A newbie - look up items and add to order

[rasg]

Hi All.

I've come back to FM18 after last doing anything with it back in 2011when it was FM11 but I can't remember much about it.

We have been offering a Thai food delivery service for a few weeks and it's getting bigger and busier.

I have 42 Thai menu items that I want to auto populate in text boxes to create an order. I have created a value list with the 42 items and I just want to type in a menu number, eg. 23 and it will add Red curry prawns item to a bill. The price is a box alongside the menu item. It also needs to call up the price of the item and complete a box alongside the menu item. I have created 15 items  in the form of a customer order which should be enough and I have the amounts totalling but they are not connected to the menu items and I have no idea how to do that.

Our clients are also on a list of around 160 people/addresses and I’d love to be able to do the same with them by entering just a name or address so it’s a speedy process. Are value lists the answer please?

I know Google is my friend and all that. It's knowing what to ask Google!

Thanks.

[Ocean West]

No value lists are not the answer -

A portal or a list view of your menu items is easier to select from to add to an order.

Or a field you type in to and it adds it to your order it will lookup the prices from your prices table. 

the Order will have order items each item can lookup the menu item and its price from a separate prices table.

 

Here is an example.

[comment]

You are describing a standard structure of:

Customers --< Orders --< Order Items >-- Products

Each of these entities should be a table. In this arrangement, an order can have any number of items. Once you select a product for an order item, the price should be looked up from the related record in the Products table. This allows you to change your prices without affecting past orders. Other details can be also looked up or displayed directly from the related record - depending on whether they need to be recorded as they were at the time of the order. The same thing applies to selecting a customer for an order.

 

[Ocean West]

Exactly - you can even extend things further such as attributes to each item - 

No	Item	Heat	Price
23	Red curry prawns	Medium	12.42

(great now i want curry for lunch - @rasg do you deliver to san diego? )

check out the sample starter solution File -> Create New -> Invoices that has an idea to get you started. 

[rasg]

Sadly, San Diego is a little too far for us! Thanks for the information.

Presumably, if I wanted to take this further, it's possible to pull the customer info from the contacts list on my Mac?

[rasg]

Is there anybody around here who would be willing to put a skeleton of the database I need so I can add the data etc?

Essentially 42 menu items. 42 prices. levels of spice. Price.

Name, first line of address and postcode.

When a customer calls or emails no typing needed. On an order page. Call up customer with name or postcode. Up to 15 items on an order with item name, price, spiciness and total. NO typing should be needed. TIA.

[Ocean West]

Send me your price list of the menu I’ll crack something together tomorrow 

[rasg]

HI Ocean West. Almost a year ago you shared a restaurant ordering system with me and it is still working well for us. Thank you.

I have a couple of requests that I need it to do and can’t work out how to do either.

1. When I print an order, we occasionally have a long name. eg. Massaman curry with tofu & vegetables. It simply will not print the whole name and there is space to do it.

Can the box expand onto another line when it prints. I've increased the size of the box and it still doesn’t work and there's plenty of room. The printed orders are the perfect size to stick loads of them on the order board so I don't really want them any bigger.

2. Is it possible to do a duplication of an old order to create a new one for today's date?

Still on FM Pro Advanced 18.

Thanks for any help.

Richard