Counting clothes
Keeping inventory has been a tricky issue right from the first day. When we moved clothes from the production unit to the store for the inauguration last August, I only had a rough idea of how many clothes we had (what can I say, I was new to this)! At the production unit I would write down how many garments I wanted tailored in each size on a fabric inventory sheet, but then depending on the fabric consumption some garments would get left out or made in excess. So when I made my garment inventory list from the fabric inventory sheets, I was only in the ballpark range.
Finally, with some help, we graduated to a system where I print out a list for each collection, and each list contains the style names, and the number of garments made in each size by style. When new pieces come to the store, my sales staff adds it manually to the list and every couple of weeks when I take a new print out, I incorporate their additions. We also keep an inventory book that shows the total number of pieces in the store at any given point of time, and each day it shows the number added to the store (new stock) as well as the number subtracted (sales). To find out the number of pieces in the store by collection, I would have to go through each collection list and count the remaining stock.
Next week my summer 2008 collection comes into the store. This means that we will now have 5 collection lists to keep a track of and I can only image how counting by style is going to get more confusing and time consuming (I am thinking of having a sale in August for the 80 odd garments leftover from the first two collections though). The next 6 months are going to be hectic- I have a monsoon-winter collection to prepare, a website revamp by September, and hopefully an exhibition in Bangalore sometime in November. But early next year my goal is to have an easy computerized inventory system (just hope there is something more user friendly than Tally around) - any suggestions and ideas are welcome.
On a different note, below is a photo of the kurta that I designed from the shibori fabric I had talked about in an earlier blog post.
Finally, with some help, we graduated to a system where I print out a list for each collection, and each list contains the style names, and the number of garments made in each size by style. When new pieces come to the store, my sales staff adds it manually to the list and every couple of weeks when I take a new print out, I incorporate their additions. We also keep an inventory book that shows the total number of pieces in the store at any given point of time, and each day it shows the number added to the store (new stock) as well as the number subtracted (sales). To find out the number of pieces in the store by collection, I would have to go through each collection list and count the remaining stock.
Next week my summer 2008 collection comes into the store. This means that we will now have 5 collection lists to keep a track of and I can only image how counting by style is going to get more confusing and time consuming (I am thinking of having a sale in August for the 80 odd garments leftover from the first two collections though). The next 6 months are going to be hectic- I have a monsoon-winter collection to prepare, a website revamp by September, and hopefully an exhibition in Bangalore sometime in November. But early next year my goal is to have an easy computerized inventory system (just hope there is something more user friendly than Tally around) - any suggestions and ideas are welcome.
On a different note, below is a photo of the kurta that I designed from the shibori fabric I had talked about in an earlier blog post.
Labels: accounting, inventory, shibori
posted by Anaka at
10:01 AM
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