Other FAQs
Updates of version 6 are issued about every 3 months and are installed by a web based updater. When a user logs on, SmartTrade checks to see if an update is available, and if it is, the user clicks a button to start the update, which takes 1 to 3 minutes.
No further updates of versions 4 and 5 will be released.
In theory yes, but you are unlikely to ever reach the limit. We have users accessing multiple price books with over 200,000 items in total.
SmartTrade Mobile does have some practical limitations depending on the amount of storage of the mobile device. This hasn’t been an issue to date, and is even less likely to be a constraint in the future as new mobile devices with more memory come onto the market, and compact flash cards with greater capacity become available.
Yes, if your supplier provides the price files and invoices in an appropriate format. Most leading suppliers recognise that providing electronic price files and invoices to their customers is an important service.
It is possible to import price books from other suppliers, but it may be necessary to manipulate the files in a spreadsheet before importing into SmartTrade.
Possibly, using features such as kitsets and subtotalling. However, complicated spreadsheets (say using pivot tables) may be difficult or impossible.
Access requires a user name and password. Users can be locked out if necessary.
Access to functionality within SmartTrade is controlled by creating “Security Groups”, each group comprising one or more users. Privileges can be assigned to each security group as required.
No, as SmartTrade doesn't have the facility to control stock quantities and values in inventory locations (inventory management). Some users achieve a partial form of inventory management by passing accounting codes from SmartTrade to their accounting package (talk to us if you want to know how to do this).
When some people talk about stock or inventory, they are often referring to the ability to search a product database (which SmartTrade provides) rather than inventory management.
For most small businesses, trying to manage live inventory is hard. The sensible alternative is the just in time approach of buying materials as required for jobs. The best way to manage inventory is have as little as possible.
Applications with decent inventory capability tend to be expensive. Some of the cheaper accounting packages do provide inventory management, but with limitations such as handling a single location only and reducing stock quantities based on invoicing rather than issues to jobs.
Over 600 businesses, mostly in Australia and New Zealand.
SmartTrade is licensed on a monthly or annual basis. For convenience, all licences expire on the same day, usually the anniversary of the date of the first licence to be issued. As the expiry date approaches, SmartTrade reminds you that you need to renew. Any additional licences issued during the year are prorated, so that they expire on the same anniversary.
SmartTrade Essential and Ultimate are licensed based on concurrent users. You can install SmartTrade on as many PCs as you wish, but the maximum number of users at any one time is determined by the number of licences.
SmartTrade Mobile is licensed on the basis of one licence per mobile device. A mobile licence can be transferred to another mobile device.
An accounting integration licence (one per business) is required to export data from SmartTrade to an accounting package.
Installing new licence keys is simple - we email the new licence keys to you, and you save the attachment in the SmartTrade folder, or, if you prefer, one of our technicians can log in remotely and install the keys for you. The new licence keys are recognised the next time you open SmartTrade.
If you have a mobile printer and use SmartTrade Essential or Ultimate remotely. Documents can’t be printed from SmartTrade Mobile.
There relatively few mobile printers on the market, including the Canon PIXMA, HP Officejet 150 and Brother PJ663, and they are expensive compared to desktop printers.
Most users return the job to the office and then print out the document.
SmartTrade Essential and Ultimate
No, but there are many spellcheckers that are either free or cost just a few dollars. These are better than any that we could develop and can be used with multiple applications, not just SmartTrade. We recommend tinySpell, downloaded from http://tinyspell.com. It’s free, simple to install (each user has to install it) and easy to use.
SmartTrade Mobile
The mobile operating systems provide spell checking.
Upgrades to the current functionality are free. SmartTrade may charge an additional licence fees for an optional module that add significant new functionality.
Maybe but don’t bet on it. While we appreciate and encourage suggestions from users on ways to improve SmartTrade, we only add features that have widespread appeal across our customer base.
“Off the shelf” or “packaged” software such as SmartTrade has many advantages over customised (or "bespoke") applications, particularly for small and medium sized businesses. However, they can require businesses to modify their workflows to match the capabilities of the application. Often this is a change for the positive.
Since 1999, when SmartTrade Ltd (then PCP Ltd) was founded by Sam MacGeorge. As a contractor, Sam was dissatisfied with the paperwork systems that he used, and saw the opportunity to create a job management system that met the needs of service businesses in a practical, affordable and professional manner.
Our first product, released in 2000, was Easytender, a simple single user estimating application. In 2002, we released our first mobile version, confident that the future lay in mobile applications. In 2003, we released our first multi user version of SmartTrade Office, and rebranded as SmartTrade.
If you need to access historical data from time to time and/or to retain data for required periods, then you can subscribe to a view only licence.
If you wish to extract data:
1. You can export from any grid using the CSV export function, the data displayed in a grid can be filtered and/or sorted before being exported.2. For more complex data extracts, SQL scripts can be used. SmartTrade can prepare these scripts to your specification, which would be charged
for at our normal rate for database services.