by The Embroidery Coach | | Organizing
In Part 1 of Organizing Your Embroidery Business, I talked about organizing the information that you use in running your embroidery business. In Part 2 I l talked about your customer’s design information. In Part 3 I talked about your Production process. In Part 4, I will go over the information for Shipping and Invoicing
The completed order, customer order form, and production form go to shipping. The shipping information is added to the production form. This shipping information includes the weights of boxes, shipping costs, and the time allowed for this process. The packing slip is filled out with all of the items listed that are being shipped to the customer. A copy is then made of the packing slip and attached to the production form and customer’s order. These forms are all sent to billing.
The person doing the invoicing pulls the original customer order and uses the production form to do the invoicing. The production form is then detached and goes back to the production supervisor to be analyzed and to see what could or should have been done or what other methods could be used to save time and money.
These forms are very important. The original customer order is attached to the invoice created and filed in the accounts receivable drawer. After payment has been received, the paperwork is then filed in a paid file drawer or cabinet inside of the customer’s file by order number or date.
Organization is not hard, but it does take some time and thought. You need to go through each process of your particular business and put an organization plan together. If you take the time to get fully organized, staying organized is very simple and you will save time in your total business operation.
I hope that this series on Organizing Your Embroidery Business has been helpful. I would like to hear from you about any areas of your business that are troublesome for you to organize.
Joyce Jagger
The Embroidery Coach
by The Embroidery Coach | | Organizing
In Part 1 of Organizing Your Embroidery Business, I talked about organizing your information that you use in running your embroidery business. In Part 2 I l talked about your customers design information. In Part 3 I am going to talk about your Production process.
The first step of my production process is to log in the job on the log-in form, make a list of new artwork that has to be created, and either give that to the person that creates the artwork or sends it out to the digitizer. If I have to order anything for the project, I do so and put a copy of the original customer order in a plastic sleeve and hang it in the receiving area waiting for the goods to come in. A production form is filled out with the customer and job information on it that follows through the entire production process. The original order is placed into the customer’s file folder in the office. I connect that order and the production form with the goods when they arrive.
After the design is ready, I place that with the order and it is then placed onto a shelf ready for hooping. If you have employees, it is best to have at least one job hooped ahead of time. This creates a smoother and faster production flow. When I had my large embroidery business, I have all of the jobs hooped the day before they were placed onto the embroidery machines. I had 24 dozen hoops of the most popular sizes (12 centimeters and 15 centimeters) so this was possible unless the order sizes were larger than 24 dozen. Sometimes this was the case, but at least the first 24 dozen pieces for the job were hooped ahead of time.
At the time for embroidery, the baskets of hooped garments are moved to the embroidery machine area and the machine operator can start the embroidery process. The design is loaded into the machine by whatever process you use to get your designs into the machine. The garment are then loaded onto the machine and embroidered. After they are embroidered, they are removed from the machine, unhooped and placed into another basket or bin and moved to the trimming area.
The trimmer will trim, steam, fold and pack the garments ready to be shipped. In a large business this will be more than one person. You will have a person that trims and steams and another one that will fold and pack the garments ready for shipping.
The production form is filled out by the operator with all of the information about each process as it passes through production.
Part 4 of Organizing Your Embroidery Business will be about shipping and invoicing procedures.
by The Embroidery Coach | | Organizing
In Part 1 of Organizing Your Embroidery Business, I talked about organizing your information that you use in running your embroidery business. In Part 2 I will talk about your customers design information.
I have all of my design or digitizing information in a separate drawer than I do all of the information that applies to the applications and how to run my embroidery business. This keeps a separation and keeps it a little more organized and not so confusing.
As far as paperwork and disks, I have always kept the disks that are applicable to the job in the same envelope as the paperwork. Today, for many machines and computers, the disks are now obsolete. In this case you must keep your designs in a customer folder on your computer using exactly the same name or ID number that you use on your customer design order form and design worksheet. All of your design information and blank goods information is kept in the same folder for the finished job.
After the job is completed, all of the paperwork that has been used and created to do the job is then placed into a catalog envelope along with the disk, if this is applicable, and filed by number into a file cabinet. In a small business, you can file them by alphabetical order, but this does not work in a larger one. In a larger business, you must file them by order or ID number in a file drawer by customer.
To save space and avoid file cabinets, all of the job information can be scanned and kept on your computer inside of the customer‚’s folder again by job number. When a re-order comes in, have all of the information printed out, placed in the job folder and connected with the garments and design ID number. I never have to guess on a re-order using this method of organization.
In Part 3, I will talk about the Production Organization.
by The Embroidery Coach | | Organizing
Organizing your embroidery business to run smoothly is not a hard job. Organization is a huge subject in itself, but there are simple things that I do to keep myself organized. In this first part, I will talk about how I organize all the information I have collected and use in my embroidery business. Most of this information is used in running your embroidery business.
I have all of the information that I need organized in notebooks which are stored in the areas where they are used. For example: I have a large notebook of hooping information that I have collected stored in the hooping area where it is easy to grab when I need to refer to it. I have it divided up into sections such as placement locations, hooping techniques for different types of garments, special applications, and others.
I started going thru the magazines many years ago tearing out the articles that I wanted to keep and filed them in a folder marked with whatever the subject was. I have them on every subject that would be applicable to the embroidery business and business in general. I then throw out the magazine. I do not keep them at all anymore. I had boxes of magazines that were not doing me any good because I did not know which one to grab when I needed it. I still do that to this day. Most of the articles that they have today have been repeated so many times that I don‚’t even bother with most of them anymore, but this is not true for the new embroiderer.
I treat the information that comes into the computer the same way. I print out a copy, I cannot read on the computer directly, and file it within the same file folders as the articles from the magazines.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of Organizing Your Embroidery Business. Tomorrow we will get into organizing the customer design information for your business.
by The Embroidery Coach | | Embroidery Business Marketing
Networking-a great way to market your embroidery business! There are two types of networking, On line and Off line.
On Line Networking
There are many Social Media sites that you can join and basically do the same type of networking as in off line networking. You cannot be physically present, but you can make many friends and acquaintances through these Social Media sites. The most popular sites are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,Instagram and Pinterest. You can join them, create your profile and establish a following.
With Facebook you can join an embroidery or business group in your own community. Facebook is an excellent tool to use for networking. Facebook and LinkedIn are used primarily for business; however you must build a personal profile first before you can create your business page on Facebook . On your Business pages, you can promote and sell your products.
Off Line Networking
There are many organizations that you can join but the main ones are the local Chamber of Commerce and a Women’s or Men’s Business Organization. There are also networking groups that meet for lunch in many areas.
If you join an organization, you must become active. You will have the opportunity to meet key people and this will help with your credibility. Just joining the organization does no good if you do not make yourself known to the other members and attend their functions. Check with the Chamber of Commerce in your area to see if they have an early morning Breakfast and/or an After Hours mixer.
The breakfasts are usually held at local hotels and they have a guest speaker. These can be very informative. The After Hours mixer is usually held at one of the local member’s establishment and you are encouraged to bring business cards or brochures and, of course, mingle and talk to the other guests. Again, usually, each month one member is invited to bring in a sample display of their products or services to show the other members. These are great for learning about the different businesses in your area and for gaining customers.
The networking groups that meet for lunch limit it to one company of a type of business for each industry. Only one person can join that has an embroidery business. There are no competitors allowed. This can also be very lucrative. Networking-A great way to market your embroidery business. Networking is a way of life, and you should be utilizing it more to market your business business.
You can get more marketing ideas for your embroidery business at How To Market Your Embroidery Business.
