Suisoft Kitbase Review
by Ian Shumsky
- Manufacturer: Suisoft (http://www.suisoft.co.uk/)
- Price: £14.99 for full version, free for reduced functionality version. NSMC members receive a 20% discount on full version
- Version Reviewed: Full release, v1.10
Introduction
Several months ago Newbury Scale Model Club was contacted by the daughter of an elderly modeller who had recently passed away. She was looking to sell on his kit collection as there were no other modellers in the family and she was looking for some advice, valuations and a possible buyer. When I discussed this with my wife later she admitted that she would not know what to do in a similar situation and that maybe I should consider making a list of my kits and putting some sort of value against them. I started working first on a spreadsheet and then on an Access database, but due to other commitments this mini project was never finished and my collection remained uncatalogued.
A while later the Club was contacted by Suisoft asking if we could help publicise details of a list of modelling magazine articles hosted on the Suisoft website. Through this I became aware of Suisoft’s KitBase and after some further reading began to think that this could be the tool that I had tried to build at the beginning of the year.
Review
So what is KitBase? Simply put it is a computer program for recording information about the kits in your model stash. Through careful design of the underlying database, KitBase provides many ways to track your collection from purchase, through build to display.
I found the download and installation of KitBase quite straightforward and the process should be very familiar to anyone who has installed any Windows programs. The download itself is a relatively small file at just over 2MB and download was very quick on a good speed network. Given the size of the file it would be quite manageable to download over a 56KB modem if that is all you have available.
To install the program you just double-click on the download and follow the simple on-screen instructions. There are not many install options, though KitBase doesn’t need them. One option that is missing though is the ability to specify if desktop icons or start menu entries are created or not. There is also no option to enter licence key details at this stage, but we’ll touch on that later.
The first time I ran KitBase following the installation I was presented with a simple screen for selecting the database I wanted to use.
Normally you will just leave the default settings alone and click ‘OK’ to continue and have KitBase create a new, blank database for you, however this screen allows you to specify an existing KitBase database to use which allows you to move database between machines. As I was performing a new install I used the default options, though I did change the location of the database to assist with backups.
Following the database selection screen I was presented with the normal, but blank, KitBase screen.
At first glance this seemed rather bare, but as I hadn’t entered any information yet there wasn’t anything to show! There is a big message to help get you started and once I had located the ‘Add’ button and clicked it, I started entering details of my collection.
I found creating a ‘kit’ record was quite simple and was mostly a case of selecting entries from drop down lists and typing a few words. There are not many mandatory fields and in fact you only really need to enter 3 pieces of information for a kit, namely kit type, status and scale. If a dropdown list has a small square with an asterisk beside it you can change the list of options presented in the drop down and so customise the list to match your needs. This option is present on many of the attributes so you do have a lot of flexibility to modify KitBase to match your own needs. The default entries in the dropdowns are mostly aircraft related, so being mostly a 1/35 scale armour modeller I did have a little work to do here!
The bottom half of the Kit Record window contains four tabbed sections, Details, Accessories, References, Paint References. Again, entry of data into any of these is optional, but the more data you provide, the more you will be able to get from the software. The Details tab allows for recording information about the value of a kit, when it was acquired, etc. and is the source of the scary details when you run some of the reports later! The References and Paint Reference are free-text areas which allow you to enter any information you may wish.
The Accessories tab is also a free-text area that is intended to be used to record additional purchases (such as photo-etch kits, replacement tracks, resin cockpits, etc.) that you may have acquired to enhance your model. Personally, I found the handling of AM items to be the only area where KitBase didn’t do what I would have liked it to do. While the free text approach may suffice if you only have a couple of AM items, it doesn’t really allow you to track your AM items in the same way as your other kits (including reporting on their value), and link them to the target model. Personally I would prefer to keep a separate ‘kit’ record for each AM item so I can record purchase price, market value, etc. for each, then have the concept of a ‘project’ where you can link kits, figures, AM items and other KitBase entries together. Thankfully, Suisoft have stated that the handling of AM items is going to be one of the major enhancements in the next version of KitBase, scheduled for the end of this year or early next year.
Once I had entered the information for a kit, I had a complete kit record.
It took me a few pleasant evenings going through my collection, checking what was in the boxes and populating the KitBase database. The only downside to this was having my wife watch over and seeing what I actually had in the stash! I have to admit that at the end of the exercise I was very surprised with the number of kits, figures and other bits and pieces I have collected over the past few years.
Once you have entered details into the system, the real power of using KitBase over something like a spreadsheet becomes clear. First, you can filter items in your kit base by any of the selections at the top of the screen, for example:
But the real benefits come from the numerous inbuilt reports. Reports are only available in the full version of KitBase, so if you have not already done so you will need to enter your licence information. This is a nice approach which allows you to use KitBase and get a feel for it without having to pay up-front, and then if you are comfortable with it unlock the best bits. It is not immediately clear where you can enter licence info, but if you are familiar with MSFT applications you will have an idea. Simply click on the ‘Help’ menu option, then on ‘Enter Licence Code’ to be presented with the screen to enter the details.
Reports are accessed by clicking on the Report menu option and the selecting the type of report you want to see. The main report I used was the ‘by kit manufacturer (with values)’ that is a rather scary report telling you how much you have spent and what you collection would cost to replace! Not one to share with your significant other! Once in the report pages you can further refine your data selection for the reports and even export the data to Excel if you want to present the data differently.
It was looking through the reports I came to realise the diversity of my collection and, more worryingly, that replacement cost for the kits! I did find the base report list a little limited however I didn’t find much of a need for alternatives to the canned reports. Suisoft have indicated that they will be increasing the number of reports in the next release.
While it may sound odd, KitBase is not a finished product and Suisoft issue regular enhancements to the product to fix any bugs and to include new functionality requested by the KitBase user community. Aside from the tracking on AM items mentioned above, I didn’t think that there was much missing from KitBase. There are always slight improvements that can be made, such as being able to duplicate existing entries, but none of these detract from the product or make it unusable.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that this is a niche product in a relatively small hobby, however in KitBase, Suisoft have produced a comprehensive application the anyone with more than a handful of kits will find useful. This isn’t simply a spreadsheet with a few bells and whistles, rather a powerful kit reporting database that allows you to carefully track and manage your collection, right through from purchase, through storage and build to display. The product is not perfect, but Suisoft are committed to releasing updates on a regular basis to address items raised by the KitBase user community. From a personal perspective, I have found that I use KitBase a couple of times a week, and now that I have it, I’m not sure that I could do without it!
Recommended.
Many thanks to Gary Marples and Suisoft for the KitBase review sample.
