There are lots of jewelry business software packages available on the market, but only a few of them are custom tailored to the inventory hassles and nature of making bead jewelry. By keeping track of how much you spend on your beads you can use specially developed bead jewelry software package to not only automatically figure out your cost-per-bead for you but you can also keep track of bead sales and always be aware of where you are getting the cheapest craft supplies from! One of the ways to make your handcrafted jewelry or bead business more profitable is by instituting a degree of control and order over your beading supply and customers so that you know exactly how much you’re spending in materials and you can price your jewelry correctly. Some programs are very costly and have lots of features and some are very affordable but lack some basic features. Always try to see screen shots or, even better, a demonstration online video to get a feel for how the program works ahead of time. The following are 3 features you are going to definitely need to have in any software package you buy to manage your hand made jewelry business:

Ability to Track Stock and Jewelry Materials: This is obviously the most crucial feature so that you can keep track of what you have, what you want and what you are out of. It takes a little bit of your time to enter all your existing supplies at first, but then it is a breeze and it saves you so much time in the long run when you find yourself asking yourself whether or not you still have a certain type of bead that you can’t find at the moment. Your software package should be able to keep track of free beads and materials as well as created pieces if possible.

Hand made Jewelry Pricing Calculator: If you used 20 Swarovski crystal bicone beads, 1 glass handmade ring and 12 silver bali beads you would type those numbers into the software package and it would instantaneously tell you how much you spent on beads for that piece. No more guessing at prices! If you’ve all your bead inventory in the software package then you should be capable of list out all the beads you used in a certain jewelry pieces and the software program should give you an instant cost of goods and even come up with some recommendations on pricing.

Capacity to Store Photos of Your Jewelry Pieces: Any respectable software will allow you to store photos of your beads and works of art so that you can go back and research them. It may even help in jewelry repair if a bead is lost and you want to see if you can find a specific type of bead without actually seeing the bead at a store.

There you have it! Those are the minimal things you should be searching for when you go looking at buying a jewelry software program for your small business. Now that you are aware of what to look for you may need to read some reviews of the numerous jewelry software package available at this time.

Want to learn about other features you should have in your jewelry business software? You can read over 100 articles about running your own handmade jewelry business at the Bead Jewelry Business Blog.

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