Opening a lot?

[John Ralls]

On Oct 23, 2012, at 5:29 AM, ArtBra New Haven <artbra at hyre.net> wrote:

>   Dear GNUCash:
> 
>   I'm keeping the books for a small charity, and this year we've
> started selling T-shirts.  I want to use lots (I think) to keep track of
> what we've sold, by size.  I've read pretty much everything I can about
> lots (bugs, e-mail archives, wiki, but not the code---I glanced at it,
> but I'm hoping I don't have to dig in) and I understand the beta
> (alpha?) status of the function.  I want to try anyway.
> 
>   However, I can't populate a lot.  I try Actions > View Lots, and get
> a window in which I can push a button ``New Lot'', and get one listed
> with default information, but there seems to be no way to edit it.
> 
>   I've read that only stock accounts can have lots, so I've created a
> Small Embroidered T-shirts account, of type FUND, traded in units, and I
> can enter a transaction to buy shirts, but when it comes to creating a
> lot out of them, or creating a lot and filling it with a purchase, I'm
> stymied.
> 
>   What am I missing?

That Gnucash is an accounting program, not an inventory management program. The Lots function is for calculating capital gains on stock sales, not for keeping track of T-shirts. It's not very flexible and won't really do what you want. 

You can bend Gnucash to your purposes, I think, but you'll have to do everything manually, and if you want to track inventory separated by lot as well as line item, you'll have to either maintain a sub-account for each lot or use another program. For a small operation with only a few line items, a spreadsheet will work.

Anticipating your next question, no, I'm not aware of any FOSS inventory control programs.

Regards,
John Ralls