Si-CRM
What you quoted them. What’s running now. What you actually earned.
Customers and suppliers on the same system that runs the work — so a customer record shows live jobs and real margin, not just contact details and a note from last March.
The pain
You have not outgrown your spreadsheet. You have outgrown one person remembering.
The spreadsheet is fine. The problem is the part that was never in it.
It is in somebody’s head
Who the buyer is, which inspector signs off, what they said last time about packaging. One person knows. That person takes holidays.
The certs are in a folder
Resale certificate, NDA, terms, quality requirements. Filed somewhere, remembered by someone.
Nobody knows who pays
You know which customers order the most. That is not the same as which ones made you money.
How it works
One record per company — including the ones you buy from.
A job shop sells to some firms, buys from others, and does both with a few. They are all companies.
Customers
Contacts, terms, tax status, certifications on file, quality requirements, and every quote and job you have run for them.
Suppliers
Material houses, heat treat, plating, anodise, outside processing. Lead times you have actually seen, not the ones on the website.
Both at once
The shop that plates for you on Tuesday and buys brackets from you on Friday is one record, not two.
The difference
Every CRM shows forecast. This one shows what happened.
A sales CRM tracks a deal towards a close: probability, estimated value, expected margin. Useful for a sales team. Not what an owner wants at 7am.
When a customer calls, the record answers the three questions you actually have. What is on the floor for them right now, and is it on time. What have we quoted them lately, and did we win it. What did we earn on the last ten jobs we ran for them — not quoted margin, the margin the floor actually produced.
That last number is the one that changes behaviour. Some of the customers you chase hardest are the ones costing you money, and a quote pipeline will never tell you which.
The honest part
You can still export it.
Nobody should have to take a system on faith because their data is hostage to it.
Your customer list, supplier list, contacts and history are yours and come out as a spreadsheet whenever you want them. The reason to stay is that the record knows what the floor did, and a spreadsheet never will.
Straight answers
Questions people ask about Si-CRM.
What is a CRM for a machine shop, and is it different from a sales CRM?
A sales CRM is built around a pipeline of deals moving to a close. A job shop runs on documents instead: RFQ, quote, purchase order, job, packing slip, invoice. Si-CRM is built on those, so a company record shows the quotes, jobs and money rather than stages and probabilities.
Can it track suppliers as well as customers?
Yes, on the same record type. Material suppliers, heat treat, plating and other outside processing all sit alongside customers, including firms that are both.
We track customers in a spreadsheet. Why change?
Keep the spreadsheet if it is working. What it cannot do is tell you what is running for that customer right now, or what you actually earned on the last job, because it has never seen the floor.
Does it hold certifications and terms?
Yes. Resale and tax status, NDAs, payment terms, quality and inspection requirements and the documents behind them sit on the company, so a quote or a job can check them rather than relying on memory.
Does it show margin per customer?
Yes, from finished jobs rather than from forecast. Quoted margin and earned margin are shown side by side, because the difference between them is the thing worth looking at.
Can I get my data out?
Yes, at any time, as a spreadsheet.
See a customer record with a live job on it.
Thirty minutes on a shop set up like yours — RFQ to invoice, with every number showing where it came from.