dolphinworx.com

What It Is

Dolphin Australia’s Dolphin 4 is a Print MIS / print estimating and production management system for printing businesses. The official website highlights that it has served the print industry since 1994 and positions the product as a customizable solution “tailored to your business,” covering workflows from quoting, production, inventory, and delivery through to reporting.

Core Features

Its core component is the Estimating/Quote module, which supports single-screen estimating, custom formulas, unlimited quantities and versions, templates, and matrix pricing. It covers scenarios including offset printing, digital printing, signage, labels, and packaging. The production module provides WIP tracking, real-time job status, inventory and finished-goods control, multi-warehouse barcode management, automatic invoicing, and delivery management. The Planning Board uses Gantt charts and grid views for scheduling shifts, dependencies, and estimated labor hours. Other modules include reporting dashboards, CRM, email/SMS notifications, electronic proof of delivery, and barcode tracking.

Integrations, Deployment, and Security

For integrations, Dolphin explicitly supports Shopify, enabling online orders to be automatically converted into quotes and production jobs, with real-time price synchronization. On the accounting side, it supports invoice and order synchronization with MYOB and Xero. Deployment is relatively flexible: Cloud Hosting is available, and there is also an entry point for self-hosted hardware requirements. Via Winflector, it can be run remotely on Mac, Windows, or in a browser. Security information is relatively limited: the site only mentions secure and reliable cloud hosting and secure credit card payments for ecommerce, but does not disclose details on compliance certifications, data encryption, backup policies, or permission controls.

Pricing and Service

The official website does not publicly list plans, pricing, licensing models, or a free trial. It only provides options to book a demo, along with an Australian phone number and email address. For MIS software, this usually means pricing is customized based on business size, modules, and deployment method, but the total cost of ownership cannot be assessed before receiving confirmation from sales.

Pros, Cons, and Who It’s For

Its strengths are its strong vertical focus and coverage of key printing-business workflows, making it especially suitable for print shops with complex quoting needs, many SKUs and production processes, and requirements to connect a Shopify online store with accounting systems. The main downside is limited public transparency: information on pricing, APIs, permissions, security compliance, and implementation support is incomplete. It is better suited to small, mid-sized, and larger printing businesses in Australia and other English-speaking environments. For users in China, access, payment, localization, and after-sales support remain unclear, so it is worth comparing it with PrintIQ, PrintVis, EFI Pace, or domestic print ERP/MIS alternatives during evaluation.