Creating inventory spreadsheet with single line entry

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Level 1

4 points

Creating inventory spreadsheet with single line entry

Hello everyone!

So I wanted to get some opinions before I go about creating a program in either VB or C on a windows PC...

Here is what I would like to do:

I need to create a spreadsheet that I am able to record inventory acquisitions, sales, and margins for my online store. In my mind, I see it pretty easy to create a simple program in VB or C that would take user input values and write to a file, all while computing on screen. My question is if there is any way I can mimic this on Numbers here on my mac. In a perfect world, I would have a 2 sheet numbers file - one for entering values ON A SINGLE ROW and showing summation values, and the other for housing all necessary data and computational work. I know I can replicate data from sheet to sheet, but the single row function is what has me hung up.

What I am thinking is that there MAY be a way for me to enter in a row value as a column in the "entering" sheet. So for example, I can pop over to sheet 2 that houses all of my inventory, and see that I am at row 48. On the entry sheet, my first parameter would be 49 for row, followed by item name, price paid, price sold, etc...

Am I over thinking this or can this be done? Like I said, I don't have much hesitation to creating a program to do this for me, maybe it might even be a good time for me to learn my way around xcode....

Thanks!!!

Posted on Jul 4, 2014 4:32 PM

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Answer 1

SGIII

Level 8

37,604 points

Jul 4, 2014 7:12 PM in response to JBD32

Without more specifics (screenshots, etc) it's hard to follow exactly what you are trying to do. Your general description of the problem does, however, suggest as you might be happier with a database program such as FileMaker Pro than with a spreadsheet program like Numbers.

SG

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Answer 2

t quinn

Level 5

7,063 points

Jul 4, 2014 9:31 PM in response to JBD32

Hi JBD,

I keep track of my herb inventory using a single line for each herb. I track Name,Expiration Date, Quantity, Current Price, Last Date Purchaced, Last Suppier, Total Cost. I use a form in iOS Numbers for data entry. It prevents me from overwriting formulas during input. If I was solely on the Mac I would have a table that was for input only.

I don't understand your anticipated difficulty.

quinn

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Answer 3

jaxjason

Level 5

5,063 points

Jul 10, 2014 11:20 AM in response to JBD32

I am curious why you're averse to entering a new row in a table(row 49 in your example), in your example, you 1) look at main table 2) note last row number 3) swtich to a different sheet 4) enter the next row number and all data and that gets put at the bottom of the table.

Why not skip steps 2-3 and just insert a row at the bottom of the table and enter your data.

The other page could be a lookup table using various lookup or aggregate functions to get summary information based on entry into a cell.

If your looking for a data entry form like in many database programs, then Quinns solution of using iOS numbers works as it has the ability to auto make a data entry form based on a named table (as long as it has a header row).

If youre used to programming and database work and this is too simple, not flexible enough, then his other suggestion of using filemaker pro is good as it has some iOS design capabilities built in as well. that would give you both worlds i think.

Jason

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