FileMaker Begginer - Footwear Inventory Management

[jamiechese]

Hello everyone, I wasnt actually too sure where to make my thread, but I figured in the relationships section would be best as this is the topic en which my question pertains!

Alrighty, so here is a little introduction first...

At the moment I am currently working for my father updating his companies website with new product and what is currently available for that product. I want to be able to keep a specific inventory of the product and what items are still available (an inventory system). The main issue is that my dads stores specialize in the shoe business and as I have found out I have no idea where to start in regards to how to keep track of a shoe inventory in FileMaker. I know its possible, I just cannot quite understand the theory in how to go about it!

Here is what I want to keep track of:

Manufactuer

Item #

Shoe Name

Shoe Colour

Shoe Sizes Available

Now I know that...

Shoe Style : Shoe Colour : Size are relational and that Colour/Size are "attributes" to the style

My main concern is how do I setup a functioning database to track what sizes are available in certain colours.

How do I keep track of all these sizes for different colours and styles, do I have to keep creating tables for each style or would I use value lists? How would this work?

I am a complete beginner at FileMaker and understand that it can be quite complicated, I have been reading up on it and do intend on getting a license for my fathers business once we have worked out that this software is viable and worth it for the business. If it ends up requiring that I hire a professional developer to get this type of thing up and running I will do it, but I would first like to atleast try to go about understanding how these items will function in FileMaker.

I am not looking for a complete rundown on how to proceed, but if anyone can give me even a nudge in the right direction on the methodology/theory behind creating a complicated relational database system like this would be greatly appreciated!

I am definitely interested in learning lots more about FileMaker and feel that if I could even do this inventory system on my own would be awesome!

Thanks!

James

[comment]

I am not sure I understand your question. Inventory is a matter of counting what came in minus what went out. If you want to know the remaining quantity in terms of model/size/color, then obviously you need to record every inventory movement in those terms.

[Vaughan]

How do I keep track of all these sizes for different colours and styles, do I have to keep creating tables for each style or would I use value lists? How would this work?

Usually there is a Products table which stores the different kinds if things you keep in stock. It is a business decision, for example, whether you keep track of every single type of item (eg, Oxford shoe size 9 black, Oxford shoe size 9 brown, Oxford shoe size 8 black, Oxford shoe size 8 brown) or whether some grouping can occur (eg keep track of the shoe type and color but not size). Obviously there will be a lot of records if each and every shoe has a record for type, color and size but they are necessary if you want to be able to track exactly what your stocks are. By that I mean see how many Oxford blak 9s there are, not just the number of Oxford Blacks in any size. Each product will have a unique Product ID used to build the relationships.

You'll also need Inventory table to track incoming stock and outgoing stock. These inventory record will be linked to the Products table by the Product ID.

You could also turn this into an invoicing/sales system by adding customers and invoicing, but now it's getting into a very large project.

[jamiechese]

Thanks for some advice guys, I will try to make my issue a little more clear, and maybe I could even do something simpler...

Here is another possibility (As this software aims to only track whats on the site, so basically I only need to know a few things)

Say for example I have "Clarks Unstructured Drizzle in Black", I know it would definitely be less of an issue to only track

what size is left, I dont need to know how MANY are left....

Say in our physical locations I have.

5 5.5's left

5 6's left

Using filemaker, I am only interested in tracking that I still have ATLEAST one 5.5 left, it doesnt have to include how many are left. Basically, I want to track

product on a single size basis per COLOUR...here is what I would want filemaker to do

Clarks UNstructured Drizzle Black

- Keep a table of what sizes I have left in each (Not the AMOUNT of shoes in each size)

- So when entering the NEW product I want the ability to select what sizes it comes in which is then kept in a table for later, so when I need to I can refer back to that table and take

out a size if we have none of it left.

- Ability to have a layout where I can pull put a shoe style and see what I have checked off for which sizes are left.

Does this help in being able to make this possible in FileMaker?

[comment]

it would definitely be less of an issue to only track what size is left, I dont need to know how MANY are left....

I don't think this has anything to do with Filemaker as such. Try to figure out how you would handle this using a notebook. To take a simple example, say I start with 50 T-shirts (one size fits all), 30 of these are black and 20 white. So far, I have sold 49 of those. Now, do I still have 1 black left? There is no way I can answer this if I didn't write down the color of each shirt sold.

IOW, you cannot know "what size is left" if you do not know "how MANY are left".

[jamiechese]

Ok, lets change how I am trying to explain this, Am I able to create a simple true/false checklist of shoe sizes "5/5.5/6/6.5" and relate that to a shoe style?

Ex:

5 - True

5.5 - False

6 - True

Would that mean seperate databases for each colour?

I guess I over complicated the situation, so is it possible to do something like a simple true or false list and relate it to each shoe ? (ignore keeping track of diff amounts of sizes etc, that is not what I want my DB to cover, as we already have an inventory system for our physical locations, what I need is a system where I can keep track of what I have put on our website based on a simple checklist)

[comment]

Yes, of course you can - but I am missing the part of how that checklist is going to get checked or unchecked. Do you plan to do this manually, or what?

The other point is that with two attributes, e.g. color and size, you cannot simply use two checkboxes because Size 5 = True and Color Black = True does not necessarily mean that you have size 5 in black.

[jamiechese]

I know that earlier on I specified that I wanted to do a detailed inventory tracking system. I have changed this because right now I realise that the ONLY thing I need to track for our online website is Shoe Style/Colour/and basically whether having a size is true or false. Also, yes these checkboxes will be manually done BECAUSE the only reason I need to know whether a size is checked off or not, is to reference whether or not we have that specific size in that style (not quantity wise though, the fact that we HAVE carried the shoe in THAT specific size, via checkbox is good enough).

[comment]

So what exactly is the question now?

[comment]

BTW, I suggest you take a look at the attached file - perhaps it might provide some of the answers.

SummarizeInventory.zip