Frequently Asked Questions
How many versions of Equilibrium are there?
Can I quote everything I sell in Equilibrium?
What is the Catalog Creator Tool?
Doesn’t design do most of what Equilibrium does?
Doesn’t my accounting system do most of what Equilibrium does?
Does Equilibrium handle accounting?
Does Equilibrium give visibility to multi-location businesses?
Do I have to change the way I do business to use Equilibrium?
How many users can I put on the system?
How can I justify the expense of Equilibrium?
What is Equilibrium?
Equilibrium is an award-winning, proven software solution for remodelers and kitchen & bath dealers.
Equilibrium gives businesses the ability to:
- Respond to customers more quickly and accurately using Equilibrium’s quoting and version control. Quotes can easily be converted in orders and jobs can be tracked seamlessly through delivery, installation, service and warranty.
- Control what employees see using Equilibrium’s customizable roles and privileges. Your team only sees what you want them to see.
- Analyze real time metrics about sales and operations via Equilibrium’s industry-specific dashboards – proven to add insight into your decision making and developed by industry experts who have run multi-million dollar cabinet dealerships and remodeling firms.
- Work remotely using Equilibrium’s cloud-based access, available from anywhere there is an Internet connection (including tablets like the iPad).
- Track leads and showroom visitors using Equilibrium’s customer relationship management (CRM) features.
- Centralize the quoting and purchasing of all products and services using both industry-specific catalogs as well as catalogs you can create on your own.
- Centralized file storage using Equilibrium’s unlimited file storage capabilities. Users can upload pictures, video, blueprints and more.
- Gain visibility of multiple job functions in one place using Equilibrium’s integrated scheduling calendar where users can see deliveries, installs, final walkthroughs, trade work and more.
- Manage and understand the financial impact of service work via Equilibrium’s service and warranty tracking features.
- Eliminate rekeying in between sales and purchasing as well as into accounting systems by using Equilibrium’s electronic sales and purchase orders.
How many versions of Equilibrium are there?
We currently offer three versions of Equilibrium for dealers.
- Advanced is a complete operational management solution for small dealers and remodelers. This version allows dealers and remodelers to track and organize their customer contacts, leads, opportunities and sales process. In addition, Advanced includes the Catalog Creator tool, quoting, purchasing and scheduling, but does not include cabinet manufacturers pricing catalogs. Advanced works for smaller shops that get their cabinet pricing elsewhere and enter it as a line item for quoting, reports and downstream activity.
- Professional includes everything in Advanced plus industry specific cabinet catalogs, inclusive of all products, modification, selections and more. It gives you the option of importing item lists from popular design software and generates all-in-one proposals and contracts. It also streamlines quoting, pricing, ordering, scheduling and electronically communicates with accounting systems to eliminate rekeying.
- Enterprise is our most advanced operational management solution for market leaders. It includes everything from Professional, plus custom accounting integration, onsite training and go-live support. This solution is recommended for large companies, especially those with multiple locations.
*Looking for a more basic version of Equilibrium to help keep your sales team more organized and track your leads, opportunities and customers? Contact us to discuss.
We also offer one version of Equilibrium for manufacturers.
Equilibrium Quote to Order is a streamlined quote to order solution that gives manufacturers an out-of-the-box order entry portal for their website. It includes integration with popular design software and makes it easy for dealers to electronically submit orders and eliminate rekeying for manufacturer customer service departments. It’s ideal for any team currently attempting to build a solution from scratch – at a fraction of the cost.
Can I quote everything I sell in Equilibrium?
Yes. Equilibrium has a comprehensive quoting engine and can be setup to sell any product or service on the market. Of course, its strength is in handling complex products like cabinets and other “special order sales” items.
What is the Catalog Creator Tool?
Equilibrium’s new Catalog Creator allows users to create catalogs for any product or service they wish to quote (quickly), allowing dealers and remodelers to standardize the way they quote and sell everything. Dealers and remodelers can now create line items on the fly, import from Excel, flag items as pull from stock, and much more.
Doesn’t design do most of what Equilibrium does?
While some design programs allow you to price parts of your projects, Equilibrium allows you to assemble a total package price of all components of the job. From complex cabinet catalogs to countertops, sinks, faucets, flooring and more, all products and labor can be quoted, ordered, scheduled and punched through Equilibrium. Additionally, Equilibrium has a powerful workflow engine designed to streamline all aspects of your operation for maximum revenue generation and streamlined operations that prevent margin erosion.
Doesn’t my accounting system do most of what Equilibrium does?
Accounting solutions fall short as a solution because of the complexity of industry catalogs, as well as the lack of industry specific sales order, purchase order and scheduling features. Since home remodeling is more about project management than tracking the sale of a box of screws, accounting systems really fall short when it comes to project work that extends for weeks or months. At best, your accounting system is a rear view mirror approach to your business issues. Equilibrium gives you business intelligence before, during and after the sale. Accounting systems predominantly concentrate only on what happened after the customer’s invoice has been paid.
Does Equilibrium handle accounting?
No, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable your General Ledger and other standard accounting functions are best left to accounting software. Think of your accounting system more as a score keeper after the fact. Equilibrium does, however, communicate with a number of accounting systems and custom integration is possible with most accounting systems.
Does Equilibrium give visibility to multi-location businesses?
Yes, in fact, that is one of the greatest strengths of the software. Business owners can drill down into locations as groups, or individuals inside locations and report on closing rates, forecast sales, segment customers and determine the overall effectiveness of marketing, sales and operations. You can even compare location performance to determine if you have internal inefficiencies that need some attention.
Do I have to change the way I do business to use Equilibrium?
Absolutely not; Equilibrium was built as a platform with strong workflow control so that you can configure it to match the way you do business. If the future brings change, you can make minor changes in Equilibrium to match your new business structure. Equilibrium was designed to allow you to conduct business the way you want to operate.
How many users can I put on this system?
There is no ceiling for the amount of users a client can place on Equilibrium. Each user must be purchased and we can manage any user load you throw at us.
Why should I use Equilibrium?
Equilibrium allows you to enhance the customers’ buying experience and match your processes to how today’s customer actually buys. For more information on the customers buying experience, click here: (insert link)
How can I justify the expense of Equilibrium?
Equilibrium should be considered as the low-cost assistant to each of your sales and operation teams members. Most businesses scale up labor when demand spikes and cut back well after the curve of demand abates. Equilibrium allows you to keep an even labor to sales relationship and, in fact, allows some business to cut back on employee expense.
Additionally, most customers report an increase in gross margin after on-boarding. For more benefit information, hear it HERE directly from our customers.
Where is my data?
Your data is physically hosted in the United States. Access to your data is restricted to a handful of individuals on the BreakFront team qualified to troubleshoot any issues that may arise. Your data is fully backed up to a separate local disk each night. In addition, an encrypted copy of your backup is stored off-site each night, and an incremental backup is performed to the separate local disk every 30 minutes.
Is the system secure?
Yes, Equilibrium is hosted by a premier datacenter provider, which maintains our networks and provides network security, including detection of denial of service attacks. Multiple layers of firewalls are in place to safeguard all network connections. All of BreakFront’s hardware is configured for reliability to minimize the likelihood of downtime. Disk drives are configured as RAID arrays and most hardware components are hot-swappable.
