Everything to Run Your Maker Business, Finally in One Place

#055. Your maker business can be creative and still run on clean numbers. We walk you through Makers Manager, the inventory and costing software we co-founded, and show how it’s designed to replace the messy stack of spreadsheets, notes, and half-finished systems that creep into candle businesses and other handmade brands over time.

We start with the dashboard view that tells you what matters right now: inventory value, profit, open orders, and alerts for low material stock versus low product stock. Then we get practical about pricing. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re actually making money after wax, fragrance, labels, vessels, and overhead, you’ll hear how a target profit multiplier or margin setting can drive a consistent pricing calculator and even support wholesale pricing without doing the same math over and over.

From there, we tour the day-to-day workflow: suppliers and saved notes like discount codes, supply orders you can enter manually or speed up by importing a receipt, and detailed material records so you stop searching supplier websites for specs. We also cover product templates, production runs for batching, and Maker Labs for candle testing, pour journals, and research and development costs that can roll straight into a finished product. If you sell in person, you’ll love the markets calendar and performance tracking, plus flexible sales tracking that can include Shopify imports. We wrap with the financial reporting makers need for bookkeeping and taxes, including key inventory numbers that support Schedule C preparation.

If you’re ready for clearer pricing, smarter inventory management, and a calmer production plan, listen now, subscribe for more maker systems, and share this with a friend who’s still running their business out of a spreadsheet. Leave a review and tell us which feature you want to try first.

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Transcript

One Place For Your Maker Business

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Your whole maker business finally in one place. Today I'm going to introduce you to Makers Manager, a software that I co-founded and I'm super excited for you to check out. You are going to find so much value in this. It's the only software that you need to calculate your cost of goods, track your inventory on all the different supplies that you have. It'll track the product inventory that you have. You can record your sales in it. You can track your expenses. There's also what we call labs, a place where you can do all of your research and development, doing your test burns, your journal burns, creating your new sense. All of this in one place. This is a software I wish we had five years ago when we started thinking about our candle business. This is not a software that you eventually graduate to need. This is something we should use on day one because it's going to track all of your supplies. It's going to track all of your expenses on creating those products. It's a place where you can store all of your journal notes, everything to run your candle business right here in one place. I want to dive into this. I'm super excited. Let's check this out. I'm going to do a screen search so you can see exactly all of the features of this software. So let me share my screen with you.

Tour Starts On The Dashboard

SPEAKER_00 1:26

All right, this is the makersmanager.com landing page here that you can come and visit and learn all the things. You can check out the pricing. We structure our pricing so it's really easy and affordable for makers to get into. You can get into this for $750 a month. And then as your business grows and you need more features, you can certainly upgrade and do that as well. Let me sign in here. All right, we are in a test account here. Uh, this is the main dashboard. Right away across the top, you're gonna see your inventory value. You're gonna see whatever your profits would be, and if you have any open orders that have not been fulfilled yet. Right below here, it says open production run. So when you are planning out your production, whether you're only making candles once a month, once a week, in the evenings, whatever it is, you can plan that out. So when you sign in, you'll know exactly what you need to work on. You're also going to have a place where you're gonna have alerts for all of your low material stock and then your low product stock. So, material stock, that's gonna be each individual wick or each individual ounce of wax or oil or vessels or labels. Those are materials. When you put those materials together, they create a product. So that's why you're gonna have a low material stock and then you're gonna have low product stock. Below here, we're gonna have Maker Lab, which will dive a little bit more into that in a minute. And then below that, you're gonna have some areas that you can learn and grow your business in. So I highly recommend completing everything on the uh main page when you first sign in.

Pricing Rules And Profit Targets

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Now, one thing that is super cool is in the settings here. Let me show you this. Obviously, you're gonna have all of your information here, uh, just about your account, but under pricing, this is really cool. This is where you can have your target profit multiplier. So some of us run our business off of 4x. That's how I run my business. I run my business off of a 4x multiplier. Meaning if I spend X amount for my candle, I know what I need to price it at. If my cost of goods to create my candle is, say, $10, I know I need to retail it at $40, which is going to be a $30 profit. I can change this to three and a half X. I can change this to whatever I want this to be based on how I'm running my business. If you're just running your business out of your home, you may not need to have a 4X return on your profits. That is a video for another time. This allows you, this software allows you to set it at whatever you'd like it to be. And then it's going to automatically calculate what you should be pricing your products at based on what you set here in your settings. And you can always go back here and change it. It's also going to have what your wholesale pricing should be. So you set these when you first set up your account. You can choose the method between margin or multiplier. Again, multiplier is that 4x. Margin would be when some people talk about needing a 75% margin. Um, right. So that's so however, whatever your lingo is, you can do that here. Um, it does not matter. Once you have this set again, within different areas of the software, it's going to calculate so much for you. Now, for my business, the way I run my business, I run on a 4x minimum and a wholesale discount of 50%. So that is what I save mine as. All right, let's go back here to uh check out some of the other settings that we have.

