PLEASE NOTE: The database uses the font ESPY SANS & ESPY SANS BOLD from Apple Computer.
Without them it won't look to hot!
What Does It Do?
Simply it's used to calculate prices and track jobs and customers for a silk screen T-shirt printer, a contract T-shirt provider, or anyone who wants to start their own T-shirt operation. It also helps you make more money by getting organized. Well that is what it does for us.
An Introduction:
This database is a 3 part(file) database built in FileMaker Pro. DO NOT CHANGE THE NAMES IF YOU WANT IT TO WORK CORRECTLY! I have taken the liberty of locking the names so they cannot be changed accidentally. I built this database for many reasons. One of them was basically because I needed it. The others being that I wanted to practice my interface design as well as a multifile approach to creating a database. The main file is the PROJECT file. The other two CUSTOMER and VENDOR are just used for holding respective info. If you do need to start a new job you have to do this from the CUSTOMER file. This ensures that you have them in your customer file. It is possible to start a new job from within the PROJECT file, however, it is not recomended.
This database is a very straight forward and simple approach to calculating prices and estimates for T-shirt and other garment related sales. It can be used not only for silk screening but for embroidery as well. I have tried to make the interface as simple as possible yet still very powerful.
The Documentation:
Well there is very little documentation at this point I am afraid. Hopefully the online documentation will suffice for right now. Eventually I will have much more due to the accumulation that started with this document. I can offer advice in starting your own T-shirt shop but you may have to be patient as I get really busy sometimes. There may be some spelling errors in this Read Me as well as in other places. I had to get this together in some sort of rush. The database, in its current form, is provided as is. If you order a copy for yourself then I will send you the access code and you can customize to your hearts content.
Who Am I?
My name (as seen above) is Matt Petrowsky. I used to be a student just a couple of semesters ago. Now I, with some other friends, run a pretty decent T-shirt operation. We do some retail and a little wholesale along with some mail-order. I quickly realized that I needed to automate some things to become more profitable. Guess what? It worked. I have had this database, or at least a very unfinished version, sitting around for a couple of months. So I decided to clean it up a little and submit it to the net community. And here it is. Enjoy.
Customizing:
The files are password protected. If you would like to customize a version for yourself so that you can print out the nifty invoices with your business name and logo then you can send $20 US to the address found in the database itself under the credits layout. The invoices went through a lot of changes and I finally felt that they were clean enough to use in a commercial environment. You should print one out and see if you can understand it even if you aren't allready in the screen printing industry. If you find any quirks or bugs that you would like to see changed then just send them to me in e-mail.
The Future:
There are many things that I would like to implement into this database. However, at this time I am learning to set up FoxPro databases because I need to integrate this type of database into a mail-order type of environment with a relational type structure. From what I hear Claris will be making FileMaker 3 a relational release. That is be greatly welcomed. I will be adding the following features, but not as quickly as I would have previously. I would like to add these features;
1. The ability to force a price based on a margin entered.
2. Profit calculations. Fields that will show you projected profit based on the deduction of costs.
3. Job scheduling.
4. A printable layout of current projects in progress. Currently the only forms to print are the invoices.
5. A forceable discount field if a job needs to be discounted.
Thanks again for downloading my database. Hopefully you may find some use for it. If not for its functionality maybe for the cool icons(so I think). Feel free to use any of them anywhere you want.
