I’m new to Manager, so forgive me if I’m asking for something that isn’t possible, but I’ve tried to look for this and couldn’t find it in either the forum or the documentation.
My business is selling hardware from different vendors, against different profit margins. These sales can be quite a lot of money, and it is happens often that I have to give a project discount to a client. However, in order to make a good estimation of the amount that I can give as a discount, it would be really helpful if the sales quote page gave me an overview of the total margin on that particular quote. I’m mostly using products from my database, so this should be a simple addition, right?
I’ve tried looking at tracking codes, but they seem to apply to actual invoices only, and here, I don’t have any expenses or revenue yet.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks!
Manager has no such capability. What you ask for is really cost estimating/pricng software, not accounting software. The first considers what might be. The second records what has happened. In my experience, they are seldom the same system, even at very large companies with customized systems. Pricing is frequently easiest to do with a spreadsheet so all the possibilities can be seen and explored.
Something very simple like a column for the items average cost (assuming inventory items) plus a calculated % margin column comparing that to whatever price you entered on the quote line doesn’t seem too far fetched given Manager does have a quote function. These would obviously not be printed fields on the quote document. Thoughts?
Yes, what alasdair said. It’s a very simple feature, and not unreasonable given that there already is a quote function built into Manager.
Using a spreadsheet would be far more cumbersome, if only because you would be doing double work on multiple occasions: both when creating invoices (you’d need to redo it in Manager to produce one to send out) and in maintaining your product database.
what you are asking is only simple to suggest but not as simple as you think to implement. what you are suggesting is only from your viewpoint. Manager is an accounting software and like @Tut said is not an estimating or pricing software. there is a lot difference between these.
if you are reselling products, you may think the expected profit is the difference of cost price and sales price. now suppose you are a manufacturer, your profit is based on many factors. you will have to consider the cost price, the labor, the transportation expenses, the bank interest if you are supplying on credit, and the list would go on.
i am sorry if you still think it is simple.
anyway Manager already shows the average price column for the inventory items in stock which would help you identify your profit margin with a small basic calculation.
suppose the average price of an inventory item is say 55 and you are selling 100 numbers for a price of 75, the profit is (75*100)-(55*100)/100 = 2000
With all due respect, but I know a thing or two about software development, and I think you are way overthinking this. Of course it is not up to Manager to factor in things like transportation or bank interest, especially not in this part of the program.
Since Manager offers the ability to produce quotes, and it can add the sales prices of the items that are on the quote to produce a cost price, it is not too much to ask to make a different addition, with the cost prices of all those items. It is up to the user to supply the correct cost prices in the product database. That’s all.
There are many accounting & ERP systems (all the way up to Oracle EBS) that display a very simplistic “Gross margin” on quotes based upon the inventory value (in Manager’s case that would be Average cost) of the item, compared to the sales price on the quote lines for whomever is entering it.
This would not be intended to be a full up ‘product profitability analysis’, which seems to be the concern to some. Rather for example: If your typical margins are 100% of your base item cost and the Salesperson doing the quote changes the price - at least they can see (I) oh, I dropped the margin to 50% or more importantly (ii) I just quoted a price that would result in a loss. What is being suggested here really is just something at that rudimentary level.
