Materials and stock: paper, vinyl, substrates and ink

A print or sign shop holds stock in three shapes. Sheets, rolls and boards. Software that tracks stock has to cope with all three, and with the fact that a roll doesn't run out in neat whole numbers.

Words you'll see

A substrate is the base material that something is printed or coated onto.¹ Paper is the obvious one, in many varieties: lightweight, heavyweight, coated, uncoated, paperboard and cardboard.¹ Sign shops add vinyl, rigid boards and fabric.

A stock item in the software is a record for one material. Good ones hold a name, a size, a unit of measure and a supplier, plus a cost.

Sheets, rolls and boards

Each shape counts differently.

Large printers for banners and signs mostly feed from a roll, not single sheets.² A roll job uses a length of the roll's width, so the software needs to work in length or area, not just units.

Ink and consumables

Ink is harder to tie to a job. Most shops buy it by the cartridge or bag and use it across many jobs. Ask whether the software estimates ink use per job, tracks it as a general cost, or leaves it out.

Ink also affects which material you can use. For aqueous inks, one reference notes that all materials must be properly coated to accept and hold the ink.² So a software field for "compatible with" can save a mistake, though you'd need to fill it in yourself.

Stock levels and reorder points

Software for inventory is used to track inventory levels and stock movement.³ Many inventory systems support a reorder point, the stock level at which you should place a new order.³

For a small shop, check three things:

• Can you set a reorder point per material?
• Does the software warn you, or do you have to check a report?
• Can it list the materials needed for jobs already booked, not just what's on the shelf?

The last one catches problems early. A shelf can look full while three open jobs are about to use most of it.

What each job used

To know what a job really cost, someone has to record what it used. Job costing involves tracking which job uses direct expenses such as labour and materials.⁴ There are two ways to get that into the system:

• From the quote. The software assumes the job used what was estimated.
• From the floor. Staff record actual use, including waste.

The first is quick and often wrong. The second takes more effort and shows you where quotes miss. Many shops use a mix. Ask which the software supports and how easy it is on the shop floor, for example on a tablet next to the machine.

Connecting stock to quotes

Your quote should pull the cost of a material from the stock list. If you change a supplier's price, find out whether old quotes change as well. They shouldn't. Look for a way to keep the price a quote was based on.

Supplier orders

Some products raise a purchase order from a low-stock alert. Others only tell you stock is low. Ask which one you'd get, and whether orders to trade suppliers can be linked to a job.

A few tests for any demo

• Add a part-used roll and run a job through it
• Cancel a job after material has been counted
• Add a second supplier for one material
• Export the stock list to a spreadsheet

If the product can't do these in front of you, assume it can't do them later.