Growth by Design,
Scalability by Default
Empowering the teams who keep promo, print, and signage moving forward.
Promotional Product Distributors
Antera Software provides a comprehensive, cloud-based platform designed to help promotional products distributors overcome data fragmentation and manual work. By centralizing operations into a single platform, distributors can scale their business more effectively while maintaining better process control.
PromoStandards Integration: Unlike platforms that treat it as an add-on, PromoStandards is at the core of Advance. This provides live pricing and inventory data directly from top suppliers, virtually eliminating the risk of selling out-of-stock products.
Automated Workflows: The Dynamic Workflow Engine automates repetitive tasks—such as sending artwork to suppliers or pushing invoices to accounting—only after previous steps are validated.
Integrated eCommerce: Aether Web Stores flow directly into Advance as ready-to-process sales orders, removing the need for manual data entry and ensuring high-volume corporate programs remain accurate.
Conditional Routing: The platform can automatically flag orders for manager approval based on specific triggers, such as low-margin percentages or high-value amounts.
Exception Management: Instead of tracking every linear step, teams can focus on managing exceptions, which significantly boosts overall order accuracy and efficiency.
Seamless Accounting: Advance integrates with tools like QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Sage, allowing financial data to flow automatically and eliminating duplicate entries.
Brand Assist: Quickly analyzes brand assets to ensure logo colors and decoration methods are compliant before an order begins
Order Assist: Flags potential issues proactively, such as supplier delays or low margins.
Task Assist: Reclaims time by drafting emails and generating follow-up reminders.
Custom Report Generator: Users can build sophisticated reports using unified data from sales, overhead, and fulfillment.
Granular Margin Analysis: This allows distributors to identify which product lines or suppliers are falling below target margins so they can adjust strategies immediately.
Scheduled Delivery: Reports can be automatically delivered to decision-makers as PDFs or CSVs, fostering a data-driven culture without manual effort.
Built for Growth: The platform is designed for businesses that have outgrown entry-level tools, supporting a move from $5 million to $50 million in sales with ease.
Industry-Specific Support: The support team understands the nuances of the promotional products industry, such as decoration complexities and multiple ship-to addresses.
Consultative Implementation: Rather than a “one-size-fits-all” approach, Antera uses deep discovery and role-based training to align the software with a distributor’s specific business model.
Promotional Product Suppliers
Antera Software provides a comprehensive, cloud-based platform designed to help promotional products suppliers modernize production, automate data exchange with distributors, and manage complex decoration workflows.
Real-Time Efficiency: Suppliers can automate the flow of inventory levels, order status, and shipping notifications to their distributor partners, saving thousands of hours previously spent on manual phone calls and emails.
Electronic Order Receipt: Suppliers receive purchase orders electronically from distributors, which can be automatically accepted or declined within the system, reducing manual entry errors.
Endpoint Support: For suppliers who need help with technical implementation, Antera assists in creating and hosting PromoStandards endpoints to make their data accessible to the industry.
Customizable Decoration Workflows: Suppliers can manage unlimited decoration types with a flow that automatically calculates run times and estimated completion based on equipment and processes.
Intelligent Scheduling: The system allows for job prioritization and auto-batching, which groups jobs with similar decoration requirements together to maximize efficiency.
Real-Time Visibility: Production status updates flow directly into the system, allowing internal teams and distributors to see order progress as it happens.
Electronic Proof Management: Suppliers can send electronic proofs to customers for instant updates. The system maintains a time-stamped paper trail of approvals, changes, or declines.
Automated Art Feedback: If a proof is declined, it can be automatically routed back to the artist to ensure timely revisions.
Inventory Control: The system includes a Bulk Purchase Order Module and inventory receiving tools that automatically notify production staff when raw goods arrive.
Dynamic Workflow Engine: Suppliers can define specific fulfillment processes. Each step triggers the next, and the system uses “timeouts” to alert teams if a task falls behind schedule.
Conditional Routing: Orders can be automatically routed based on specific conditions, such as flagging low-margin jobs for manager review or sending repeat orders straight to production.
Financial Integration: Advance integrates with accounting tools like QuickBooks and Xero, automatically pushing invoices and purchase orders to eliminate dual data entry.
Custom Report Generator: Suppliers can leverage unified data—covering sales figures, vendor lead times, and commission structures—to identify operational bottlenecks and profitability trends.
Built for Growth: The platform is designed for established suppliers needing a scalable foundation to manage high transaction volumes as they grow from small operations to enterprise-level businesses.
Intelligent Assistance – AI Enhanced Tools: Quickly analyze brand assets to ensure logo colors and decoration methods for compliance, flag potential issues, and reclaim time by drafting emails and generating follow-up reminders.
