5. Creating a Custom Products

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Creating a Custom Product

Creating a custom product is just like creating a standard product. No real difference. However you may want to consider the product type and the coding process.

Just like standard products, custom components can be created directly via the sales order screen. When you are creating a quote for a custom component you can start by creating the quote and then at the add product stage, press new and create you custom component from there.

Components for the Product will likely be new components which can also be made on the fly from the Product Editor. These components can be set as Speculative Components if you are not sure on who you will finally get the component from.

You will find two Product codes in your system that are blank canvases designed to be used as the base product for custom products. The codes are CUSTOM and CUSTOM-CLUB

These two Products are designed to be used as custom products for one off work or for when you are quoting and don't want to add in components unless you get the job. Lets examine the screen shot of the CUSTOM Product.

1. There are some instructions in the Manufacturing instruction to help the sales person remember what to do. These instructions will print on the Job sheet unless the sales person deletes them.

2. The Mark Up is set high so that you can capture extra profits for the effort of selling something not standard. You can change this to what ever suits your business.

4. There is a funny component sitting in the Bill of Materials called Custom. This is actually a safety net component that alerts the stock manager if it is not removed and the real component needs are not added.

The idea here that when you add this Product to a sales screen you are supposed to add the components that make up the custom product you are making. (You can add them via Modify Product and in modify product you can create new components allowing you to build a custom product requirement from the Sales Screen.)

If you add the Custom Product to a sales order and do not add in the needed components and leave the CUSTOM component in the bill of materials then the components for the job are not being set to order and the customer will not get satisfaction or at least you will run around at the last moment like a Blue Nosed fly to arrange the stock needs. However if the CUSTOM component is left in the BOM the stock manager will get pending order for it this will instigate an investigation that will uncover the need to order something, hence we call this a safety net component.

So this Products - CUSTOM-CLUB is designed for club level customers that do not want a standard sports trophy but rather they want to make up their own design using standard parts. (You know the type)

Your normal mark up for sports trophies might be 200%. The custom club trophy is suggested to be set at a higher than normal mark up top make up for the extra time involved in taking the order.

The theory behind this is that when a customer want to make up there own design you end up spending more time in the showroom and ultimately more time on the assembly bench so this kind of product requirement should yield a higher mark up.

Everything you are reading here entirely suggestions and you can change all mark ups and products to whatever suits your business model.

1. Custom Products should be set by the Product Type Custom Products and not by the type of product such as Glass Trophy.

1. Your Product Type Glass trophies Price list will end up with custom products that are customer specific.

2. Because it is a custom Product you might consider that you should mark it up at a higher rate. Custom made Products usually require more admin time when selling and usually much more production time so really, you should make more money from a custom Product.

If you Mark Up a Glass trophy by say 300% and a customer wants a custom design made you might consider mark up of say 500% to cover the extra work involved.

This suggestion is just that. You will determine how things are orchestrated in your business. You might leave the mark up as per the normal product and add a labour component to the cost which gets marked up based on the normal mark up or you may add a Labour Process to cover the extra costs involved.

2. Custom Product coding should be consistent so that you have an easily identifiable system.

In our shop we use the customers initials as the first part of the code such as Caltex Group Annual Sales achiever award would be CG-ASA. Which ever way you choose to do it you should consider a system and train you staff so that everyone is doing the same thing.

When a custom Product is likely to be ordered again you should make a specific code for the product and add in special manufacturing instructions and attach images so that job sheets get enhanced with images and special instructions.

The program provides you with Note pads to allow you to add Manufacturing notes to the job sheet. They make it easy to get the job right and help for duplicate orders in the future.

When you create custom components for your custom products you can attach any type of file to the component and set it to add to the supplier order when ever you order the stock.

AwardPro is designed so that you can create custom products from the sales point. Somebody wants a quote for a custom product - just start writing up the quote and when you press add you can create new and build your product. The idea is to get on with the job of writing a quote straight away.

Our suggestions here are just that, suggestions. I am sure many of you will design your own structure and generally speaking what ever works for you - work for you. Enjoy.