Ball Software’s Blindata is a comprehensive tool to help you run your business more efficiently and achieve more with less. In these challenging economic times there is a necessity to maximise sales, collect cash quickly, keep control of costs and improve efficiency in all areas of your business.

You can only improve if you know where you are, where you need to be, and you have the tools to get there. Ball Software understands the blind business in minute detail, having spent the last 13 years helping blinds companies to be smarter regardless of their size or complexity. In the process, its market-leading Blindata software has developed into a comprehensive tool to help you to run your business efficiently, achieve more with less and have all the information you need at your fingertips.

Whilst blind-manufacturing could be viewed as a simple process often involving basic machinery and tools, the complexity comes in the form of a totally bespoke product offer with the added challenge of seasonality. Efficient production planning is essential to controlling product cost as well as ensuring excellent customer service.

Blindata will automatically analyse your order book against stock and the production manpower you have, and tell you when blinds will be manufactured. If a fabric or component is out of stock, the job will only be loaded into the plan when that stock is replenished. Likewise, should there be any staff absence, the production plan can be recalculated to show its impact on deliveries and any promises you have made. In this way you can manage the labour time needed, plan around holidays and absenteeism, and reduce overtime.

It is surprising that many blinds companies underestimate the real cost of running a business where production is involved. This is a significant multiple of labour rates so trimming a few minutes off a production time, making an extra blind an hour or reducing mistakes can have a big improvement in profitability.

Similarly, the cost of putting someone on the road to measure and fit is expensive so maximising their output and minimising drive times should be a priority. Blindata has a neat booking system to schedule surveyors and installers according to the availability of product and the location of customers using Google maps.

Control of pricing is vital too. Blindata will allow you to price width by drop, by square metre or by taking costs and applying an uplift – so you know the true margins you are generating. And when it comes to changing your prices, Blindata can uplift prices by supplier, by product category, for all products or a number of other clever options. So if one of your fabric suppliers changes their prices you can instantly reflect that in your prices and ensure your margins are protected.

Ordering products can be a time-consuming process – but not with Blindata, as the system checks stock availability as sales orders are loaded and can automatically raise and email purchase orders to your suppliers. If you buy made-up blinds from more than one supplier, Blindata can even work out which would be the cheapest based on the width and drop you require.

Reducing scrap obviously saves cost and Blindata calculates how to optimise the cutting of roller and roman fabric from the roll, allowing for fabric that can be turned, and the best way to cut headrails, roller tubes and casings from stock lengths to minimise off-cuts. Another way to reduce costs is to provide online ordering, so your customer can order at any time, safe in the knowledge that their order will not be misinterpreted. Blindata has a robust and proven online ordering option.

Getting data from software systems is easy but getting tangible information that allows you to control your business is often more difficult. Blindata is designed to provide the reports you need to run your business efficiently, from standard reports, most of which are based on requests from Blindata users, to fully customisable output.

So as keeping a grip on sales, prices, costs, efficiencies and cash are all fundamental elements of business they are naturally all fundamental outputs of Blindata.

• Tel: 028 9049 3999