New Office software setup

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blue-eye-boy

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Hey everyone, me again.....

This time with something completely new to me. In my business we used Openoffice for many years now, but I think times have changed for me. I feel the need to upgrade the whole setup. I'm not software fundi, so please bear with me, as I try to explain what I want to do.

Just a little background. My Business is a manuacturing one ( sorry about being vague about exactly, its with a reason). Various products are made in a factory like setup. There are lots of raw materials, from different suppliers involved, in the making of various products. I get myself into sittuations where I get bitten in the ass by prices going up, which I do not see in time, so I loose a lot of money on it. So, here is my plan.

I want to use excel spreadsheets, for everything. Firstly, a different spreadsheet for every supplier, with every single raw material product we buy from them. That sheets will be updated each week when new raw materials come in, to verify prices, and to check stock movement. Then that sheets must be linked to the spreadsheets I set up with recipees, which are then linked to pricing sheets, to work out costs and selling prices. So at the end of the day, I need to check if my costs are in line, selling prices are right, and also to check stock movement, and in the end to see the movement of manufactured products.

So, I have a very limmited setup atm with openoffice calc, which does not meet my needs. So, I checked out microsoft, for office software. And all I see everywhere is office 365, which, if I understand correctly, is a cloud based software solution. Pls guide me if I'm wrong here. I'm not familiar witn any cloud type software, so I have no idea how it works. Is the "cloud" a server type of thing I must still get, or is in just something that is there, and ready to be used as soon as I buy the software? Nothing to set up?

If I understand right, this cloud setup will work for me, then no more teamviewer setup is needed when someone else needs to access a word file on my pc. If something is in the cloud, anyone can use that everywhere? Pls guide where I'm wrong. I see it is even available on a smartphone or tablet?

Then lastly, I'm not in JHB or Pretoria, and access to educational stuff is not very good or available. So are there online tutorials available for this office 365 package?

If this solution is not the best, what would you suggest?

Thanks
 
The actual software is installed on your PC but its subscription based so you always have the latest version of Office. You can save your files to Onedrive and it can be accessed from anywhere.

This is a really basic description, someone will come along with a more detailed post.
 
Last edited:
blue-eye-boy said:
Hey everyone, me again.....

This time with something completely new to me. In my business we used Openoffice for many years now, but I think times have changed for me. I feel the need to upgrade the whole setup. I'm not software fundi, so please bear with me, as I try to explain what I want to do.

Just a little background. My Business is a manuacturing one ( sorry about being vague about exactly, its with a reason). Various products are made in a factory like setup. There are lots of raw materials, from different suppliers involved, in the making of various products. I get myself into sittuations where I get bitten in the ass by prices going up, which I do not see in time, so I loose a lot of money on it. So, here is my plan.

I want to use excel spreadsheets, for everything. Firstly, a different spreadsheet for every supplier, with every single raw material product we buy from them. That sheets will be updated each week when new raw materials come in, to verify prices, and to check stock movement. Then that sheets must be linked to the spreadsheets I set up with recipees, which are then linked to pricing sheets, to work out costs and selling prices. So at the end of the day, I need to check if my costs are in line, selling prices are right, and also to check stock movement, and in the end to see the movement of manufactured products.

So, I have a very limmited setup atm with openoffice calc, which does not meet my needs. So, I checked out microsoft, for office software. And all I see everywhere is office 365, which, if I understand correctly, is a cloud based software solution. Pls guide me if I'm wrong here. I'm not familiar witn any cloud type software, so I have no idea how it works. Is the "cloud" a server type of thing I must still get, or is in just something that is there, and ready to be used as soon as I buy the software? Nothing to set up?

If I understand right, this cloud setup will work for me, then no more teamviewer setup is needed when someone else needs to access a word file on my pc. If something is in the cloud, anyone can use that everywhere? Pls guide where I'm wrong. I see it is even available on a smartphone or tablet?

Then lastly, I'm not in JHB or Pretoria, and access to educational stuff is not very good or available. So are there online tutorials available for this office 365 package?

If this solution is not the best, what would you suggest?

Thanks
Click to expand...

You need a proper ERP system like MS Dynamics NAV with the wearhouse module. You can even go for a cheaper MS Dynamics system like (GP?) or SAP/Sage will have something similar. MS Excel is better than LibreOffice but only wrt more advanced stuff. The stuff you want to do does look fairly basic even Google Sheets will suffice. If you want to use the cloud aswell can always use the Personal free OneDrive / Google drive / Dropbox.
 
Agree that excel might not be the best option. IMO spreadsheets have a way of not always being updated because it is potentially a lot of work if the company grows. Something like SAP would be what you want, but youd have to look at a cost effective sollution.
 
garp said:
Why don't you just use Google Docs?
Click to expand...
looks good, just one thing that bothers me. I go out and set up everything, then google just decides to stop docs, then what? Then I will rather get office, and load documents to drive, as backup.
 
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