I’d like to be somewhat vague because my job is somewhat niche. For my job I made custom products that are made up of subcomponents that cost me either by the foot, by the pair, or individually. So a particular product may include 5 feet of X, Y and Z, a pair of V and 1 of T and U. Then I add a bit for profit.
Right now I have a somewhat simple spreadsheet that has all my components and their costs listed which are then referenced on other sheets. The problem is adding or removing components is a real pain in the ass because I’d have to edit each and every sheet.
I’d like a better system where I can create a new product then from a drop down or something pick all the relevant components and enter how many of that component I need. Then create a quote that I can email to a client that lists the final cost of a bunch of products.
I’d prefer this to be a, open source web app but it can be a desktop application.
I’d agree with others, I don’t think you need a custom “app”, you just need to upgrade your spreadsheet skills. That’s probably the easier path here.
Theoretically you could make your components variables and just point your sheets doing the calculations at those variables. So you just change value of your variable, and your sheet re-does the calculation.
The only reason I’d recommend doing something custom is if you’re building a client-facing form. But even then, a simple Google Form that points at Google Sheets would work.
Please, even if you yourself don’t care about privacy, please don’t recommend google sheets to people. Those who care about privacy can’t view them without giving it up.
Cryptpad sheets, framacalc, grist, ethercalc are alternatives, most of which (if not all) support collaborative editing, formulas, and selfhosting.
You can create a drop down box in excel https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-a-drop-down-list-7693307a-59ef-400a-b769-c5402dce407b
Create a master list of component, price etc
Reference this master list in your other sheets
This one, definitely just do some learning on how to better utilize Excel.
I’ll take a look a that, thanks.
As others have said, this is something you could probably do in a spreadsheet, but I would expect that to become unwieldy as your business grows and/or your BOMs start getting bigger. You might want to look into some sort of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. There are some open source options that you could run yourself. However, ERP systems are comprehensive suites of tools for operating a business, which might be a lot more than what you need right now.
Yeah I was recommended ERPNext and another BOM webapp on reddit. ERPNext’s installation instructions are ridiculous while the other (I can’t remember its name, maybe indabom?) had bizarre design decisions like needing to restart the service if I decided to change the theme.
There’s no need to complicate it like that. You just need to learn to use a spreadsheet properly.
That sounds like the kind of stuff we make at $dayjob (that’s for the building trade, where they often have complex spreadsheets and going to an app that calculates everything down to the number of screws for them is a huge benefit).
You could probably still do it with a spreadsheet, just have parts list add/remove fan out into the cutting list and update automatically. I imagine it’d get quite ugly, but doable. If you want to do optimisation (buy 1 5 foot length and cut rather than 2 2 foot lengths, because it’s cheaper, for example) it gets even uglier and at that point a bespoke app becomes more sensible.
I’ve considered making a bespoke app myself either using C# or with Python and QT but I don’t have much experience with the later even though it would be more cross platform friendly.
I’d say write it for yourself then worry about the cross platform later. You can always go back and rewrite.
