# Accounting and inventory management system for online sales



## tkster95 (Aug 11, 2011)

Hi everyone,

I'm a screen printer looking to set up an accounting / inventory management system for my business.

I have a retail line of shirts / hoodies that I sell through my website, ebay, etsy, and bonanza.. I also sell my line wholesale to a few shops around my neighborhood.. as well as 1 consignment deal I have with a company. 

I also offer printing services to companies around my neighborhood. I print employee shirts for a few local pizza shops etc.

My main focus in business is on the retail line. I'm beginning to see an increase in sales and at the same time I'm expanding the line. 

Currently I have about 60 designs that I print on a variety of different apparel options.. men's and women's shirts (small - 5xl), hoodies, crewnecks etc. Some designs are offered on different colored shirts, and some designs have different ink colors to choose from. All things considered there are 100's of different options that I offer.

I keep some blank inventory on hand that I use for my line. I also sometimes use this blank inventory for the printing services that I offer.

I also keep some printed, ready to sell inventory with my more popular designs.

With all the different options and channels I sell through I'm starting to feel overwhelmed and I haven't even bought the software lol.

I'm a bit worried that since my business is split between two functions; the retail line and the printing service, its going to be very difficult to account for and keep a running inventory.

I've been researching a lot on how to set it up and keep it organized but since I don't have the program in front of me I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I realize I'll have to define each item separately. For example, an extra large men's orange tee would be: MTORGXL or something similar... but my question is; when I make a purchase how would I get that into the system? Am I going to have to manually go in and enter every blank shirt I buy? I purchase blank shirts from sanmar and a few other distributors.. seems most of the companies offer an excel formatted breakdown of what you bought. How would I get their formatted breakdown to coincide with how I name and organize the blank shirts? Would I have to name my items in accordance with how sanmar does? What if two different distributors name the same items different?

What about other products I purchase; ink, tape, screens, mailers etc. etc. 

Another thing to consider... what about employee expense? I'm currently doing this all on my own and haven't employed anyone yet, but my hopes are that in the near future I will have to due to increase in sales!! Lol, I can dream right? Would quick books account for that too?

Also, as far as making sales on ebay and etsy.. there are many factors to consider... The color, size, style and cut of the blank shirt, as well as the design that was printed on it. I'll also have to consider the price I sold it for, the fee I paid to ebay or etsy, the taxes collected, shipping collected, and amount I paid to ship it etc etc. I'd also like to collect customer information at this point such as item's bought, repeat customers, trends, email address etc. Am I going to have to do all this manually? I'm hoping there is some sort of way to just link up with ebay and etsy to download all the sales and organize it, pull the sold items from the blank inventory list and then keep track of everything. If I have to manually input everything I'm afraid its going to take forever and be riddled with inconsistencies and mistakes.

I'm fully aware that its going to take a while to set this all up, but I'm hoping that once I do set it up it'll run as smooth as butter. And then adding new shirts and options to my retail line will be nice and easy. I'd like it to take all my purchases and sales and factor my profit or loss, as well as taxes collected / owed. Not sure if i'm pipe dreaming or not lol. 

I'm assuming that quickbooks is the best program to use for this. However i'm not sure what product of their to go with. Pro, premium or I saw a $1,000 one for mid sized companies that I was wondering if I needed. They also offer some with a monthly fee, not sure if I'd need that or not though... hoping not. I'm also on a mac and from what I saw on the site, that may limit me to the Pro version. Is that's true, i'm afraid that the pro won't have all the functionality I need. 

Any help would be appreciated. Not sure if I should talk to a business consultant to set this up for me. I don't even know if there's someone that offers this sort of help, and if so how much it would cost. Anyone else ever been in my situation? 

Thanks for taking the time to read!


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## hrishi82 (Apr 9, 2014)

Nice information here for accounting and inventory management system for increasing online sales. And I think its necessary to have for any business.


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## joey1320 (Feb 21, 2012)

It seems to me like you're stretching yourself too thin, which may lead to some issues. 

If I was in your position I would do the following, I would split your retail (personal brand) inventory and the other apart. Treat them as two separate businesses. 

This way you can hopefully keep track of the inventory for one and another inventory for the other. I see this as maybe more work upfront, when setting up all the initial info, but once split I think it will be easier.

As far as your personal brand and the large amount of designs and garment combinations, it will be up to you to decide on slimming down the options.

Think of it as the food channel shows, where they go in to help out a business. Usually what you see is a 7 page menu with over 200 items and a complete mess in the kitchen because of it. Not saying that your business is a mess, just saying that so many combinations can be daunting. 

To make it easier, maybe trim back some designs or color/garment options and push forth the ones which are selling more. I understand wanting to get as many sales as possible, but by having so many different choices, you may be actually losing a sale since people can't make up their mind.

So maybe look at what's selling the most bright now, let's say top 20 designs, and what sizes and colors and then work off those numbers. 

Best of luck!!!

Sent from my HTC One X using T-Shirt Forums


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## Printavo (Oct 7, 2007)

Just google searched but maybe? Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Inventory Management


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