Hi there,
I’m fairly new to Manager so I’m wondering if there is a way to create “virtual inventory items”.
I am running a small T-Shirt transfer business and would like to enter my different designs that will be printed on various T-Shirts (which are numerous in size and colours and already in my inventory) as a separate inventory item.
The “virtual inventory item” would - when selected as part of the sales invoice deduct certain quantities/cost from multiple other “real” inventory items.
e.g. a design might require 50cm of red vinyl or or 10cm of white and 10cm of blue vinyl material at a cost of x dollars per centimeter used for the design. When selected, this should then deduct the inventory quantity from the various materials as well as keep track of the cost.
Is there any way to achieve this with the current version of the software?
Thanks plenty for any help or a possible work-around that you might be able to offer!
More like how you record the cost and sales for clothe business.
In inventory you can either if skeptical and fussy about cost tracking, insert the unit by centimeters instead rolls. which again may not accurate and hassle to always re-adjust the inventory.
If calculate by rolls, calculate how many t-shirts sold until the rolls of fabric finished. then you compare the average against the cost.
something like selling a bag of rice or pieces of rice?
Thanks acecombat2! I think the inventory kit will work, since every design has a different requirement of materials - some use vinyl, others flock others neither but only ink or transfer paper. Thanks a lot for your help though!
I was under the impression that production orders was meant to be used for this kind of inventory.
Inventory Kit is meant for when you buy say white t shirts and red shirts and then you sell a pack of 5 mixed shirts at a different price from individual. So you make an inventory kit of 3 white t shirts in inventory and 2 red shirts from inventory.
However what you are doing is coverting material into a t shirt - so you are actually manunfacturing something not putting two or more inventory items into one sale item.
Your example is valid, @dalacor, and would probably be the best approach if the finished shirts were going to be stocked for sale. But that would mean writing a production order when a customer says, “I want this light blue T-shirt with that transfer design on it.”
My impression from @Current023’s posts is that these are one-off items, but that all the components are inventory items. Now that I think about it, though, you would have to create the inventory kits, too. So maybe it’s the same amount of work either way, unless there are frequent combinations that make inventory kits more labor-saving.
I must say, my wife was partially running a very small business like this. I help her with the numbers and, because everything she does are custom designs, I chose to use Production Order module because each product will not cost the same and will not be invoiced with the same price due to the cost of each product. Some products were the same but they used different amount and type of fabric, so the product wouldn’t cost the same. This type of accounting is interesting and a little bit complicated to maintain a sharp inventory, but production orders were a help in my case.
I would also give consideration to treating the transfers, vinyl, and similar items as consumable supplies and just expense them when purchased, rather than trying to inventory them. That way, all you need to worry about is the T-shirts. I suppose that decision depends on the value of the consumables, how long they are kept on hand before use, and what the lead time is for replacement. The example I often give is of a carpenter, who would not try to manage nails as inventory.
Thanks for all the help and ideas! I’ll be looking into both options (Production Orders & Inventory Kits) after having a good think about which one will be more suitable for the purpose. Once again - Thanks for all the input!
