Gráfica Ouro Preto system

The pain

A quick-print shop lives on small orders and lots of people at once. One customer at the counter wants copies right now, another on WhatsApp asks for a banner quote, a finished order waits for pickup. The shop's ERP holds all of it, but it was built for the back office. Every sale took several screens, and the clerk left the customer standing while looking up the record.

With a line forming, the entry got pushed to later, and later never came. On WhatsApp, several people shared one number without knowing who was handling whom. At pickup, nobody knew whether an order was paid without opening the finance screens. And when the internet dropped, the counter stopped.

Who I designed it for

For the clerk standing at the counter, with a customer in front, another on WhatsApp and the line moving. They need a screen that understands what they type and won't let them get the math wrong. For production, which needs to lay artwork out on the sheet without waiting on anyone. And for the manager, who wants to know who's serving whom and decide who uses what without a side spreadsheet.

The counter in a side panel

I built the whole project: the system that runs on the shop's network, the GestãoClick integration and a Chrome extension that opens beside any tab.

In Quick counter, the clerk types a name, phone or tax ID, hits Enter, types the product and hits Enter again. Banners and stickers ask for width and height and add the trim allowance and the minimum charge, the same math the shop did in a spreadsheet. Sales and quotes share one cart, and closing the panel halfway loses nothing.

Each submission carries an identifier the panel keeps until it succeeds. If the network drops halfway or someone taps twice, the system returns the first answer and the sale never lands in the ERP twice.

WhatsApp that only reads the screen

The project's hard limit was not putting the shop's number at risk. The extension never sends, clicks or types anything in WhatsApp Web. It reads the open chat and shows, alongside it, who the customer is in the ERP, whether they owe the shop and what they bought last.

The queue shows who's waiting for a reply and for how long, splitting each clerk's customers from the ones nobody has picked up. "It's mine" marks who's handling a customer, and taking one from someone else asks for confirmation. One button sends the customer from the chat straight to the counter.

Paid or not, on the order itself

On the production Kanban, each order shows a badge computed from the ERP's receipts: Paid, an amount due, or Not paid. At pickup, the screen asks the clerk to check the pieces, shows what's due, takes the payment and already knows when the money lands. A defective piece goes back to production from the same screen.

Underneath, every ERP call goes through a single layer. It caches reads, shows the last copy with its timestamp when the ERP is down and stops retrying after repeated failures. Counter write-offs go into a queue that sends one at a time and retries on its own.

Tickets at the door

The customer takes a ticket at the kiosk, the clerk calls the next one with the extension's shortcut and the shop TV shows the call. People who only came to pick up an order get a separate line and don't wait behind someone asking for a quote.

Production without design software

Sheet layout takes the artwork PDF or image, offers ready-made layouts and returns the imposed sheet as vector, ready for the printer. Page counter splits a PDF into black-and-white, light color and full color pages and prices handouts and books. Both run inside the shop, and the customer's file never goes to the internet.

The manager decides who uses what

In a single table, the manager turns each part of the extension on or off per person. Turned off, it disappears from that person's panel within a minute and the system refuses their requests. If the manager turns off the counter mid-sale, the cart is saved and comes back intact when it's turned on again.

Result

The system is in daily use at Gráfica Ouro Preto. The staff work from the Chrome window that stays open all day, and what they do reaches GestãoClick on its own. Sales go out from the side panel without opening the ERP, the same submission never records twice, the WhatsApp chat shows what the customer owes before another order is taken, and every finished order says whether it's paid. The system has 341 automated tests, and every screen in this case uses the ERP simulator with invented customers.

Does your shop have an ERP that doesn't talk to the counter?

If you run a print shop, a copy center or a small store, already use an ERP and service still depends on copying data from one screen to another, the counter and WhatsApp can be made to talk to it. Tell me what a day at your shop looks like.