| 1) How can I try out CornerPost without spending thousands of dollars to try it? CornerPost is sold in modules. We suggest you initially purchase one or two modules with a single user license. We offer a 30 day money back guarantee. e 2) Can I add modules to my CornerPost license after my initial purchase? Yes, at any time you can add a module, or add an additional user. We perform all upgrades over the phone with a license registration key. It does not cost you more to purchase modules one at a time (i.e. we do not offer “bundle” discounts). You will not receive high pressure sales pitches. We are confident that you will like what you see and that you will purchase additional modules if and when you need them. 3) Do I own the software or am I leasing it? Your CornerPost license belongs to you. It is not a leased license. 4) What if I need multiple workstations? CornerPost is scalable and network ready right out of the box. You can start out with a single user version and upgrade to a multi-user configuration with a license key entry over the phone. See our Purchase page for pricing details. 5) How much do upgrades cost? What about Support? Your initial purchase comes with a one year CornerPost subscription. This subscription gives you free software updates (via CornerPost Update downloads) and free technical support for an entire year. This support will be phone support. The subscription renewal price is 10% of your CornerPost License Value (CLV). See our Purchase page for details. 6) How much disk space does CornerPost require? The initial installation requires a minimum of 300 MB of hard disk space. Most of this space (about 270 MB) is required for Pervasive PSQL, our back-end database. The initial size of the CornerPost database is about 20 MB. With a proven, rock-solid database, the only limit to how much data (customers, products, proposals, contracts, sales, layouts, etc.) you may store with CornerPost is the size of your hard disk! 7) How long does CornerPost keep my records? Keep ALL your data active as long as you wish with almost no change in performance. The CornerPost database at Taylor Fence Company in New Jersey (our main beta test site from the beginning) has grown to about 450 MB. This represents eleven years of corporate data for a sizeable fence company. Keep in mind that this database also includes ALL layout drawings. Since CornerPost Draw is a “database table-driven” tool, all graphical data points are saved in database format for efficient storage and retrieval. 8) How often will I need to upgrade CornerPost? In 2007 we expect to have several major CornerPost version 4.1 releases. In addition, we expect to have at least a dozen minor releases. If you have an active CornerPost subscription, you may download these releaser Downloads->CornerPost v4.1 Update page. Current release information is available on this page, so you will be able to determine when it’s time for you to upgrade. We will notify you via email when major releases are available for downl 9) Does CornerPost have any bugs or known issues? No software is perfect. We test our program extensively in-house, and with beta testers, before we release it. CornerPost includes error handler routines which capture and save pertinent information to a log file when and if there is an abnormal program termination. This log file (CPost.log) is created and maintained on the root folder of the C drive of each CornerPost workstation (i.e.c ????:\CPost.log ). You may view this log by clicking the “View Log File” selection on the CornerPost Help menu. You may also view it using any text editor (e.g. Microsoft® Notepad). There are times when Cornerstone Software Technical Support may ask you to send this log file as an attachment to an email. Most of our technical support calls are questions related to how to do something, rather than problems with the program itself. 10) What if I sell more than fences (e.g. decking, landscape supplies) or What if I am not in the fence industry? There is practically no limit to the number of products that can be stored and sold through CornerPost. For product lines that are not fence related, you simply create a product group for them and a unique product id, and you can sell them. The estimators are specific to the fence industry, but the rest of the program can be used for most other types of businesses. 11) Is CornerPost hard to learn and use? CornerPost conforms to Windows user interface standards. As a result, it is easy to learn if you are already familiar with Windows-based computer applications. CornerPost is also intuitive in its design, so the learning process is straight forward even if you are new to PCs. We have a set of tutorial videos which we can make available to you for training purpose. 12) Does CornerPost work with any other programs? CornerPost is Microsoft Office-friendly, allowing you to easily pass information between CornerPost and Microsoft Office applications (i.e. Excel and Word). CornerPost also comes with several Adobe PDF-related features including the following: • Free PDF-write software utility internet link • Windows clipboard helper routines for PDF outputs • Default and customizable PDF export folders 13) Is CornerPost suitable for the size of my company? The answer is “YES” without even knowing the size of your company. CornerPost is scalable. It fits the small installation contractor that runs one or two crews. It fits the medium size fence company that may do some retailing and wholesaling as well as installation. CornerPost also fits the large fence company, manufacturer or distributor with multiple locations in multiple states. We have people using CornerPost that only install fence, others that only wholesale and others that only retail. Any combination works. 