Dates

These are the controlling date settings that govern the project’s life cycle. They can only be set by authorised users. The Target publication date can now be auto-projected from the selected Type of Schedule, Manuscript Date or Handover Date as the project starting date, plus the total duration from the selected Schedule Template. The Target publication date suggested by the system may be manually overwritten, for example, if a specific day of the week was preferred. The Type of Schedule is preset, in Preferences, to choose between Revised Manuscript Date and Handover Date, as the preferred starting date in all its uses. The Schedule Templates contains the individual tasks and their duration that make-up the project-cycle. The Target publication date also serves as an end date for which all other dates MUST NOT exceed. Any estimated tasks falling outside the Target publication date are shown in bright red. To correct, an authorised user must adjust these dates below or manually change the estimated dates/duration in production scheduling window, until they all fit. NOTE: Please be aware that when the target publication date is changed, the system will prompt for a reason, and an email will be sent to key personnel, showing the reason and the new date entered.

Specifications

Please enter the specification for the project; these entries will be used to estimate the editorial and printing cost, in the Costs section below.

Print Run (per product type per sales region)

Please enter the projected Print Run per product type (Paperback, hardback, etc.), these will be used in the budgeted profit and loss calculations and in the print instruction.

Additional Specification

Additional spec may be entered here, and the window also provides a summary and a projected 3-year forecast, based on the print run and costing sections.

Notes

Enter messages to share with colleagues here.

Cost (per product type)

The cost section (estimator) can estimate the pre-press and printing related costs to reveal a new product’s profitability. When estimating the printing cost, the cost estimator can compare all the stored vendor scales to reveal the best price for a given specification, but the user is allowed to choose the preferred vendor from the list. In the product life cycle, the cost estimator has the ability to create several working versions, reflecting the number of times the parameters for the specific title have changed and it also has the potential to freeze the approved version. Only one cost can be active.

Budgeted Profit and Loss

This provides the mechanism for assessing the viability of a proposal in terms of its projected:

1. Revenue
2. Pre-press and printing related costs

To reveal its:

1. Budgeted unit cost
2. Gross profit ratio (GP)
3. Breakeven point, per title

They can be stored for future reference and for monitoring the actual costs versus the budgeted costs per title.  See the Excel view on the next page.