Manufacturer setup — start to finish

If your shop produces pieces in-house (cast, set, polish, etc.) rather than just buying finished goods from vendors, walk through this once and the rest of JewelTrak’s manufacturer features unlock. ~15 minutes.

Step 1 — Enable the Manufacturing feature

Go to Settings → Features and turn on Manufacturing. This unlocks:

• Production Orders subtype on /purchase-orders (for outsourcing to casters)
• “My Designs” view on the Styles catalog
• Production module entry in the Inventory nav
• Manufacturing Details fields on each style record
• Bulk-recompute cost action on My Designs

The flag is per-tenant. Off by default. Flip it on; everything else cascades.

Step 2 — Create your own company as a contact

You need a contact row that represents your own company. JewelTrak uses this to distinguish your designs from vendor styles.

1. Go to Contacts → New.
2. Set the Company Name to your shop’s name.
3. Check the Vendor flag (so it shows up in vendor pickers — your shop is “the vendor” of its own designs).
4. Save.

You can use an existing contact if you already have one set up for your business.

Step 3 — Point JewelTrak at your contact

Go to Settings → Org Settings. Under Business Type you’ll see a new dropdown labeled Our Company Contact. Pick the contact row from Step 2. Save.

Without this set, “My Designs” falls back to showing designs with no vendor link — works, but isn’t really filtering by ownership.

Step 4 — Set your unit cost defaults

Same page (Settings → Org Settings), find Metals Pricing. Fill in:

• Default Gold Cost (per dwt or per gram — whatever you use)
• Default Silver Cost
• Default Gold Casting Labor Rate

These are the per-unit prices the bulk-recompute action multiplies your designs’ weights against. Update these when bullion moves.

Step 5 — Build your first design

1. Go to Inventory → My Designs. (You’ll see it’s empty.)
2. Click + New Style.
3. Fill the standard fields: Style Number, Description, gold purity/color, etc.
4. Set the Vendor field to your own company contact (the one from Step 2). This is what makes it a “design” rather than a vendor style.
5. Find the new Manufacturing Details card (only visible because Manufacturing is on). Fill in:
   • Gold Weight + Gold Cost (the $ value of gold at current rates)
   • Silver Weight + Silver Cost if applicable
   • Stone weights + Stone Costs
   • Setting + Polish (labor lines)
   • Retail Markup % (your standard markup over cost)
6. On the Stones tab, add the per-stone specs (5 round 2mm diamonds + 1 oval 4×5mm sapphire, etc.).
7. Save.

The design is now in your My Designs catalog.

Step 6 — Recompute when bullion moves

When gold or silver prices shift significantly:

1. Update Default Gold Cost / Default Silver Cost in Org Settings.
2. Go to My Designs.
3. Click ↻ Recompute Costs at the top right.

This iterates every design in My Designs and recalculates GoldCost = GoldWeight × current Default Gold Cost (and same for silver). Vendor styles aren’t touched. Existing StockIDs in inventory aren’t touched (their cost basis is locked in from when they were produced).

Step 7 — Run your first Production cycle

1. Go to Inventory → Production.
2. Click + New Production Job.
3. Check Make from a saved design and pick your design. The description and expected BOM cost auto-fill.
4. Set the Quantity (1 for one-off, N for a batch).
5. Save.
6. On the detail page, add Stages as work happens (Casting / Setting / Polish, etc.) — assign each to an in-house jeweler or outside vendor with cost + due date.
7. Allocate Stones from your stone inventory. They decrement at allocate time and re-credit if you remove them.
8. When the work is done, click Complete & Create Inventory. This spawns N StockIDs in your inventory with the accumulated cost (stages + stones) as the cost basis.

How the cost basis works

Every spawned StockID carries PurchasePrice = (total stage costs + total stone costs) / Quantity. That’s a point-in-time snapshot. Once the StockID exists, its cost is locked — future gold market movements don’t retroactively re-cost a piece you already made.

Where to outsource

If you send the work to an outside caster instead of producing in-house:

• Don’t create a Production job. Instead go to Purchasing → Production Orders (only visible when the Manufacturing flag is on).
• Create a PO with Type = Production, vendor = the caster, lines = the styles/quantities you want made.
• Send the PO. When the goods arrive, receive them through the standard receipt flow. Each received unit spawns a StockID with the PO’s unit cost as the basis.

Related

• Production — module overview, list of jobs, stages and stones tracking.
• Vendor Styles & My Designs — how the styles catalog splits for manufacturers.
• Workshop Monitor — kiosk view that includes Production jobs alongside Repairs and Custom Jobs.