14) Are there different price levels for products that I sell? How hard is it to change prices? We provide up to 8 price levels for each group of products. Most other business systems do not support this product group concept. This CornerPost group feature allows you to work on or update pricing on a group level. For a given group you may activate as few as one price level or as many as eight. There are many ways to change these prices. You can, for example, increase the selling price for a group by a certain percentage. Or you can adjust your mark up by a certain percentage for a given group. You can do all of your pricing work in Excel and then import the data into CornerPost. We also provide a complete set of “pending price” fields in our product tables so you can do your price change work prior to a price change date without interfering with your normal business operations 15) How about special pricing for certain customers in the area of Retail or Wholesale? Unlike many business systems, CornerPost separates customers into two distinct groups: account customers and retail (i.e. non-account) customers. This arrangement enables CornerPost to provide unique, value-added features for account customers that do not apply to retail customers (and vice-versa). Price level “A” must be your highest price. A new customer (treated as a retail customer by default) will always receive this price level. For account customers you can be very selective as follows: • Assign a default price level of your choosing. • Give them a special price or discount on a particular group of products. • Assign a specific price for a specific product. These unique pricing features are available if you wish to use them but they will not “get in your way” if you choose not to. 16) Can CornerPost print my logo on my invoices and contracts? Yes. Your logo can appear on all your CornerPost printouts. Take a look at our sample print-outs section to view some examples of our customer’s logos as they appear on their documents. We will be happy to help you setup your custom logo (It will take just a few minutes over the phone) and there is no charge. We also allow you to use “preprinted forms.” With this feature you can have your letter head preprinted with your logo. Some space restrictions do apply. 17) How do I back-up my data?We have a backup feature built into CornerPost. You select the destination for the back-up (e.g. another drive on the network or a memory stick). Then you click a button and CornerPost does the rest. 18) Will CornerPost run on the computer I have now? Most likely it will if you are running Windows on a PC which you have purchased within the last few years. To install CornerPost, we recommend: • 600 mhz or faster processor • Windows XP or Windows 2000 or Microsoft Windows 2003 Server or Microsoft Windows Vista • 128 MB of RAM or more • 1 GB of available hard-disk space • 1024×768 or higher-resolution display 19) Can I work on my laptop from home or another location? Yes. There are a number of ways you can do this as follows: • Use our CornerPost Mobile-Ops Module. With this module you can create proposals and sales quotes on your laptop while away from the office. You may then upload your work to the office database via email, memory stick or direct, docking-station hookup. While in the office, you may run a “synchronization” routine to bring your laptop completely up-to-date with the office database. • Connect to the office database using remote access software such as GoToMyPC®. • Work off-site on a backup set of data. This, in most cases, is an option only for managers and system administrators only. You may upload your “off-site” work to the office database using built-in CornerPost import routines. Contact us for details. 20)Does CornerPost work on Tablet PCs? Yes. CornerPost fully supports Tablet PC technology. If you have a single user CornerPost license, you may choose to install it on a Tablet PC. Or you may choose to configure a Tablet PC as a Mobile-Ops Module mobile unit. You will find that the tablet pen works very well with CornerPost Draw, the graphical tool used by our Chainlink and Universal Estimators. Layout drawings that you create using a tablet pen may be modified later (on a different CornerPost workstation) using a standard mouse device AND drawings that you create using a mouse on an office workstation may be modified later with a pen on a TabletC. 21) Does CornerPost work with shop drawings? Yes. Although CornerPost does not have a module to create shop drawings, it can display and print the output of virtually every CAD program available on the market today. And CornerPost includes some unique “shop drawing” features which can be a big help when you need to include shop drawings as part of your proposal packages. Click here for details on shop drawings. |
Cornerstone Software 