2020 vrs CA

[RichardV]

Hello all, 

My name is Richard and have been designing and selling kitchens and baths for the past 7 years. Love it! 

I have used 2020 design for the entire time, but this year have been looking to up my services. Have been researching several platforms and Chief Architect is one of those. 

Taking the K&B boot camp on the 26th and starting a trial. 

 

Are there any 2020 design users here that have feed back on your experience with CA? 

 

Thank you any feed back. 

[DBCooper]

I think there are a bunch of former 2020 users around so they will probably be able to give you better info than I can.  From what I have heard, Chief will crash less often and will be way more flexible as far as any customization is concerned.  It will also allow you to design a whole house so if you are doing more extensive remodeling then this will be really helpful.  I believe Chief has a lot fewer manufacturer catalogs and it isn't going to be able to do pricing and ordering as easy as a program like 2020 though.

[joey_martin]

You won't be able to beat 2020 for ordering and having up to date pricing.

You won't be able to beat Chief Architect for quick design and rendering. 

It's a fine line....

[MarkMc]

There are fewer cabinet folks on this forum than once were. There may be more over at Facebook where I don't go.

 

The short answer:

2020 is for you IF you are interested in high turnover/volume, low to mid range cabinet brands, don’t deal with much remodel of the space, consider a box store your competitor, don’t really want to invest much time in learning or setting up.

 

Chief is for you IF you handle upper middle to better brands (many don’t have 2020 catalogs), want to provide complete, better drawings (to get more referrals from allied pros), willing to invest time learning and setting up, want to outshine the competition, deal with the space/construction regularly, ever push the limit.

 

I used 2020 from version 5.1 to 9.1; exclusively for 9 yrs though supplemented it CAD, PDF, Envisioneer, hand drafting and spreadsheet to fix the dismal pricing. Once I got Chief is still used 2020 in a limited fashion to get item lists for a few years occasionally. My opinion is a bit harsh (and I drank CAs kool-aid:) 

I can't speak to the current version of 2020 though I did keep track of it until a few years ago. Back when I dropped it: support was dismal, stability bad, cabinet pricing unreliably inaccurate, responsiveness to user requested improvements was almost non existent. AFAIK all this was the same as little as 5 yrs ago based on friends forced to use it.

 

All of those are far superior with Chief, with the exception of pricing.

 

What CA does NOT have.

•  In CA the Mfg do do NOT have any cabinets in them which also means they will not OOB match Mfg nomenclature. You set up in cabinets in your user library and/or make Style Palettes for them.
•  Setting up nomenclature often needs to be specific to a Mfg and can get complicated if you want to automate it but there are ways.
•  CA does not do any pricing. For me this has been a non issue. For years I was already exporting item lists from 2020 to spreadsheet template order forms I made. In Chief I use cabinet schedules to copy and "paste special" into a spreadsheet to do the same thing. In each case I was looking up pricing in a PDF price list. The only difference is that with Chief I had to enter it all (copy/paste). For some brands it eventually became possible to use the spreadsheet to copy line items into an online ordering system quickly as long as the nomenclature is set up properly.
• There is an advantage to this system though. You become more familiar with costs and then are better able to adjust a job to meet a budget. You can also more quickly compare total cost of variations once you figure out a system to do that with a couple of clicks.

Things that CA has

•   A robust ability to import symbols, textures, create tile, use any countertop material you can find an image for, any appliance you can find a 3D file of.
•   Adjust textures, create door styles. I have not found anything I could not draw in Chief that can’t be built.
•   There are ways to check clearances of hood inserts into custom hood enclosures. Check clearnaces to part of a building, make sure you ductwork can actually be vented. Check clearance for drain pipes when changing locations of fixutres.
•   Far superior drawings and dimensioning abilities. Benefit below.

NOTE- the national average closing rate for GCS (Glorified Cabinet Salesman/aka KD) is 33%. I had a closing rate over 80%. This was thanks to cultivating a stable of allied professionals for referrals where the closing rate ranked in the 90s. Supplying better drawings than the other 30 sources for cabinets within ½ hr drive of me had the best ones come back over and over.

 

A personal note: I was laid off by a Wood Mode Cabinet dealer at the end of 09 during a recession. Got a 2020 license to freelance then coupled it with Envisioneer. Then I picked up an upper middle cabinet line. A year later I got CA. At a time when the many local dealers were opting to sell Chinese cabinets or knock downs I became a QCCI dealer. I immediately ended up with a whole house reno job from a designer I'd worked with; 6 rooms of highly detailed cabinets and two closets all done in CA. CA became a major factor in getting my dealership running and going. A decade later I was drafting jobs for a hi-end cabinet company involving 15 to 30 rooms of cabinets; none of which could have been done with 2020.

 

Many thanks to the folks in Coeur d'Alene.