Beer Forum

Ok, here's my issue. I do the ordering at the LHBS, and currently that involves me scribbling down what we need and how much, then transferring that by hand to an order sheet that get's faxed to the distributor. We just got an iPad, and what I would like to have is an app that I can enter in all of the possible items, then be able to generate a weekly order by selecting items and quantity. Having trouble finding a good piece of software for this so far, so thought I'd throw it out there in case anyone is using an iPad for something similar.

Did you look at the family grocery shopping apps? Limited functionality but if you just need to select an item & quantity you could reconfigure one of those. Some might have a few more options if you think outside the box.

It would require a little more work, but would making a numbers or excel script work?

Google Docs might work for you (google drive ipad app). You could make a tabbed spread sheet that has a database with all possible items. Using drop down lists or whatever works for you, you could choose an item and enter a quantity. A third tab could be set up as a formatted order form. I haven't used it for your exact need but it is what we use for group grain buys.

Pete

My concern/issue with using a simple spreadsheet is that there are items that many weeks, I won't need to order. My preference would be for the output to only contain those items that I'm ordering, and not be cluttered up with additional items I'm not. I'll have to look at the shopping apps you were talking about Ozw.

spiderwrangler wrote:My concern/issue with using a simple spreadsheet is that there are items that many weeks, I won't need to order. My preference would be for the output to only contain those items that I'm ordering, and not be cluttered up with additional items I'm not. I'll have to look at the shopping apps you were talking about Ozw.

I don't know what's available for iPad, but OurGroceries for Blackberry works on a few other platforms. Instead of making lists like Grocery, Hardware, etc you could create departments or suppliers. This one has catagories too, for stuff like dairy, meat, etc. Gives you another way to group stuff together. It has a built in list of items, but you can just add your own, change quantities & such. Recipes gives you a way to add multiple items to the lists in one click, if there's stuff you reliably buy on a regular basis. If you get creative, one might work out.

Edit: Another interesting thing you can do is put it on your iPhone or whatever else, specify an email address & it'll keep multiple devices synced automatically. Get home & suddenly remember what you needed to add to the list, knowing you'll forget by morning? Poof. Added & didn't even need to remember to bring the iPad home.

I may have found what I wanted with On Shelf.

*Edit: From my response to suggestions from fb... "I found an app called "On Shelf" that LOOKS like it will do everything I want it to do. The woman who built it is very friendly and helpful, she got back to my emails within a few hours regarding questions I had about the functions and output it created. Building the database of order items took about 7 hours, but I was able to export a template to Excel so I could do it on my computer instead of pecking away on the iPad. Even so, I'm averaging ~100 items per hour with the data entry, so figure that's pretty good."

I'm going through some growing pains with this app, but so far it's done exactly what I want and the developer has been responsive and receptive to my suggestions, and is actually working on the few things I would like to be able to do with it for the next version.