Substrates, machines & outsourcing

Print capacity is materials plus machines. When either runs short, the answer is usually a trusted subcontractor.

Substrates

Print Shop → Substrates holds what you print on — paper stocks, vinyl, board, garments — with its cost, selling price, stock level, low-stock threshold and supplier. Each substrate is sold by the sheet, square inch, square foot, linear foot, garment or piece.

The selling price per unit is what the calculator charges, so keep it current as supplier costs move — an out-of-date price quietly under-prices every quote that uses it. Garment substrates can also carry an upcharge for larger sizes.

A sheet substrate can also hold a press-sheet size, the gutter between pieces and a waste percentage. With a press-sheet size set, jobs on it are priced and drawn from stock by the press sheets they need, spoilage overs included. The substrate's cost is what Reports → Profitability charges for material used.

Methods and finishes

Print Methods and Finishes define what you can produce and what each option costs. A print method also holds its decoration rates: the price per colour and the screen fee for screen printing, the price per 1,000 stitches for embroidery, and an ink price per square foot that jobs with an ink coverage percentage are charged. Keep them honest: an option offered in the calculator is one a customer can order, whether or not you can deliver it well.

Stock and reordering

Stock & Reorder shows each substrate's level against its low-stock threshold, with recent usage alongside. Stock is drawn down when a job goes into production — by area or length for substrates sold that way — and put back if the job is cancelled.

Set the threshold from your supplier's real lead time rather than the optimistic one — a run halted waiting on stock costs a machine slot as well as the job.

Machines

Machines lists your equipment with the print method each runs, its throughput per hour and its setup time, which the schedule uses to size and place work. Machine Maintenance sets a service interval for each machine and flags servicing that is overdue; unplanned downtime on the constraint machine disrupts every job behind it.

Outsourcing

Outsource Vendors keeps the subcontractors you use, with contacts and the services they offer. Mark a job as outsourced, choose the vendor, and record what it costs you and the date the vendor has promised it back, so the work stays visible on your board rather than disappearing into someone else's queue.

Once the cost is entered, Create vendor bill raises an Accounts Payable bill to the vendor for the outsource cost, due on the promised date where one is set. A job has only one such bill, so pressing it twice does not bill you twice. Creating the bill needs permission to update Accounts Payable.

Price outsourced work on what it costs you plus your margin, and agree a promised date with the vendor that you can commit to your customer. The outsource cost also appears in Reports → Profitability.

Prepaid customer credit

Customer Credit keeps a prepaid credit balance for each customer. Deposits and refunds add to it, charges against jobs draw it down, and a charge larger than the balance is refused. To use it on a job, choose Apply print credit on the job: no more than the balance owed or the credit available is applied, and the credit comes back automatically if the job is cancelled. It is not a credit line: a customer you bill later is handled at pickup by releasing their job on account, which raises an invoice for the balance. Print credit is separate from the register's Store Credit — one can't be spent as the other.

Blank stock by colour and size

For garment substrates, the colour-and-size button on Substrates keeps a count for each colour in each size — add a colour across every size in one go. Jobs draw from the bin for their colour and sizes when they go into production, alongside the substrate's overall stock, and Order blanks on a job uses these counts to work out what to buy. Set a supplier on the substrate so the purchase order knows who to go to.

Pricing names and numbers

On a print method, Price per name and Price per number set what each name and number on a job's names & numbers list adds to the price. Leave them at 0 if you don't charge for personalisation.

Note: your business can rename menu items (Settings → POS Configuration → Menu Labels), so the names in your menu may differ from those shown here.