In this guide 6 sections
A real trade product holds your trade’s own documents, statuses, units, reports and exceptions, while a relabelled template only renames generic fields such as Customer and Item. Test each of the five with a sample from your own work, and watch whether the vendor shows it on screen or explains it away.
Why labels prove nothing
Renaming is cheap. A vendor can change Customer to Patient and Item to Treatment in an afternoon, and the screens then look made for a clinic. Underneath, the same invoice still runs.
Skip the brochure. Bring a real sample from your clinic, showroom or workshop, and see whether the product can hold it without tricks, notes fields or a promise of a later release. Five short tests cover it.
Tests one and two: documents and statuses
Documents come first. A dental clinic works from a treatment plan that lists tooth numbers, the procedure planned for each, the order of visits and the estimate the patient accepted. Ask for a plan with three teeth. You may be handed a quotation instead.
Statuses come next. A plan is proposed, accepted, in progress, on hold or completed, and a tile order moves from quoted to shade confirmed, allocated, dispatched and part returned. Only Draft, Open and Closed? Not built for you.
- Ask for the trade’s own document, not a quotation with renamed columns
- Read the status names aloud to your front desk staff
- Check who may move a document from one status to the next
Tests three and four: units and reports
Units fail quietly. Tiles sell by the box, yet the customer thinks in square feet, and the shade lot matters because two boxes from different lots can look different on one wall. A real product tracks stock by lot and converts area into boxes, while the pretender counts pieces and leaves the arithmetic to the salesman.
A CNC turning shop thinks in set-up time, cycle time per piece and tool life, so ask for planned against actual cycle time on one job card. A relabelled product shows quantity and amount.
Reports are the proof. Name the five numbers you check every week, then watch each appear on screen without a custom build, a spreadsheet export or a favour from the vendor’s developer.
Test five: the exceptions
Exceptions show a trade. A patient pauses a root canal halfway through. A tile box arrives broken. The replacement must come from the same lot. A turned shaft fails inspection on diameter, goes back to the lathe for rework, and the second pass must still be costed to the same job card.
Make the vendor walk through each case live. A real product has a button, a status or a note type for it, and the vendor finds it in seconds without a manual. Anything else needs a workaround, and the workaround is exactly where your staff will give up on the system and return to paper.
- A treatment paused or changed mid-plan
- A broken or short delivery from one shade lot
- A part that fails inspection and returns for rework
- A job reopened after the invoice was raised
How to score what you see
Give each test a simple mark: shown live, shown only after the vendor configures it behind the scenes, or not shown at all. Two unshown tests is a warning. Then book a reference call with a customer in your own trade, of your own size, who has used the product for at least a year.
Write the marks onto one sheet. Compare vendors side by side, and ask each one to confirm in writing which items arrive on the first day and which are promised for later.
Five-test scorecard
The scorecard has one block per test. Each block holds a line for the sample you bring, a mark for shown live, configured or missing, and a notes column for what the vendor said. The last row records the vendor’s written confirmation.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Is configuration the same as a template?
No. Configuration adjusts a product that already knows your trade, such as adding a status to a tile order or a field to a treatment plan. A template gives you an empty frame. The trade knowledge stays with you.
Should I reject a product that fails one test?
Not automatically. Ask how the gap would be closed, how long that takes and who pays, because a gap in a minor report is different from a missing core document.
How many samples should I bring to a demo?
Three or four are enough: one routine job, one messy job and one report that you check every week, ideally with the owner watching the screen. More than that and the session overruns.
Can staff judge this without technical knowledge?
Yes. They know the documents, status names and exceptions better than any vendor does, so let the front desk or the shop floor lead the review.