Creating an inventory program...

[Daniel]

Webmonk,
here is my present situation. I sell pretty much anythign from P.S.I. and CSUSA. Customers are able to order the kit they like in a selection of materials limited by me.
as sales have progressed my inventory has grown in a nonsensical manor determined by what my customers have ordered.
my needs are to be able to kep track of what I have on hand as opposed to what I will have to order. both in pen kits and blanks. being able to inter a pen that was just ordered and havong a program tell me if I should have it would be my biggest interest.
care sheets and info sheets that I could send along with the pen would be nice. but inventory period is my primary concern.
cost of inventory would be a big second. the rest of the frills are just that frills. they woudl be nice but not a necesity. thanks for putting your time to this.

 

[webmonk]

Let me make sure I have this right... You want to enter a completed pen you have an order for (for example, Platinum Slimline Twist Cocabola). The program would then say something like "You have 10 Platinum Slimline Twists in stock, but you're out of Cocabola." And looking more at the dynamic view, it would give you advanced notice saying "You're down to 3 cocabola blanks. Time to re-order!"

With the base inventory system as it is, I'm pretty sure I could add that functionality. I'll keep it in mind when the time comes.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Jon

 

[webmonk]

Hey folks!

We're getting closer - close enough to need a name! Any suggestions for what you'd call such a program?

Thanks for the support!
Jon

 

[baldysm]

It would be a good idea to add functionality that allows you to keep track of where your inventory is. I have several consignment agreements with retailers. As inventory moves around, to me, to them, and back and forth, I use a colored background on the spreadsheet to designate where the pen is currently.

 

[webmonk]

I can certainly see that being useful. Any suggestions on everything you'd need to keep track of to make it useful? Would it be enough to just have a location tag like "Brand X Antique Shop" or would you want to keep more information about each location?

Along those same lines, would anyone have a need to track kits/blanks like that? I don't think it would work for me because my stock is small enough that I have a massive drawer with a pile of kits and a shelf full of blanks. However, folks with thousands of parts may have use for location tracking of specific parts. Just a thought... If anyone actually thinks they'd use that let me know and I'll throw it in.

Jon

 

[webmonk]

I've gotten some great suggestions on making a "Description/Info Sheet" and need some ideas on the types of things we'll be tracking.

First, here's the concept:
You should be able give your customer a printed sheet with information such as a description of the materials and finish used, care/cleaning instructions, getting and changing refills, seller info and thankyous.

What I need is suggestions on what else would be useful to have on a sheet like that.

Thanks!
Jon

 

[webmonk]

Quick note: The system has moved into open beta - www.penventory.com

 

[webmonk]

The system now features image support for completed pens by way of external links. I decided an quick and easy solution is to store a URL along with the pen allowing you to link to a gallery image or your online store page for a specific pen or anything else really. I see more advanced features coming for it, but right now I think it's a good solution for the current system.

 

[swiftden]

I thought this was going to be a program you downloaded. Not one that was part of a web page ?

 

[webmonk]

Nope. Web applications are much easier to provide to a wide variety of users for much less work. This way, I can write it once and maintain it in one location. A stand-alone program would need to be much larger, infinitely more complicated, and have to be compiled many times in various ways to allow very many people to use it. So now not only can you use it from just about any platform/OS (i'm using Linux this morning) but you get the benefit of sharing the workload with other users.

 

[kenwc]

Jon,

I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet. But would it be possible to create a function within the application that would allow a user to extract their inventory data to their local machine either directly into Excel format or into a text delimited file that could be opened with Excel and parsed?

 

[webmonk]

Certainly. I'll add that to the to-do list.

 

[thewishman]

What a fun and easy-to-use inventory program! Thank you for the idea and the execution - what an amazing turn-around time!

My wife's company could use your talents, do you consult? Seriously.

Chris

 

[webmonk]

Thanks for the nice compliment, Chris! I'm glad you like it.

Yes, sir. I'm available for consultation. Feel free to email me at jon@centralridge.com if you'd like to discuss.

If you can think of anything this program could do to make your operation run smoother, just let me know and I'll sneak it in there.

 

[Papabear]

Jon, just discovered your program and its a heck of a nice start. Any chance of getting accounting going? Perhaps paypal invoicing? Virtuemart integration?

