As floral designers, I think it's pretty safe to say that many of you fall more on the right-brain side of the spectrum. I'm definitely not speaking for everyone - for all of you that have figured out that balance, more power to you! But for you right-brainers, your creativity is what drives your business, and is probably why many of you ended up in this industry. That being said, running a business is probably not the strong suit of every floral designer out there... I mean, who wouldn't rather geek out over flowers than spreadsheets?!
Well, we felt it was our duty to do a little research of our own, and provide our awesomely creative customers with the knowledge of what products are out there to better help run and organize your business. Yep, believe it or not, there are apps and software you can download to help streamline all those pesky contracts, order forms, and proposals you deal with on a daily basis.
We selected these seven programs to compare, but we're sure there are more out there, and would love to hear what you're using in the comments below! And if you already know about some of these programs, which are your favorites?
Details
Features:
- Enter customizable contract terms, payment and pricing
- Access recipes for bouquets and arrangements
- Find out the cost of a particular bouquet or arrangement by simply uploading an image of the arrangement
- Creates notations of ever interaction, email and call
- Tracks payments and due datesKeeps track of recipes, blooms and inventory
- Historical pricing reports
- Customizable percentages and markups
- One-on-One Training and Sales/Support Staff
- Multiple User options
- Privacy settings
- Beautiful Design & Professional User Interface
- Referral Program
- Patents pending
- Vast rental collection for Event Florists to not only manage flowers, but also chairs, chargers, linens and furniture rentals
If you're interested in signing up for Details, be sure to use our invitation code MAYESHDETAILS, here!
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FloraQuote
Features:
- Quickly prepares and edits quotes and contracts in a fraction of the time it takes to do it manually
- Customized pricing sheets
- Creates wholesale-ready supply lists and utilizes pre-set wholesale flower lists
- Creates delivery requirements reports
*EDITED TO ADD: Since we posted this article, the FloraQuote website has been taken down
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HoneyBook
Features:
- Automates custom proposals, contracts and invoices to save time and improve client experience
- Effortlessly tracks clients, conversations (and changes) all in one place
- Use e-signature and online payments to close deals quickly and easily
- Set yourself apart with a branded client experience and real timecollaboration tools
- Streamline your collaboration with creative peers
HoneyBook is offering Mayesh customers a 20% discount when you sign up - click here to use our discount!
*As of January 2017, Honeybook no longer offers the $500 lifetime payment option
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Lobiloo
Features:
- Create custom floral designs with a simple drag & drop interface. Saves price per stem as well as the ability to upload rental items & hard goods, and florist's personal floral galleries
- Estimates your cost and creates wholesale order forms and design recipe forms from your custom designs
- Track clients through the pending to active stages (including payments and communications), save client images and Pinterest pages, and easily communicate with imagery to client
- Ability to upload any props, linen images, tables, etc., to make applicable for full event planning as well as floral design
- Browse and search an expansive flower library by color, season and type
- Customizable to your brand
Lobiloo is offering Mayesh clients their first three months free after becoming a paid user within the program. Please use the following code: THREEMONTHSFREE
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RisoEvent
Features:
- Creates proposals and contracts, and allows you to quickly edit any aspect of a proposal/contract and generate revised version
- Creates unpriced event summary similar to a contract designed to be shared so all other vendors are aware of the timelines and expectations, and have all necessary contact info
- Includes library of your custom arrangements or catalogue pieces
- Vendor & user catalogues for rentals, floral products & food
- Creates automatic shopping lists for rentals, floral products & food, grouped by vendor
- Business Status Board shows the status of all current and future jobs
- Cost of Goods calculator with a choice of formulas
- Shows weather statistics for events, as well as automatic directions to venues via Google Maps
- Integrates with Google Calendar - may be shared with vendors for coordination purposes
- Interview feature that allows users to set a budget and tracks actual costs against budget
- Customization features - Logo & company colors included on contracts and summaries; Contracts include user specific Terms & Conditions and user-specific Disclaimers
Mayesh customers will receive an extended Free Trial of 90 Days instead of the usual 60 days. Free trial is not a limited version, it includes full software and may be used to create and track customer events. Please tell them we sent you for the extended trial!
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Curate (formally known as StemCounter.com) Floral Design Software
Features:
- Creates instant professional and customizable proposals, with optional credit card fees built in and multiple venues
- Embeds links in the proposal to your accounting software for payment processing
- Payment scheduling, recording and processing
- Small starter inventory with completely custom product libraries for professional florists
- Printable recipe sheets with notes and photos for each arrangement
- Automated stem counting
- Automated shopping lists - Wholesale cost and Final on each arrangement; Leftovers calculated in shopping list
- Creates profile for each client with any contact notes as well as events connected for recurring clients
- Event templates to quickly create a new event
- Multiple markups for different events or arrangements and multiple tax rates
- Multiple Currency / Date Preferences for International Users
- Drag and drop from Pinterest
- Quickbooks Integration
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Ularas
Features:
- Creates estimates, proposals and contracts from florist-specific templates, and submits them to your client in a PDF form
- Create arrangements for events in item-by-item detail, selecting items from a full floral library of commonly used flowers, customizable to your needs
- Order all recipe items necessary to your upcoming wedding or event from a single screen
- Enter a "target price" for weddings or events while creating estimate, and software will notify you when your estimate total goes above budget
- Customizable to your company - logo, font colors & types, emails and PDF documents sent to clients will consistently portray your company identity
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Here are two other floral apps that act as your resource library to plants & flowers, simply purchased on your Apple App Store or GooglePlay.
Info Flowers
- A simple & efficient search engine which allows you to search by text entry, color, availability, flower shape & care tips
- Advanced search mode allows you to search by more possibilities, including wedding flowers, seasonal flowers, fragrant flowers, etc.
- Simply share information by Mail, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp or Pinterest
Flowerbook
- Expansive flower library with many search options, including variety, type, color, and by season
- Camera Color Picker allows you to scan any type of color, and Flowerbook gives you the nearest flower result to match with that
- Each flower is matched to a color guide, and includes product information, whether there is limited availability, seasons available and where it is grown
- Built on up to date information and integrates new industry information when it arrives
- Introduces new products as they appear
*Post has been updated to reflect current pricing & features