request for comments on inventory experiment

[Richard Mancusi]

On Jan 6, 2008 1:13 AM, Andrew Sackville-West
<andrew at swclan.homelinux.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 05, 2008 at 06:53:26PM -0600, Richard Mancusi wrote:
> >
> > The comments made about how to handle inventory are incorrect for
> > basic inventory - but PERFECT for a structured BOM.
>
> I was discussing one possible situation. My supposition was that if we
> implemetn basic inventory, then someone will want something more
> sophisticated, like this BOM (clarify please?).
>
BOM = Bill Of Materials  Sorry I tossed the other emails because I
thought, as you state below, this was not somthing you wanted.  I
will attempt to use what I think was an example given in this thread.
I believe it had to do with paint and brushes.  It appeared to be
an invoice of several items not an inventory part.  However, it could
be an inventory part if it were meant to be sold as one item - a
Painting Kit.  It could be represented by a simple BOM as follows:

Level  Part#  Description
1....  12345  Painting kit
 2...  48236  Paint, white
 2...  36172  Paint application kit
  3..  24538  Brush, 2"
  3..  24631  Roller, 8"
  3..  24825  Roller pan
 2...  77215  Paint prep kit
  3..  97331  Tarp, 8'x12'
  3..  89734  Making tape, roll 1"x50'

If you purchased this kit from your supplier assembled, there
is no reason to list all the parts on the Invoice.  If you
assemble this kit from your inventory you will want to know
the inventory status of each part.  You could even have it
in several salable sub-assemblies like a Prep Kit, etc.
hth

> In my opinion, more sophisticated inventory doesn't really belong in
> gnucash. And even basic inventory could quickly get out of hand. In my
> very small business we inventory something like 150 different items
> with on-hand quantities ranging from a few pieces to a couple hundred
> pieces. I really don't think it would be practical to track that
> inventory at the item level in gnucash. I imagine that larger
> businesses than mine would exceed those numbers by several orders of
> magnitude.
>
I don't think the basic structure of a BOM is overly complicated for
GnuCash.  However, I am not advocating its inclusion - simply
explaining its function.

> Tracking basic inventory is really better handled in POS systems for
> anything but the very smallest of businesses. It's much better, IMO to
> report out the changes in inventory value from some system external to
> gnucash and then just record the value of inventory.
>
POS for retail, MRP for manufacturing.

> But having said all that, I do think it's possible to track inventory
> in the commodity accoutns, or something very similar to it.
>
> .02
>
I see absolutely no reason that a fairly complex inventory system
could not be included in GnuCash.  You folks seem to have other
structure that could be used as its basis.  However, there are
many other things that could be included in GnuCash like a
Employee TimeClock program.  Just capture the hours and keep
track of a few basic things.  Not to cut cheques, etc.  I don't see
anything in Linux that does this.  You folks decide what comes
next - not me.

1.25 (I was verbose)