Trying Out "MyOnlineToolbox.com"

MOTB

You are misunderstanding the use of our platform. When you save your data, it is going into your own private workspace. Think of it along the lines of accessing your bank account over the Internet and you make a payment. The only persons who know this are you, the bank and whomever you sent the payment to.

You are not saving your data on the Internet. You are accessing your business environment using the Internet. There are other forms of business models that I can see you confusing this with, but this is not the case with the toolbox.

We will only charge you to access the system if you need the extra features are described on our site. Your competitors can not use the information.

Hope this clarifies.

Brian

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Helping contractors find work, manage jobs, communicate with others and get paid quicker using software over the Internet

MOTB

I can understand your feelings on making a fixed price list, which is an option with the toolbox. The alternative is to not focus necessarily on the actual prices, but to specifically itemize all the issues you need to calculate when doing a future estimate. While I am sure the experienced tradesman will say he knows it all, it is easy within a busy day to forget something minor that will add an additional cost. So what contractors can do is create templates, with or without costs, than can be changed or deleted for future similar estimates or invoices. I am aware of some environments that force you to have a price with all line items, with us it is an option, whichever works better for the user.

And going back to the pricing issue, we have heard so many different comments when it comes to pricing that for now we have not interfaced with any pricing systems. There seem to be too many regional differences and preferences that for us we are waiting to see how the community evolves to make the right decision as opposed to a quick decision.

But again, any formats for estimates and invoices can be saved and used as a template for future use, with or without pricing and this is a time saver. I hope this clarifies this one topic for you. Good luck. Brian

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Helping contractors find work, manage jobs, communicate with others and get paid quicker using software over the Internet

NormW

Thanks for the feedback MOTB. Over the winter, I'm planning on using both MOTB and excel for the jobs, I'm hoping to do in the spring. I hope to break the pencil and paper method, we'll see.

I currently have a fairly good manual system in place with estimating, drawings, and scheduling. Gonna try to tech-up all three this winter. Scheduling should be a snap (MOTB!?), Drawings (maybe not this year), If I can get a better estimating method. It'll be a better year, next year.

My problem with estimating manually, is the scope changes constantly, even as Im building the estimate. It gets hard to find a pencil with an eraser still intact... That's the main reason I'm looking to change.

MOTB

Hello everyone,

We are happy to announce that as of today we are IE7, IE8, Firefox 3.5 and Safari 4 compatible. Until yesterday MyOnlineToolbox was only IE7 compatible. I know a set of the viewers here had their strong opinions that we should have done it sooner . One reason was that we were waiting to have a specific percentage of visitors force us to update many of our components. Last month was the first time that we went over 20% of new visitors either using IE8 or Firefox (with a very smaller percentage for Safari) and that was the trigger to divert attention and change all the components. There are other reasons why we waited that were marketing decisions as opposed to technical, such as a focus on new signups that do not care about the browser used and just wanted to be more efficient. In any case, thanks for your patience for the browser topic and Happy Thanksgiving.

Brian

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Helping contractors find work, manage jobs, communicate with others and get paid quicker using software over the Internet

CONCRETERULES

looks great

bconley

Is Chrome in the future?

bconley

Now I can explore actually using this, IE just really frustrated me, I noticed loading your site is way faster with Firefox

MOTB

No, and we honestly didn't even want to go the Safari route but did so becuase we had the extra time. From a practical perspectiove, here is the review of all visitors to our site for the last one full year

IE (7 & 8 combined) 82%
Firefox 13%
Safari 2%
Chrome 1%
Others (Opera, Mozilla) 3%

I am sure that we could easily start to debate when Chrome will surpass Safari (which again wasn't my preference to address anyway) and I think IE and Firefox will be the leading decisions for us for at least all of 2010.

Of course that can change, but we will wait for the facts to surface first. Bigger fish to fry than focusing on another browser preference. Thanks for the inquiry and positive reply.

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Helping contractors find work, manage jobs, communicate with others and get paid quicker using software over the Internet

MOTB

Hey all,
A few people helped us out on burning in the IE 8, Firefox and Safari topics. I wish I could tell you that everything went perfect upon release. We mostly ran into very small cosmetics that were extremely difficult to catch. For example, we allow you to preview printing documents which worked fine, but in some cases the little print icon simply did not appear. We fixed everything other than just a handful of items that will get done within a few weeks. Good news is that nothing was a show stopper so we did a pretty good job on our browser compatibility expansion. Personally I enjoy staying focused on business issues rather than browser issues and look foward to having this behind me to start 2010. Thanks for bearing with us during the time to release. Happy holidays.
Brian

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Helping contractors find work, manage jobs, communicate with others and get paid quicker using software over the Internet

Ford310

Ive been researching MOTB a little here, and am wondering how functional it could be for my company.

Im looking for some "selling points" to convince my boss its worth giving it a test drive (run it along side our current software).

We are a Private General Contractor in California specializing in Underground Utilities and Rehabilitation (Sewer, Storm Drain, Water, etc.). A large majority of our work is for Public City, State, and Federal Agency's. We find most of these guys to be very "by the book", and are not fond of change (unwilling to convert to the digital era). Even with email, they almost always want a Hard Copy sent via snail mail.

