Joinery / cabinet CAD-design + quoting tool
When the joinery design tool hits the operating-system ceiling.
Honest take
We're not anti-Procraft. We're anti-mismatch. Here's where Procraft is strong, and where the gap is.
CAD-design integration is the core competency — visual cabinet design driving the cutting list is what Procraft is built around [1]
Cutting-list and panel-optimisation output for the saw / CNC, generated directly from the design [1]
Familiar in the SA joinery market and well-known among kitchen / built-in cabinet shops
Strong visual fidelity on the client-facing PDF — what you design is what the client sees
Built around design + cutting list, not as a whole-business operating system — once the design is signed off you leave Procraft for everything else [1]
Per publicly available Procraft documentation, native production-stage tracking, QC checkpoints and a client progress portal are not part of the documented feature set [1]
Pricing logic is anchored to the design rather than to a shop-wide shared rate catalogue and material-cost ledger
Margin and variance reporting is per-quote — not closed-job actuals across the business
Native two-way sync with cloud accounting (Xero / Sage Business Cloud / QuickBooks Online) is not part of the public feature list at time of writing [1]
Reality timeline
Procraft's core. The CAD-driven cabinet design and the cutting list it generates are genuinely good — this is what the tool is built for [1].
Slabr opens up here — the accepted quote creates the job record, reserves materials, schedules stages. Procraft's output is the cutting list; what happens next on the floor is not in scope per its public documentation [1].
Slabr tracks stages with capacity, blockers and risk-to-install. Procraft does not document an operational floor layer — coordination defaults to whatever you used before (whiteboard, WhatsApp).
Slabr's client portal shows progress, photos and pay-by-card invoice. Procraft's public-facing output is the design PDF / cutting list, not a live client view.
Slabr surfaces quoted-vs-actual variance per closed job. Procraft has no closing-loop reporting documented.
Side-by-side
| Capability | Procraft | Slabr |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinet CAD design + parametric library | Yes | Partial |
| Cutting list generation from design | Yes | Yes |
| Per-shop shared rate catalogue | No | Yes |
| Configurable wastage % per material | Partial | Yes |
| Margin guardrail blocks below-target sends | No | Yes |
| Quote-to-job conversion in one click | Partial | Yes |
| Production stage tracking on the floor | No | Yes |
| Client portal with progress + photos | No | Yes |
| Native Xero / Sage / QuickBooks sync | No | planned |
| Closeout snapshot — quoted vs actual | No | Yes |
| WhatsApp Business integration | No | Partial |
| POPIA / SARS / Rand defaults | Partial | Yes |
Common questions
Many shops do — and we recommend it during transition. Procraft for cabinet CAD design and cutting-list generation (the thing it's genuinely best at), Slabr for the rest of the business: shared rate catalogue, quote-to-job, production stages, client portal, closeout margin. Some shops consolidate over time as Slabr's template library covers more of their typical cabinet work; others keep Procraft permanently for the design step.
No — and we are honest about that. Slabr has a reusable quote-template library that covers common cabinet structures, but it is not a CAD-grade parametric design tool. If complex parametric cabinet design is your core daily workflow, Procraft (or a similar CAD-design tool) is stronger there. Slabr starts adding value at the next step: turning the accepted design into a real job with materials, stages, floor handoff and closeout.
For shops moving the operations layer (not the design step) into Slabr, most are quoting and running jobs within a week. The bigger lift is loading the rate catalogue, labour rates and quote templates — typically a 2–3 day project for one person. Procraft can stay in place for the design / cutting-list step indefinitely if that's what your team is used to.
Yes — from the accepted quote, Slabr generates a cutting list with material allocation, panel-source tracking and stage handoff. It is generated from line-item geometry, not from a CAD model, so it is closer to "what to cut" than to "how to nest". Many Procraft + Slabr shops use Procraft's nesting output for the saw and Slabr's allocation for material reservation and floor tracking.
Sources & footnotes
Specific implementation costs and timelines vary widely by project size, customisation and partner. Numbers on this page are illustrative — drawn from the public industry research below, not from internal Procraftdata we don't have.
Primary source for Procraft's documented feature set. Used to verify CAD-design + cutting-list claims and to scope every "no X" trade-off honestly.
Backs the "design-tool-plus-spreadsheets" failure mode described under Production / Closeout.
Industry context for cabinet shops outgrowing CAD-only quoting tools.
Set up a workspace, run your next quote in Slabr, keep Procraft where it adds value. Most shops know which way to go within two weeks.
