CSR can see those job records much easier."

Added together, the advances in FileMaker Pro 8, layered onto the strong foundation laid in previous FileMaker Pro versions, provide a powerful job management tool for the company. "Costs are reduced due to instant access to information," summarizes J. E., "and customers become dependent on us to keep track of their order histories. We look like a big organized company when we're really just seven people doing all the work."



Contact information

Contact Info for Customer:

J. E. Sequera
President
Business Printers of San Diego
858-549-6777
je@bpsd.com
http://www.bpsd.com


Filemaker Contact:

Kevin Mallon
Public Relations Manager
FileMaker Inc.
408-987-7227
kevin_mallon@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com


Overview
  • Commercial print shop specializing in business printing needs, including marketing materials, brochures, and corporate identity products
  • Based in San Diego, CA
  • Approximately 7 employees
Industry
  • Printing/Publishing
Solutions
  • FileMaker Pro job tracking system follows each project from entry to shipment
Benefits
  • Lower operating costs and greater operating efficiency thanks to instant access to project information
  • PDF Maker in FileMaker Pro 8 automatically generates proof sheets for each job