Question for users

[o1bigtenor]

Greetings

Quite a few years ago I chose to use Ledger-cli as I thought, and have
found, that a purely text based record keeping program was/is more
flexible than anything that I've tried and/or looked into like a
ledger or even the ERP programs. (Long may Ledger live!!)

Getting into rolling my own hardware solutions for some things (very
specialized application stuff generally) I have bought quite a bunch
of 'goodies' . Now comes the problem - - - - how do I keep track of
what I have?

Sounds like a simple problem - - - - but - - - there is a severe
dearth of tools in the Linux world for inventory management. Most
things billed as 'inventory control systems' seem to think that $40 to
even over a $100 per month is a reasonable fee for software for
inventory management. Given how terrible most retailers are at
inventory management I'd bet that these tools might not quite be as
wonderful as they bill themselves to be.

Does anyone out there in Ledger land have any suggestions as to a very
reasonable (best open source) inventory management program or system?

(Looking for something where I could even use a bar code(s) scanner
with remote access possible being a very useful adjunct.

TIA

[psionl0]

Ledger itself offers a crude inventory management system. Consider the following file:
2020/07/01 Owner
     Equity:Owner Deposit
     Bank:Checking Account      100 USD

2020/07/01 Doorknob Manufacturer
     Assets:Materials            10 Doorknobs
     Bank:Checking Account       -5 USD

2020/07/02 Carpet Manufacturer
     Assets:Materials             4 Rugs
     Bank:Checking Account      -50 USD

When you run a balance report on this file you get:
$ ledger -f inventory.dat bal | cat
        10 Doorknobs
              4 Rugs  Assets:Materials
              45 USD  Bank:Checking Account
            -100 USD  Equity:Owner Deposit
--------------------
        10 Doorknobs
              4 Rugs
             -55 USD

The problem is that you can't use more than one type of inventory item in a single transaction.

[Yuri Khan]

On Sat, 5 Sep 2020 at 23:46, psionl0 <gsc...@iinet.net.au> wrote:

> The problem is that you can't use more than one type of inventory item in a single transaction.

Actually you can.

2020-08-01 Buy stuff
Assets:Materials 10 Doorknobs @@ 5 USD
Assets:Materials 4 Rugs @@ 50 USD
Assets:Bank:Checking

$ ledger -f inventory.ledger bal
10 Doorknobs
4 Rugs
USD-55 Assets
USD-55 Bank:Checking
10 Doorknobs
4 Rugs Materials

--------------------
10 Doorknobs
4 Rugs

USD-55

[psionl0]

@

yuri Thanks for that. You never stop learning with Ledger. This makes Ledger 10 times more useful for inventory management.

[o1bigtenor]

On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 11:46 AM psionl0 <gsc...@iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
> Ledger itself offers a crude inventory management system. Consider the following file:
> 2020/07/01 Owner
> Equity:Owner Deposit
> Bank:Checking Account 100 USD
>
> 2020/07/01 Doorknob Manufacturer
> Assets:Materials 10 Doorknobs
> Bank:Checking Account -5 USD
>
> 2020/07/02 Carpet Manufacturer
> Assets:Materials 4 Rugs
> Bank:Checking Account -50 USD
>
> When you run a balance report on this file you get:
> $ ledger -f inventory.dat bal | cat
> 10 Doorknobs
> 4 Rugs Assets:Materials
> 45 USD Bank:Checking Account
> -100 USD Equity:Owner Deposit
> --------------------
> 10 Doorknobs
> 4 Rugs
> -55 USD
>
> The problem is that you can't use more than one type of inventory item in a single transaction.
>

Hmmmmmmmmm - - - - never thought of that.
(LOL my listing of account codes for ledger is 'only' some 40+ pages
long - - - LOL)

I see 2 problems - - - - one how do I coordinate the use of a barcode reader.
2. how do I access the application remotely

all the other stuff is already there I think (cost averaging, reports - - - ).

Have to ruminant on that a bit!

Thanks

[John Nduli]

You could try and use ledger for inventory management. I don't properly
understand what inventory management is, but I can see a situation where
you can track what you have in stock, what is in use or what has gone
using ledger.

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[o1bigtenor]

On Sun, Sep 6, 2020 at 3:32 AM John Nduli <yohana...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You could try and use ledger for inventory management. I don't properly
> understand what inventory management is, but I can see a situation where
> you can track what you have in stock, what is in use or what has gone
> using ledger.
>

For that ledger would work and like quite well.
I was hoping to also use barcodes and also hoping to add remote access
for use whilst away from home base.

Maybe the barcodes would need to be equated to their base numeric
code and then they could be used as account numbers.

Mr John - - - - - would there be a relatively easy way of using printed
bar codes as account numbers?

TIA

[Dániel Fancsali]

Good morning,

Just my two cents: I reckon, most barcode readers are actually pretty much "keyboards". So you could write a little script, that expects the barcodes to be "typed in", and then spits out the correct ledger format.

Regards,

Dan

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[John Wiegley]

>>>>> "o" == o1bigtenor <o1big...@gmail.com> writes:

o> Mr John - - - - - would there be a relatively easy way of using printed bar
o> codes as account numbers?

Since an account name can be pretty anything at all, I don't see why not. :)

John

[Fergus Cameron]

On 06/09/2020, o1bigtenor <o1big...@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]

> Maybe the barcodes would need to be equated to their base numeric
> code and then they could be used as account numbers.
>
> Mr John - - - - - would there be a relatively easy way of using printed
> bar codes as account numbers?

I have used Ledger for stock tracking and it is an excellent tool. You
can break delivery batches into stock and composite stock into
products all via transactions and have balances of both.

My experience would suggest that using account codes in the way you
suggest is ill-advised. It embeds structure which is extraneous to
the problem and becomes a burden if revised. I suggest, instead,
using either transaction codes or (my preference) commodities for
correlating your barcode, however, these ideas bring their own
questions which, quite honestly, can only be answered in the context
of your own business process. I won't jump in there too far but,
perhaps the following question will bring you closer.

Why is it that you want to use the barcode? Yes, there is an
inference that it is more "correct" but in reality you likely
interested in what you define as the commodity (e.g. a battery), not
in the numerical identifier under which it was sold to you and, as
such, are the numerical identifiers of practical value? If so, how?

I suspect you will find your answers differ from your gut feelings.

For example, if you are editing without an interface for the barcode
scanner there will be no process improvement using it (you'll still
need to type most of what you're entering). If you developing an
interface, you may equally correlate the barcode to commodity codes
and simple note the codes in the transaction.

Anyway, there are so many nuances and possibilities. Good luck. You
will have fun and, if it is important, you will reap the benefit of
figuring it out.

[Fergus Cameron]

PS: if you would take the time to construct a meaningful subject line
in future; it does make the group more effective