 

[Mikey]

Wow, thanks for bumping this up. I just created a password and added a few pens. That is really sweet and as long as one inputs the supplies and such when they get them in, the tracking and inventory works pretty cool.[8D]

 

[toolcrazy]

What a very cool program, I also noticed you wrote it in perl. Why not PHP? [][]I can't say that I would ever use it as I don't have web access in my shop so using your program would be, at the least inconvinent. Especially when my shop is on the other side of my property. I may take your design and recreate it in Access and use my laptop. Well, maybe not. We will see.

 

[schaf]

Hi Jon,
Just signed on to your peninventory.com and it looks great,I will certainly use it.Thank you.
In the add new pen section,I was looking for a spot to record ,mandrel type ,bush number and drill size. Is this possible at present,or would a new field have to be added.
Regards Terry.

 

[schaf]

Sorry,I take it all back.I just read the help page.
What a dill I am.
Regards Terry

 

[Mikey]

Quick question for those using the system.

When entering in your costs, are you adding the retail price of each thing like a kit or blank, or using what you paid?

For example, if you got in on a CSUSA group buy, are you figureing the actual cost with the 25% discount, or just putting in the published price of a kit? (or blank or whatever)

Do you do the same with blanks?

What do you all do when you get the same kit from different suppliers? Do you just use the most used supplier, or do you create something new with each supplier? (Cigar pens for example)

 

[DCBluesman]

As a CPA, cost is cost ... what you paid for something or else the fair market value if obtained in trade. As for inventorying kits like slimlines and cigar pens from different manufacturers, most accountants prefer to see them separated as their may be subtle differences...like if you only by 24k from Woodturningz but buy platinum from Arizona Silhouette.

 

[Mikey]

Originally posted by DCBluesman
<br />As a CPA, cost is cost ... what you paid for something or else the fair market value if obtained in trade. So, You would put the same kit into the system 4 times if you bought for different pricing? (as an example, a Gent kit from CSUSA- Bought for full price on a small order, bought for another price using an e-mail special, and a third or evn fourth from a group buy As for inventorying kits like slimlines and cigar pens from different manufacturers, most accountants prefer to see them separated as their may be subtle differences...like if you only by 24k from Woodturningz but buy platinum from Arizona Silhouette.What I meant by that was if the kits are the same. For example, if I buy a Cigar kit from Berea, it could be the same thing as a Cigar kit from AS or the same kit from WPP with the only difference being price paid and company you bought from. There is no difference in the actual kit itself. IMO, it would be kind of foolish to keep a listing going of 3 cigar pens all being the same. (plus, you would probably have them all in one bin, which would suck when trying to figure out which one you just made into a pen.)

 

[DCBluesman]

I haven't reviewed the system you are using thoroughly, but most inventory systems I've worked with can be set up for either specific part inventorying (usually for the big stuff like engines for a car repair business) or for average cost inventorying (like the assorted belts, bolts, etc.) There are other methods which are too numerous and detailed to put on a site like this. I would tend to use the latter...all of my cigar kits of one plating are in one data element that increments the quantity and price I paid for the items, then decrements by the quantity and average cost when I use an item. Much like websites, you can make your accounting as simple or as complex as you wish. I even received an email offerring me a crafters accounting system in the mail a few weeks ago. The price? A mere thousand dollars! It will track everything. I figure that if I spend all of my pen making time keeping the books, I can just about keep the system current. [8D]

 

[American_and_Proud]

I was basically wondering the same exact thing myself, I have a very tiny inventory as i'm just starting to collect kits and wood on sale. but I put in the full retail price for eack kit that way i'd know how much the kit would cost me if I had to get that one kit when it was not on sale, or the little program here would get awful confusing, did I give a pen away from things on sale,or parts of it on sale? I just figured adding full retail costs would keep me more stremlined for now. some things I got on sale , most actually, but some I just bought to give it a try, I have only made 9 pens tho so far, waiting on a Beall Buffer to arrive bought used, do I inventory it at the used price or what it would cost me to replace it? To me it would seem logical to add them all at full retail because getting it next time it might not be on sale to replace it, its not like gasoline pricing were if your selling pens that your going to raise or lower prices accordingly on a daily basis? I bought 112 dark walnut pen blanks on ebay, for 20.60 shipped to me,( basically for practice turning , i'm new to turning) do I divide that 20.60 by 112? I left that ones cost blank, but was thinking putting them in at 1.00 each as thats what they would cost to go buy at Rockler or Woodcrafyt on any given day. I'm not a pen Business though so doing it for "BUSINESS" purposes might be totally different for tax reasons? Maybe then you NEED to keep it 100% accurate. I'll watch this thread closely and see what others are doing.

