Granite and Grain Woodworks

Overview

Granite and Grain Woodworks is an invented workshop of five makers in a unit on an industrial estate. They build dining tables, chairs, stools, benches, shelves, bookcases and chopping boards from oak, ash, walnut and beech, and make kitchen doors, drawer fronts and worktops to measure. About ten gift and homeware shops buy boards, coasters and shelves at a trade discount, interior designers order kitchens and furniture for their clients, and members of the public buy from the workshop's showroom and website.

Every product has a bill of materials: the timber, sheet, fittings, finish and packing that one of it takes. Small goods, chairs and shelves are made in batches to keep a stock on the shelf. Tables, bookcases, worktops and kitchen doors are made to order, so each order line of them gets a work order of its own. Planning a work order sets its materials aside, starting it takes them from stock, and the makers book their hours to it each day until it is finished.

The records cover fifteen months up to the morning the file is made, with orders already taken for the weeks ahead. Shops order more boards before Christmas, kitchens slow in August, the workshop closes between Christmas and New Year, and timber prices went up part way through. Some deliveries are late, most of them in January after the break or when a maker was off sick, and a few trade customers pay late. The buyer orders twice a week for the work starting in the next fortnight, so a job further off can show as a shortage until it comes closer.

Made-to-order work is quoted first: a quote for a kitchen or a table is sent, and when the customer says yes it becomes a sales order, linked back to its quote. About half of the quotes for one-off pieces come to nothing, and a few are always waiting for an answer. Every delivery is invoiced the same day with VAT at twenty percent on the goods and the delivery, and prices in the records are before VAT.

The workshop prints six documents from the file: the quote, the VAT invoice, the delivery note that goes in the van, the purchase order sent to a merchant, a statement for each account, and the works order sheet that goes on the bench with the list of materials the job takes.

Use it to see how a bill of materials, stock and production fit together, or start from it empty for a workshop of your own.

In Rutba Data Files, choose Workshop or maker on the start screen, then With sample records to look around, or Empty for the same design with nothing in it.

It suits, with small changes

• A cabinet maker or joiner
• A bakery's production side
• A print shop
• A sign maker
• A soap or candle maker
• A garment or textile maker
• An electronics assembler
• A metal fabricator

Read on

• Tutorial: the everyday tasks: 7 everyday tasks, step by step, each naming what to open.
• Tables, fields and relationships: every field of 19 tables, and how they are related.
• Queries, forms, reports and print templates: what each one shows, its criteria and calculated columns, and when to print it.

Starting with your own records

Start with Business: your own name, address, VAT number and bank details, which every document prints. Then Suppliers, then Materials with their units, costs and reorder levels, then Products, and then the Bill of Materials for each product. Fill in each product's Material Cost from the Costed bill of materials query. Add your Makers and Customers. After that, Sales Orders and their lines come in as you trade, Work Orders are raised for them, and the makers book Time Sheets as they work. Keep In Stock, On Order and Allocated up to date as deliveries arrive and work starts, or count once a month and correct them.

Questions people ask

How do I print an invoice I sent last month?

Open Print templates, choose Invoice, and pick the order by its number or customer. Every order prints, whatever its date. To find the order, look the invoice number up in the Unpaid invoices query or the Sales Orders table.

Why is there no Invoices table?

The workshop invoices each order once, on delivery, so the invoice's fields sit on the sales order and its lines are the order's lines. If you invoice in parts, add an Invoices table pointing at Sales Orders, with lines of its own.

How do I give a designer their trade discount?

Set Trade Discount on the customer (0.1 for ten percent), and copy it to Discount on each quote and order line. The invoice shows the discount on each line.

Where do I see how long a job really took?

The Work order costs query lists work orders finished in the last 90 days with the standard hours beside the hours booked on time sheets, and what the labour cost.

What does Allocated mean on a material?

It is what is set aside for work orders that are planned but not started. Free stock is In Stock plus On Order less Allocated; when that falls to the Reorder Level the material shows on the Reorder list.

Can I take a deposit on a commission?

Not as the sample stands. Add Deposit and Deposit Paid On fields to Sales Orders, and take the deposit off the balance on the invoice with a total row in the Invoice print template.

How do I start my own workshop from this?

Make the sample empty, fill in the Business record with your own name, address and VAT number, then add your suppliers, materials, products and bills of materials, as Starting empty describes.