Packing jobs overview
Packing Jobs is for companies that pack their customers' goods, for example promotion packs for supermarkets. Your customer's goods stay counted as theirs, your packing materials come out of your own stock, and the deliveries are invoiced like any other sale.
Open the Packing Jobs group in the menu. It appears only when the company's plan includes Packing Jobs; your service provider switches it on. Without it, the menu group, the dashboard and the Packing rights are hidden.
How a job runs
- Quotation. Quote the price per pack on a normal estimate, with a "Packing charges" service item and the pack name as the line description. When the customer agrees, mark it Accepted.
- Job. On the accepted estimate, choose Convert › Create packing job. The job says what goes into each pack and which of your packing materials it uses. See Packing jobs.
- Receiving goods. When the customer's goods arrive, the store records them against the job, noting anything missing or damaged. See Receiving customer goods.
- Packing. Record the packs made, all at once or day by day. The customer goods used and your packing materials are taken out. See Recording packing.
- Delivery. Packed goods go back to the customer on a packing delivery, in one or several deliveries. See Deliveries and invoicing.
- Invoice. Bill one or more deliveries on a normal invoice, with VAT and e-invoicing as usual.
- Closing. Return any leftover goods to the customer, or carry them to the customer's next job, then close the job. See Returning leftover goods.
Customer goods and your own stock
The customer's goods are never part of your stock. They are counted, by quantity only, in a separate record for each job, and they have no value in your accounts. Their products are set up as customer items, separate from your item list, so they never appear in your sales, purchase or stock screens.
Your packing materials (film, sleeves, labels, boxes) are normal inventory items. Packing takes them out of your stock at cost, and that cost is shown against the job, so you can see the profit of each job in the reports.
The packing dashboard
Packing Jobs›Packing Dashboard opens a full-screen page, like the kitchen screens, for the packing floor and the office. It shows:
- Open job orders, late jobs and jobs still waiting for goods.
- Packs left to pack, packs made today, and packs packed but not delivered.
- Buttons for the screens the user may use: new job, receive goods, record packing, deliver, return goods, reports and customer items.
- The open jobs, earliest due date first; late jobs are highlighted.
To make the dashboard a user's start page, enter /packing-jobs as the default page of their user group (see User groups and rights).
Who can use it
The Packing Jobs rights are in their own section on the User Groups page:
| Right | Covers |
|---|---|
| Packing Setup | Customer items and the packing settings. |
| Packing Job | Jobs: create, edit, cancel; Modify also closes and reopens jobs. |
| Customer Goods Receipt | Goods received notes. |
| Packing Entry | Recording packing. |
| Packing Delivery | Packing deliveries. |
| Customer Goods Return | Return notes. |
| Packing Dashboard | The packing dashboard. |
| Packing Reports | The packing reports and the job statement. |
Quotations use the Estimate rights and invoices the Invoice rights. Each document also follows the user's branch and warehouse access.
Before the first job
- Create a service item such as "Packing charges" (see Items) and choose it in Packing setup and customer items.
- Set up your packing materials as inventory items, with a consumption account, and bring them into stock.
- Add each customer's products as customer items.
- Give the user groups the Packing rights they need.