How to track filament stock without a spreadsheet

Each spool gets its own record: a number, a shelf and the grams left on it. Set one low-stock line for each brand, material and color. After each print, update the weight, or let your orders do it.

Why the spreadsheet stops working

A filament sheet is right on the day you fill it in. After that it is only as good as the last update, and nobody updates a spreadsheet in the middle of a print. Weights drift, empty spools stay on the list, and you find out a color is gone when the job is already sliced.

Step by step

1. List the filament types you buy

Before you count spools, write down the types: brand, material, color, the net weight of a full roll and what you pay for one. This list changes slowly, and every spool you add later starts from it.

In FoxTrack this is the Filament catalog on the Filament page. Add a type with its brand, material, color, roll weight, price per roll and a minimum weight. You can search SpoolmanDB, a public community database of filaments, to fill in the details.

2. Give every spool a number and a home

Each physical spool gets its own record. The number tells two rolls of black PLA apart, and the storage location (shelf A3, dry box 2) tells you where to find it.

When a restock arrives, open the Filament catalog, select the type, set how many rolls came in and press Add filaments. FoxTrack copies the type's details onto each new spool and numbers them for you. For a single spool, New spool opens the full form.

3. Weigh the spool

A roll that looks half full can be nearly empty. Put the spool on a kitchen scale and take off the weight of the empty spool. Weigh one empty spool of each brand you buy, once, and write that number down. What is left is the number you record.

4. Update the weight after every print

This is the step that fails in a spreadsheet, so make it as short as you can. After a print that was not part of an order, press Log usage on the Filament page and pick the spool. Then type what the print used in Used (g), or choose I weighed it and type what the scale shows, less the empty spool, in Weighed (g). Grams left shows what FoxTrack will save. The same dialog updates the storage location and the last dried date.

For small corrections, each spool row has minus and plus buttons that change the weight in 50 gram steps. Each spool also has a label button that prints a QR label. Scan it with your phone and that spool opens in FoxTrack, so you can fix the weight standing next to the printer.

5. Let your orders take the filament off

If most of your filament goes into orders, the orders should reduce your stock by themselves. Give each product a bill of materials (which filament, how many grams per unit), or add a filament and its grams to a one-off order line. When you save the order, FoxTrack takes those grams off the spool. Editing the order reverses the old amount and applies the new one, so nothing is counted twice, and deleting the order gives the filament back.

Because an order takes its grams when you save it, before anything is printed, a spool can be full on the shelf and still have nothing free. FoxTrack shows both numbers side by side, for example 820 g on the spool, 1105 g promised to open orders. When a print fails, Print failed on the order line takes the lost grams off the spool and sends the line back to be printed again. Press History on a spool to see every change to its weight and which order or print caused it.

The link between orders and stock is also a big part of how 3D print sellers keep track of orders.

6. Set one low-stock line per filament type

A warning per spool is noise: with three rolls of white PLA, one of them is always low. The total for the type is what matters.

Set a low-stock threshold in grams, and FoxTrack applies it to every spool with the same brand, material and color. When those spools together fall to or below the line, a warning icon at the top of the Filament page opens the Low stock list with a breakdown per spool, and the bell shows a notification. Leave the threshold blank for types you do not reorder.

7. Keep the price with the spool

When each spool carries its price, you know your real cost per gram. FoxTrack uses the spool's unit price divided by its spool weight as the cost per gram when it costs a bill of materials. That cost per gram is the material cost in our guide to pricing 3D prints.

Moving over from your spreadsheet

You do not have to retype it. Import CSV on the Filament page loads spools from a CSV file, with columns for brand, material, color, color hex, diameter, quantity in grams, spool weight, unit price, low-stock threshold, storage location and notes. Save your sheet as a CSV, import it, then weigh any spool you are not sure about.

Questions

Do I need to weigh a new spool?

No. A sealed spool holds the net weight printed on its label. Weigh a spool once it has been opened and used.

How do I weigh the filament without the spool?

Weigh an empty spool of each brand you buy, write the number down, and take it off the scale reading each time. If a brand changes its spool, weigh a new empty one.

What low-stock threshold should I set?

Enough filament to cover the prints you will run between placing a restock order and the delivery arriving. A color you print every day needs a higher line than one you use once a month.

Can I track filament from my phone?

Yes. Print a QR label for each spool. Scanning it opens that spool in FoxTrack after you sign in, and you can change its weight there.