Finishing Services Setup Guide Follow

This document will outline how to set up several general finishing services and explain why they are set up this way. 

Aside from the special properties explained for each type of set up the following common fields will need to be set up: 

• Name: The name of this service.
• Invoice Name: Alternative name to be displayed on invoices (if displaying service information is selected on print options. )
• Popup Reminder: An alert that appears with the text entered here when using this service.
• Default Note: A default note that can appear on work orders when selecting this service.
• Sales Dept: The sales department that all cost or price accounting information is applied.
• Quantity: The quantity output will be unique based on the different types of services. Depending on if cutting from a run size or trimming a finished size, etc. 
• Waste: Enter the number of sheets and/or percentage of finish quantity that will be wasted in this service. 
• Setup: Enter any setup time associated with this cutting service. 
• Cost: Select one of the options available to determine the price. For example, no price, ask, time, cost, time + cost. 
  • Run Table: The number of cuts that can be done in an hour should be entered as well when tracking time costs.
  • Material Costs And Run Prices Are:
  • Between Qty Breaks Use:
• Price: Make a selection for how this service should be priced. The options are: No price, ask, cost + markup, use price column of setup and run table or price table. 

Cutting

Standard cutting services are typically based on 'Lifts'. In order for Printer's Plan to determine how many sheets can be cut at once for a particular job, the cutting service needs to first be calibrated based on how many sheets of 20# Bond can be cut. In the example below, it is 500. Printer's Plan can do the math to compare calipers of other papers entered against the caliper of 20# Bond to give the proper amount of cuts. 

In the Pricing Properties area and beneath the Quantity field is the 'Divide By...' field with a checkbox for 'Sheets of 20# Bond'. Enter the number of 20# Bond sheets that your cutter can cut in one lift and check the 20# Bond checkbox. 

Now, this service is being defined by how many sheets it can fit into a lift and will calculate the number of cuts it needs based on the thickness of the paper and the amount in the lift. 

Folding

Folding services should be configured separately based on the type of the fold and the type of material being folded. This is to get more accurate output related to time, waste, and pricing. 

In Printer's Plan, you may find a few examples of this configuration already pre-built. These services demonstrate the type of paper and 1 and 2 fold papers. It does not include the type of fold. Each service takes into account it's unique properties such as setup time, waste, and run speed.

Right-click to copy and paste one of these services to update certain fields instead of starting from scratch.

The key information needed to set up folding services is proper naming conventions for the type of folding and the material, the setup, and run times as well as the waste.

Additionally, the standard fields will need to be updated.

Each type of folding can take different times to process and may produce different amounts of waste. If processing 2 folds there may be some additional time rather than single folds. 

In the service example above, 1 general fold on cover weight will require 8 minutes of set up and can run 4500 folds in an hour. There are 10 setup sheets and 5% of the quantity will be wasted. 

The cost is $48 an hour and the price is based on 'cost + markup'.  

Binding

Binding services will need to be set up based on the size of the coil. The coiling difficulty may change based on the size and the time associated with the service change. The coiling service used in the example below doesn't specifically list the size of the coil in the name. 

When setting up your coil service you may want to put the size of the coil in the name for easy recognition. You may also consider putting the maximum number of pages that can fit into the coil. 

The quantity for default coil services will be the 'Item Quantity' so the quantity of coils matches the item quantity output. 

One of the important aspects of coil services is the time cost. Especially if 'Cost + Markup' is used to calculate the price. In the image below 26 coils can be done in one hour based on the information in the run table. The coil service has a cost of $40.00 per hour.

Packaging

Packaging services will use a quantity based on the item quantity or finish size sheets depending on the item being packaged. In this example 50 sheets will be packaged together so in the 'Divide by...' field there is the number 50. 

Once the quantity is established properly and the number of items that can be fit into this package is entered then the rest of the service will be set up based on the standard required fields listed at the top of this page. 

This document outlines some of the more unique finishing services but most will be set up using similar configurations. The important part of most finishing services is the quantity output, the waste calculations, and the cost and pricing calculations (using the setup and run table).