Decorators
Antera Software’s Advance platform is specifically engineered to streamline the complex, multi-step workflows inherent to decorators such as screenprinters and embroiderers. By centralizing production management and automating communication with partners, decorators can move away from rigid, linear systems to a more agile, exception-based operation.
Fully Configurable Processes: Decorators can define their unique fulfillment steps, from initial quoting and artwork approval to production scheduling and final invoicing.
Dynamic Task Automation: The system eliminates manual follow-ups by automatically triggering the next production step—such as sending artwork to the floor or pushing an invoice to accounting—only once the previous step is validated.
Proactive Alerts: The workflow engine includes “timeouts” that alert teams if a production step falls behind schedule, ensuring greater process control and on-time delivery.
AI-Enhanced Brand Assist: This tool helps decorators ensure consistency by quickly analyzing a client’s brand assets to verify that logo colors and decoration methods are compliant before the order begins.
Reduced Errors: By automating the cross-referencing of brand guidelines, decorators can speed up the sales cycle and dramatically reduce costly artwork-related mistakes.
PromoStandards Integration: Decorators gain real-time data flow for product changes and live inventory, which is critical for ensuring that the blank goods needed for a job are actually in stock at the supplier.
Automated Order Flow: For decorators running web stores via Aether, orders flow directly into Advance as ready-to-process sales orders, eliminating the need for manual data entry.
Seamless Financials: Integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, and Sage allow financial data to flow without duplicate entry, ensuring that margins are accurately tracked for every job.
Managing by Exception: Instead of tracking every standard order, the system flags high-value jobs or those with low margins for manager approval, allowing the team to focus on high-priority tasks.
Single Source of Truth: By centralizing artwork status, inventory, and shipping data, every team member—from the front office to the production floor—works from the same information, cutting down on redundant status checks.
Built for Growth: Advance is designed for businesses that have outgrown entry-level tools, providing a stable foundation that can manage a $5 million operation as easily as a $50 million one
Strategic Implementation: Rather than a generic setup, Antera Software uses a discovery process and workflow mapping to ensure the software aligns with the decorator’s specific business model.
Knowledgeable Support: The support team understands industry-specific nuances such as decoration complexities and PromoStandards data, providing more than just generic software troubleshooting.
Print Shops
Antera Software provides a comprehensive, cloud-based hub designed specifically to modernize the complex workflows of print and signage shops. By consolidating disjointed systems into a single platform, print shops can eliminate manual work and gain the scalability needed for significant growth.
Configurable Fulfillment: Print shops can define their specific order processes, from initial quoting and artwork approval to production scheduling and final invoicing.
Dynamic Workflow Engine: This system manages order activities and executes tasks automatically, using “timeouts” to alert teams if a production step falls behind.
Exception Management: Rather than manually tracking every order, the system flags specific issues—such as low-margin jobs or high-value orders—for manager approval, allowing the team to focus on high-priority tasks.
AI-Enhanced Brand Assist: This tool quickly analyzes client brand assets to ensure that logo colors and decoration methods are compliant before production begins, reducing costly artwork errors.
Real-Time Visibility: By centralizing artwork status, inventory, and shipping data, every team member works from a single source of truth, reducing redundant status checks.
Automated Task Handoffs: The system triggers the next step in the process—such as sending artwork to the floor or pushing an invoice to accounting—only after the previous step is confirmed and validated.
Aether Web Stores: Print shops can launch fully integrated eCommerce sites for corporate programs where inventory, pricing, and order data are synchronized automatically to prevent out-of-stock orders.
Seamless Order Flow: Orders from web stores flow directly into the Advance BMS as ready-to-process sales orders, eliminating the need for manual data entry.
PromoStandards Integration: This provides real-time data flow for product changes and live inventory from suppliers, ensuring the materials needed for a print run are available.
Accounting Integration: Advance integrates with QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Sage, allowing invoices and financial data to flow without duplicate entry.
Granular Margin Analysis: Print shops can generate custom reports to break down profitability by specific sales rep, product category, or customer segment to identify operational bottlenecks.
Scheduled Reporting: Performance indicators (KPIs) can be automatically delivered to decision-makers, fostering a data-driven culture without manual spreadsheet work.
Built for Growth: The platform is designed for businesses that have outgrown entry-level tools and need to manage high sales volumes as easily as smaller ones.
Industry-Specific Onboarding: Antera Software uses a consultative approach, mapping the software to the specific workflow of the print shop rather than using a one-size-fits-all setup.
Knowledgeable Support: The support team understands industry-specific nuances like complex decoration and multiple ship-to addresses.
