Setting up for how you sell

Most shops print in more than one way, and FoxTrack has a place for each:

• Printing for a customer, a custom job or a sale: that is an order.
• Printing for your own shelf, to sell later: that is a restock run for your default pool, the stock you keep at your own place. Press Print for stock on the Orders page to make one.
• Selling through a store, a market stall or an online shop: that is a sales channel, with its own stock.

Anything you print again and again is a product on the Products page. A one-off custom job does not need one: it can be a free-text line on the order. Pick the sections below that match what you do. Filament is tracked the same way in all of them (see the last section).

For work you print when a customer asks:

1. Add the things you print often as products on the Products page. A new product starts as Made to order, which is right for custom work. On the Details tab, pick the spool in the Filament field and type the grams one unit uses.
2. Press New order and pick the customer. Set Type to Product to add items from your catalog, or to Service for a one-off job with a free-text description and price. Add a line per item. A Service line counts as a fee or a service, like a design charge, until you tick Print this line under it. Unticked, which is the default, it is not on the Fulfillment queue. The (i) beside it explains this. Ticked, the line is on the queue, on the job sheet and in the order's progress. A line that already has filament, a printer or a photo is printed anyway: the box shows ticked and cannot be changed.
3. Set the due date, and the priority under More. The order shows in the Orders list and on the dashboard board, and its print lines show in the Fulfillment queue.
4. Move it through your statuses as you print, pack and ship, then invoice it from the order.

To print pieces to sell later, for example 2 articulated dragons for your table, use Print for stock:

1. On the Orders page, press Print for stock, next to New order.
2. Pick the products and how many of each to print.
3. Set a due date and a priority, and add notes if you like.
4. Press Save.

Save makes a restock run for the Default pool and sets it to Printing, so its lines are on the Fulfillment queue at once (and on the Planner on Farm), and it opens the run page. A run with a due date sorts among your order lines by date, then priority. A run with no due date sorts after them. A run with a due date also rings the bell and shows under Upcoming deadlines on the dashboard, like an order. While the run is open, it is also listed on the Orders page in a block titled For stock, with its status, due date and priority. Click it to open the run.

When the pieces are printed, open the run and press Complete & add to stock. The pieces go into the product's stock and use up their filament.

To sell from that stock, set the product's How orders use stock to Hybrid (stock first, then print), under More: stock and variants on the Details tab. An order for it then takes pieces off the shelf first and sends the rest to print. Orders do not sell a Made to order product from the shelf, even when pieces are in stock.

You can also start a run from the Replenishment page: press New run and pick Default pool. Set its Due date and Priority on the run sheet, and they show on the run page. A run made there starts as a Draft, and its lines are not on the queue until you set it to Printing.

Say a customer orders 25 models and you want 7 of each: 1 for the customer and 6 to sell later. Keep the two apart, so the invoice and the stock both come out right:

1. Make the customer's order with a line per model, quantity 1, at their price, and save it. This is what they are invoiced for.
2. Open the order. In the More menu at the foot, next to Duplicate, press Print extra for stock. It shows when the order has a product line.
3. It asks Copies of each product. Type 6 and press Continue.
4. The Print for stock sheet opens with a line for each product on the order, at 6 each, the order's due date and priority, and the note Extra for ORD-0042 (the order's own number). Free-text lines on the order are skipped. Check the sheet and press Save.
5. That makes a restock run for the Default pool, already set to Printing. The order's lines and the run's lines are both on the Fulfillment queue, so you can print all 7 of a model together. Each line keeps its own status.
6. Ship and invoice the order. When the extra pieces are printed, open the run and press Complete & add to stock, and the 6 copies of each go into stock.

The order itself does not change, so its invoice and totals stay right.

A sales channel is a place you sell from that keeps its own stock: a store that carries your work, a market stall or a shop-in-shop. Add one under Settings → Sales channels: type a name and press Add. Log what it sold as an order on that channel, and refill it with a store run on the Replenishment page (the Replenishment topic covers the whole loop).

If you sell online, Settings → Integrations can bring orders in from Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce and CloudSlicer3D, so you do not type them. The Integrations topic has a step-by-step setup for each.

Filament follows the products you print, so set it once per product: the spool and the grams per unit, in the Filament field on the Details tab (on the Materials tab for a product with several variants). A product with no filament set takes no grams from any spool, unless you add filament on the order line. A From stock product does not track filament.

• Saving an order takes the grams for the pieces it prints from the spool right away. Pieces taken off the shelf use none. The Filament page shows what is on each spool, what open orders have promised, and what restock runs set to Printing will take at Complete (72 g for 1 printing run), so you see a shortage before you print.
• A restock run takes its grams when you complete it, not when you save it or set it to Printing. Once a run is Printing, its grams count as promised on the Filament page. A Draft run promises nothing. The run page warns when a spool holds less than the run's open lines need. If a spool is short when you complete the run, FoxTrack takes the rest from other spools of the same brand, material and color.
• For a print that is on no order or run, press Log usage on the Filament page. Prints on an order or a run are counted already, so do not log them again.
• Set a low-stock threshold on a spool to be warned before that color runs out.