Would it be possible to have the option to show Tracking Codes as a Column ?
We sell clothes of different brands and with the tracking codes I am able to track the revenue and profit for each brand. When entering a new item in the system, the tracking code will show as well, but not as a column under inventory items.
Having the option to show as a column, would allow me, when exporting the inventory items to excel, to make analysis of the stock, based on the brand, which would be very helpfull.
I think what you want would be better accomplished with a custom field. Tracking codes were originally conceived to monitor performance of divisions within a company, where revenues and expenses can be allocated via appropriate tracking codes. Trying to do brand analysis with tracking codes requires you to allocate all income and expense to one brand or another. The income might be feasible, but how will you allocate rent, electricity, legal expenses, etc. to a specific retail brand? Unless you segregate your business activities by clothing brand, tracking codes are not very suitable, in my opinion, for what you want to do.
If you use a custom field, which can already be set up to show as a column, you can export and perform all sorts of analyses in a spreadsheet after filtering by brand. I think you would have much more flexibility. Sometimes, accounting tools just are not very useful for product sales analyses, because you are not really analyzing accounting transactions, but rather analyzing secondary characteristics of inventory movement. Your goal is to provide a method for separating the right transactions for examination.
+1 vote for tracking code as column
on usage Tut is probably better equipped to advice, but having tracking code would be nice to have
Where would you show the tracking code as a column? By that, I mean in which tab? If you think about that question, I think you will recognize the difficulty behind what you suggest.
If you are thinking about a tracking code as a feature of an inventory item, that isn’t how tracking codes work. They are not associated with inventory items, but with revenue and expenses.
If you haven’t read it lately, I suggest rereading the Guide: Use divisions for the Profit and Loss Statement | Manager.
You could obtain that if you are using Item Codes by adding a prefix - so for brand “Chocolate” put “ch” first, this also has the advantage of grouping all those brand items together within the Inventory Items listing.
It wouldn’t with regards to operational expenses as this brand analysis would only be to the gross margin level, sales less cost of sales. This way, which brand is most / less profitable.
What would this provide that isn’t already on the Inventory Profit Margin report?
Your example, which appears to have been mocked up using a custom field, only illustrates my earlier point about doing what @Silma asked with custom fields. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see what showing tracking codes as a column in the Sales Invoices tab does for you.
Nothing, assuming that there were no other brand identifiable expenses being tracked by the user.
Usability, it allows quick identification of invoices/items without clicking on each of them and would be exportable.
I never said that I need it for brand tracking, i use it for different business areas, where I need to see P&L, however Silma never said that she needs it purely for stock analysis either.
I am a bit at lost with your hard stance hear, why can’t tracking code become a little bit more useful? Why you want everyone to enter same information multiple times, I do use tracking code + custom field and it would be really nice if I had less duplicate information.
@isklerius
Not possible, one invoice can have multiple tracking codes for the different line items, how would you show that? the column can display only one tracking code for each invoice displayed.
So if i used ten codes, what happens.
But Maybe the programmer can find a way to show it. It wouldn’t be bad.
Must admit I find the tracking code incredibly useful. I’m not an accountant - I just “do what I need to do” for my small not-for-profit. Tracking codes allow me to slice-and-dice so that I can track profitability or otherwise of our our cinema shows. Someone mentioned above how you would cater for costs which are spread across the organisation - I just apportion a pro-rata value to each show. So, for example annual insurance is spread across all shows in a year; the cost of programme brochures covering 6 months are accrued across all shows within that period. I’d even go so far as to say that without the tracking code I’d be lost … again, I’m saying this as an enthusiastic amateur who hasn’t the need or time to learn the intricacies of accounting. To me, the tracking code gives huge flexibility without compromising any accounting rules (he said, perhaps naively !)
This was, in fact, the original purpose of tracking codes. So you are using them as intended.
Actually, she did:
All my comments have been from that perspective.
I am not taking a stance at all, just explaining how and why the program works the way it does. Tracking codes simply were not designed for inventory analysis, but for business segment analysis. And I don’t want anyone to enter information multiple times. I’m just trying to suggest the most efficient way to use existing features of the program. Meanwhile, making tracking codes do something besides what they were intended for involves a lot more than just showing them in a column in a tab listing.
Comma separate distinct codes, how often you will get 20 different tracking codes on same invoice?
Nobody offering to remove it, suggestion was to improve visibility of tracking code.
I don’t think it will be too hard to implement your suggestion, the column for Tracking codes
It is not that important too me, there are workarounds, I should have created separate thread for my suggestion, because it got confused in different use cases now.
please do isklerius.
This was so helful. Now I understand tracking codes and how to empliment them.Thanks
Hi Tut,
But when I use custom-field as you suggest, I would miss the revenue and profit split.
Currently I am using tracking-codes, which works fine for me on this level.
But since you have to enter the tracking-code already when creating a new product (so each product already
is linked to a different tracking-code when creating it). I thought it would be a small step to just show this tracking-code in the inventory tab as a column.
Because by that, I would kill 2 birds with one stone. On one hand have the revenue- and profitsplit and on the other hand, export every product with the right brand-info, so that I could use it for further analysis in Excel.
If it’s not possible, then the option that Brucanna mentioned with the prefixes, would be an acceptable alternative.