Sign Companies
Antera Software’s Advance platform provides a centralized, cloud-based hub specifically designed to handle the complex, multi-step production requirements of sign companies. By unifying sales, design, and manufacturing into a single system, sign shops can eliminate disjointed processes and focus on high-margin growth.
Customizable Decoration Flows: Sign shops can manage unlimited decoration and manufacturing types with a flow that automatically calculates run times and estimated completion based on specific equipment and processes.
Dynamic Workflow Engine: This core feature manages order activities and executes tasks automatically, using “timeouts” to alert teams if a sign project falls behind schedule, ensuring greater process control.
Intelligent Scheduling: The system allows for job prioritization and “auto-batching,” which groups jobs with similar production requirements together to maximize machine efficiency.
AI-Enhanced Brand Assist: This tool serves as an “intelligent co-pilot,” quickly analyzing client brand assets to ensure that logo colors and sign specifications are compliant before the job starts.
Reduced Rework: By automating the verification of brand guidelines, sign companies can speed up the sales cycle and dramatically reduce costly mistakes in the design-to-production phase.
Centralized Assets: Artwork status, design files, and order data are housed in one single source of truth, cutting down on redundant status checks between the front office and the shop floor.
End-to-End Management: Advance manages everything from the initial quote through material procurement and production to final invoicing and accounting.
Seamless Financials: Integrations with QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Sage allow invoices and financial data to flow without duplicate entry, ensuring accurate margin tracking for complex custom projects.
PromoStandards Connectivity: For signage that involves promotional elements, the system provides real-time data flow for product changes and live inventory from top suppliers.
Granular Margin Analysis: Sign shops can generate custom reports to break down profitability by specific sales rep, material category, or customer segment to identify operational bottlenecks.
Built for Growth: The platform is designed for established teams that have outgrown entry-level tools, providing a stable foundation to manage a $5 million operation as easily as a $50 million one.
Automated Reporting: Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be automatically delivered to decision-makers, fostering a data-driven culture without manual spreadsheet work.
Consultative Implementation: Antera Software uses a deep discovery process to map the software to the sign company’s specific business model and unique fulfillment needs.
Role-Based Training: Staff receive training specific to their duties—such as quoting for sales or production management for shop leads—accessible via on-demand resources and a robust knowledge base.
QuickBooks Users
Antera Software provides a seamless, real-time integration with QuickBooks Online, acting as a specialized business management hub that fills critical gaps in standard accounting software for the promo, print, signage, and service industries.
Real-Time Transactional Sync: Unlike systems that require manual batch uploads, Advance integrates at the transaction level, automatically pushing purchase orders, invoices, customers, and vendors into QuickBooks as they are created.
Automated Data Population: Data flows seamlessly between systems, ensuring that financial records in QuickBooks always match the operational data in Advance without manual re-keying.
Unified Information: All identifying numbers—from opportunity and quote to order, invoice, and PO—remain consistent throughout the sync, maintaining clear audit trails.
Advanced Inventory Management: While standard QuickBooks can be “lightweight” for complex needs, Antera Software provides robust inventory tools, including bin location tracking, serialized/lot tracking, and multi-warehouse management.
Wearable Matrix Support: Advance handles the complexities of apparel orders (sizes, colors, and quantities) and automatically translates them into organized data for QuickBooks and suppliers.
Commission Automation: Antera Software includes a dedicated module to manage complex sales draws, sample budgets, and tiered commission structures that QuickBooks typically cannot handle natively.
3-Way Matching (Vouching): The system provides automated 3-way matching of purchase orders, receiving documents, and invoices to ensure financial consistency before data hits your books.
Sales Tax Compliance: Through full integration with Avalara AvaTax, Advance automates real-time tax calculation, filing, and remittance, removing the manual tax management burden from your accounting team.
Payment Processing: Integrated payment buttons on invoices allow customers to pay via credit card or eCheck, with the payment status automatically updating in your records.
Granular Margin Analysis: The Report Generator connects sales data with cost of goods and overhead to provide detailed profit margin reports by sales rep, supplier, or product category.
Automated Reporting: Financial KPIs can be scheduled for automatic delivery to stakeholders, ensuring decision-makers have the data they need without manual compilation.
Real-Time Visibility: Accounting teams gain instant visibility into live inventory values and vendor lead times, allowing for more accurate financial forecasting.
Enterprise-Level Foundation: Advance is designed for businesses outgrowing entry-level setups, supporting growth from $5 million to $50 million in sales while keeping QuickBooks as the financial engine.
Role-Based Training: Finance users receive specialized training focused specifically on invoicing and accounting integrations to ensure a smooth transition.