Originally posted by Mikey
<br />Quick question for those using the system.

When entering in your costs, are you adding the retail price of each thing like a kit or blank, or using what you paid?

For example, if you got in on a CSUSA group buy, are you figureing the actual cost with the 25% discount, or just putting in the published price of a kit? (or blank or whatever)

Do you do the same with blanks?

What do you all do when you get the same kit from different suppliers? Do you just use the most used supplier, or do you create something new with each supplier? (Cigar pens for example)

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[Mikey]

Lou, may I ask what system you are using that will average the costs paid when you enter more kits? (or are you just using an Excel spreadsheet?)

That would be a great system if it would keep a running total of all costs and average and yet still remove the stuff from inventory and allow yo to only enter a kit once and still make changes. Better yet if it costs less than a grand.[8D]

 

[webmonk]

Hi Gents! Sorry I haven't replied - apparently something happened to my subscription to this topic so I didn't know anything was going on!

@Papabear: Thanks! I would love to look into that in the future, but there is yet still quite a bit I want to do focused around inventory tracking.

@toolcrazy: My day job is as a perl programmer, so I wrote it in perl because that's what I'm best at and can tackle large chunks of the system quickly in my spare time. I don't have internet in my shop either (well, technically I have wireless in there but I wouldn't want to expose my laptop to that kind of dust! ) but so far I haven't really found it to be a problem. I do inventory check-in and finished pen entry in my office where I do the photos and billing from anyway. For me the shop is just where I store parts and make the product. Whenever I take inventory I just use the printable list function and take a hardcopy out to the shop.

@schaf: Good idea about the bit size! I'll put that on the to-do list. I've got a bushing tracking system down on paper that I've been planning to knock out when the weather gets bad and I'm not able to do all the house remodeling I've been tasked with. Unfortunately, the winter has been extremely mild so far this year so I haven't had an excuse to laze infront of my PC!

@Mikey: The way I use it is with average cost per kit type. For instance, to me a 24K slimline is a 24K slimline regardless of where I get it (as long as the kits are identical) but a 10K slimline, etc. slimline are all different entries in the kit section. I'm not so concerned with tracking cost to the penny, so I just average them out. If I buy 5 kits somewhere for $1.00 and 5 more from somewhere else for $1.50 I just call it $1.25. Later, if I buy 10 more for $1.00 again I just bump down the kit cost until it feels about right.


Thanks for the feedback guys and let me know if there are any specifics that would make it better for you.

Best,

 

[webmonk]

Heya folks!

Just wanted to put out the word that we could still use a few more data entry volunteers. We're covering good ground, but a few more hands could get us done in no time. There are currently 166 pen kits (unique part numbers) entered into the master list and lots more to be entered. Contact me through the board or email me at jon@centralridge.com if you're interested.

What's the use of putting that stuff into a database? The list of reasons to do it is long and distinguished, but for me the main reason is efficiency (read saving time and money). Here's a glimpse of how it helps me:

I'm still new to turning (started maybe 9 months ago) so it's not really second nature yet on which kits are out there and which bits/bushings I need, etc. Using this resource I'm now able to get Penventory to instantly tell me which kits are out there for me to turn (less time searching, more time turning). It even knows which bits I have and can show me only the kits that I won't have to buy any extras in order to turn (helps me find variety without spending extra dough). Plus I can filter the results to, for instance, see only the platinum fountain pens or the entire line of Gentleman's kits.

So even if you're are unable to volunteer to do data entry, come on over and try out the search/suggestion system (go to www.penventory.com and look for the news bullet). As always, we appreciate the feedback and any suggestions on how Penventory can be improved to make your turning life easier!