Made-to-order: from quote to production to invoice
If you manufacture to the customer's order — a door at a given size, a t-shirt in a colour and size, a printed banner at a size that needs trimming — your first problem is not production, it is the catalogue. Nobody sane creates a new stock item for every size a customer might ask for. The answer is to define the product once, with its inputs, and let the system work out the rest per order.
The idea in a minute
You define the product once: what the inputs are (width, height, material, colour), how each material is computed from them, and how the price comes out. After that every order computes itself without you touching the catalogue.
How it works
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1. Define the product by its inputs
When you add a new product, Zemam asks what kind it is: one fixed size; a limited set of options you define (known sizes and colours); or “made to order”. For the last one you declare the inputs: numbers like width and height, and choices like material type or colour. Those are the fields your salesperson fills at order time.
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2. Tie each material to a formula
Every material carries a formula over the inputs — timber by the running metre from the perimeter, fabric by the metre from the size, ink by area. You can add a waste allowance, either a fixed percentage or itself a formula, which matters in printing and trimming because waste changes with the size. Some materials are conditional and only appear when a particular option is chosen.
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3. An open slot when the customer picks the material
Not every material is decided at design time. You can leave “the front glass” as an open slot and let the salesperson choose at order time — optionally restricted to one category so nothing wrong gets picked. Each slot is named for the role it plays, so a product with several open slots does not show several fields all called “item”.
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4. Pricing: a formula or a table
Pricing works two ways. A formula, when the price is arithmetic over the inputs (area × rate per metre + assembly). Or a cross table, when your pricing is literally a printed sheet saying: this size in this material costs that. Both give a consistent price — not each salesperson's own guess.
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5. From quote to production in one press
The customer accepted the quote? Zemam shows a “start production” card on the quote itself. You choose the quantity and start, and the system raises the work order together with the bill of materials computed from that customer's inputs — without you retyping anything or opening another screen.
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6. The invoice is locked until the product exists
This is the safeguard that matters: a made-to-order product that has not been produced does not exist in any warehouse — so invoicing it would put a receivable on the customer for goods that are not there. Zemam blocks converting the quote to an invoice until every made-to-order line has finished production, and it tells you why on screen instead of hiding the button.
In short
One item instead of a hundred — sizes and colours are decided at order time, not in the catalogue.
Materials, waste, cost and price all compute from formulas, so the same order gives the same number whoever quotes it.
The work order is generated from the quote using the customer's own inputs — with no re-entry.
No invoice for a product that was never made — the system stops it and tells you what is missing.
Real examples
Clothing manufacturing
Instead of an item per size and colour, the product takes size and colour as inputs, and fabric and thread compute by formula from the size. The order becomes a work order directly, with its materials already worked out.
Printing & signage
A banner at the customer's size: material and ink by area, and waste as a formula because trimming changes with the size. Price from a table or a formula, and the job goes out at the exact size ordered.
Furniture & joinery
A door or wardrobe at size: timber by the running metre, lock and hinges by count, and a finish option that adds its own materials once chosen.
Windows & profiles
Profile computes from the window's perimeter and glass from its area. You can leave the glass type an open slot for the salesperson to pick according to what the customer asked for.
Related reading
Do you manufacture to the customer's size?
Talk to us — we'll define one of your own products with its inputs and formulas in front of you, and you'll watch an order turn into a work order.