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.