Typical Jobs range between 1 to 20 million, with 1 to 5 subcontractors, and 2-10 different material suppliers.

I look forward to hearing from you.

MOTB

There are a lot of selling points, beginning with that you can just set up a Free account and begin trying it today. And you can continue using it, for Free, if you like it on a limited basis to see if you will want to upgrade to the subscription version at a later time.

I would prefer the point-by-point selling to be done via our website or from your quick test drive experiences.

What we would like to talk to you about is dealing with government entities and what their expectations are, versus how a homeowner will receive estimates with less terms, conditions and expectations.

The good news is that you can offer your customers BOTH the hard copy and another innovative method of communicating if they so choose. My instinct is that you will run into some who do not embrace change and others who have already accepted change. In our case, we give you options to deploy.

Working with subcontractors is a different story, and one that I know you will enjoy sending work orders to and communicating with in the platform, also for Free. In other words, you can set up an account for Free and then share a few work orders to a few subcontractors for Free annd see how they embrace collaboration. Best analogy is having private forums for different Jobs and you control who can see and reply to what.

Go to my site and reach out to me through the Contact Us (under the Corporate Info tab), or set up an account and contact us via the internal support system which gives us more controls in going back and forth with you.

Thanks for reaching out.
Brian

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Helping contractors find work, manage jobs, communicate with others and get paid quicker using software over the Internet

Snellac

One of the owners of myonlinetoolbox needed a new A/C. He told me that the first guy to send him an estimate using his system that had value and a good price would get his business. I agreed and asked if he would then give me some inbound links with screen shots.
I signed up to use myonlinetoolbox a few months ago and have just been too busy to convert. It was pretty easy to get set up and send over the quote using MOTB. I had just one question on how the customer views the information that is sent to them. I found this to be very valuable and easy to use.
I saw a footbridge ad for websites the first time I played with the toolbox. I had footbridge design my website that is working well for leads, which is what got me to ask for the inbound links from the toolbox. I will let you know when they show everything I did to get the job using their customer communication tools. Hopefully you A/C guys here will tell him he got a good deal.

I did find a few things missing and was told some items were already part of the new premium version and some other items I need to wait for. One thing I will need to try is the "re-useable documents" which is part of the premium version to upgrade to since I was using the free version. Other features that I wasn't expecting may make up for things that I wish were there now. I was able to play with it some more and figure out a time to get off the old system.

Will get back to you when they add the links to show what I did to get the job.

John Snell
Snell Air Conditioning, Inc.

world llc

any curent experiances?

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starcon

Hi this Bob at Star Construction in MA.

I've been using this system and now I don't have to worry about "not" having the info I need on site because I just boot up the laptop to login and work or retrieve info.

• And it's my info not MOTB's It's just stored on a secure online server rather than the server in my office. But I do back up on my office server.
• The data base is being custom built created by importing from other places and created around only item we use.
• Estimating time has reduce this way. Pricing is checked with supplier and subs, so they are confirmed and keep for future use / reference.
• Work Orders go out with cost codes as part of them, so crew members don't make time card mistake they just verify the time for each item.
• So the bookkeeper is happy because coding is done beforehand and matches the estimate,
• Feedback to the estimator is better, pricing is more accurate and estimates are turned around faster. and sales are close quicker.
• Not to mention that they are invoiced as quick as we have ever been able to.

Maybe you just need to make up up your mind to get rid of the pencil and paper once and for all. And excel is good but stagnant that's why QuickBooks is use for accounting not excel and that same principle applies to estimating too.

MOTB

I was asked by a new subscriber to clarify the Free topic for MyOnlineToolbox since it wasn't clear to them from earlier posts.

Sorry if there were any confusions pertaining to the word "Free" or understanding "the transactions count".

MyOnlineToolbox has two versions, a Basic Version and a Premium Version. You can sign up for Free and continue to use the Basic Version until 15 transactions are created.

It doesn't matter if it takes a few days, or a few weeks or a few months to reach the 15 transaction limit. This currenlty includes any combination of estimates, invoices and work orders.

Upon reaching the 15 transactions limit, you then must select one of four payment options to continue using the Basic Version. This currently ranges from $19/month to $119/year (averaging less than $10/month).

Separate options exist to upgrade to the Premium Version (but there have been no confusions in this area so I am not further elaborating).

Sorry again for any misunderstanding.

Happy July 4th weekend to everyone.

Brian

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Helping contractors find work, manage jobs, communicate with others and get paid quicker using software over the Internet

alongston

hmm, I will have to check it out. I've not heard of it before.

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Denver Plumbers, HVAC Denver

HollowayPaint

I use MyOnlineToolbox.com and think its great. Great online support and quick to respond always!!

starcon

You can wait, but some people catch the bus and get way ahead of you and they won't generally wait for you to catch up. I've been using the system and already started using some of the new features as they become available. It can be be very empowering.

HollowayPaint

Pretty easy to just try it for free. Forgot how many free transactions they give you before you need to pay. All the info is on their site about the costs after you try. Hope it helps. Jim

THINKPAINTING

Why would someone pay $70 dollars to have there logo put on there documents? There are many small contractors who only need the basic version but what good is a estimate or invoice with no company logo?

I'm not knocking anything just making a point, yes I know there's more features in premium but a smaller company does not need them.

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