Categories Templates And Data Import

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Under the data model, these are all the different material categories, and you can add so many more. We have a lot of these already in here. These are gonna be our oils, our labels, our lids, our warning labels, vessels, wax. Every different material we have is in here. And you can add as many more as you would like. You can also choose a little icon for them that is gonna be relatable for you. So this is not just for candle makers, this is for soap makers, woodworkers, ceramists, any type of business that you are running, you can manage your inventory right here. Um, you can also um do more things here. You can check out a workspaces, you can upload logos, you can change your currency in here, you can put your uh time zones in here as well. And then your uh if you have a tax rate that you want to put in here, you can certainly do that. You can also import all of your data. So if you're using another software, you can export it out of that software and import it into here. Or say you're already tracking your materials in a spreadsheet somewhere. You can just import it all here. Materials, again, those are the raw materials that have not gone into a product yet. So you can do both of those here. And then again, at any time that you wanted to uh export your data, you certainly can do that as well. And we have some material and product templates here that would make it easier for you to do some importing. Um, all right, let's take a look here at my account. On the dashboard, right away, it's gonna have our inventory levels, our net profit for the month, and any open orders that we have. Below here, we're gonna have our open production run. So, say you start on a production run on this Saturday and you can't make again until next Saturday, but you didn't quite finish. It will show you what you left up, uh left off at. It's also gonna show your low material stock and your low product stock all right here on the main page. All right, let's go down the left-hand side here so I can show you the different areas. I'm

Suppliers And Supply Orders Made Simple

SPEAKER_00 7:09

first gonna show you suppliers. That's the one that you'll put in uh once, and then you really won't have to add many to it. So I've gone ahead and just in this test account, added in a couple different suppliers. You can see all the information about the suppliers on that page. And you can easily edit it at any time, their website, any other contact information that you want to save. If you use a phone number for them, you can do that here. Also in your notes, say you have a discount code that you always use or an affiliate. Any information you want to save about that supplier, you can easily do that right here. You can also see all the products that you make with supplies from that supplier. You can also look at all of those different materials that you order from them. And then anytime you place an order with them, you'll be able to see it. It's gonna automatically come from the order screen here under the supplier to be saved for you. Let's take a look at supply orders. I've got a couple different tests here. So we'll just take a look at one of these where I have ordered. I ordered some oil, some wax, and a wick here. So you can see all of that right here. Uh, and you can also um edit it. If you order something and then it doesn't come in the order, you can also edit it. Now, what's really nice about this software? Here, you can, of course, manually put in a new order and you can put all the different materials that you've ordered from them in here, but you can also import a receipt. So, say I went out to my supplier and I placed that order today or yesterday. Uh, whenever I did it, I have that receipt. I can just upload that receipt and it is going to pull all of the items out of here. This makes it super easy to get all of your supplies from your supplier right in here.

Materials Details That Save Time

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Now, after supply orders, I'm going to look at the materials here. So these are just some of the materials that I put in here for you to check out. I have a couple oils in here. I have some wax and I have some wicks in here. So you can see what it's going to look like. So for this amber fragrance oil, you can see the information that I put in here. I put in here how I purchase it. So I purchased this by the pound. Um, you can see how I like to stock it, though. I actually like to stock it by the ounce because I'm not pouring it out by the pound, right? I'm not making based on pound. I'm making based on ounces. So that is what this is here is for. Uh, and you can see um I can put a reorder link in here if I wanted to. It's completely optional. You can also add all of this other information if you would like. I can put in how intense it is. I can put in here if it contains essential oils or not. I can also put in here the top, middle, and base notes. All of this information is super valuable to have whenever I'm coming back to, so I don't have to go out to the supplier's website all of the time. You can also put in your uh other technical details here as well. You can also select if it is uh Prop 65 compliant, all of that right here. So plenty of stuff you can add into the software if you would like to store

Products Production Runs And Templates

SPEAKER_00 10:18

it. Now, from materials, we can then look at the products that we build based on those materials. So, based on those materials, I have created a couple of products. So let's let's take a look at my moonflower candle here. So, looking at this moonflower candle, it this shows me right away that my cost of goods on this product is $3.38. It shows that I have uh six in stock. It shows that I retail this at $626. And it shows all the information, some of the technical that I like to know about this product when I'm making it. Now, when I look at this product here, I can show you, let me show you some things here. This product template is going to show you everything that goes into making this product. And then I can simulate based on uh what what supplies this requires, I can show you uh what it's going to be and what it costs to make any quantity that I would like here. So just some really, really cool features. I won't get into the nitty-gritty of it in this video, but this is uh where you can see all the different products that you have. Now, production. This is where we do our production run so that you can uh do all of your batching and stay on top of all the items that you need to make. So in this production run, I made six moonflower candles and I made 12 amber scented candles here as well. It shows you all of the products that I used, how much it was of each item, how much it cost me to make all of those. All of that lives here in one space. So this is really convenient for you. Now, product templates. This is so I have five-ounce candles and I have 10-ounce candles so that I don't have to recreate every single product. Every time I want to create a new product, I don't have to start from scratch. I have these templates in here because I know that every time I make a five-ounce candle, I am going to need to need to have a wick and I'm going to need to have the wax. Now, when I create this, of course, different oils are going to need different size wicks. So I can go ahead and just edit it. But instead of having to build everything out separately, because when you create your product, you're going to have more than just these two things. You're going to have warning labels, you're going to have a box, you're going to have the front-facing label, you're going to have a dust cover or a lid. You're going to have six or seven different items that go into this product. So by just having a product template, it's very easy to create your new product without having to start all over from scratch. Now, outside of the manufacturing, let's take a look at the other areas.

Maker Labs For Testing And R&D

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Maker labs. This is what I'm really excited to show you. When we launch this software, we are starting with our first lab, which we call the Candle Lab. Now, Makers Manager, it can be used for all types of handmade goods and small businesses, but we are starting with the Candle Lab. We will grow into having a soap lab. We're going to have a ceramic lab. This is just a space where you can do all of your planning. You can do your planning, you can do your pour journal, you can do your test journal, you can do all of your research and development costs. And you can go through and do all of this in one space. This is such an awesome tool for you because once you are done planning, pouring, testing, all of that, you can automatically have it create a product for you as well. So you're not going back and recreating every single time you get something that passes your um testing inside of the lab. You can have it go right into your products. Now, if

Markets Calendar Sales And Performance

SPEAKER_00 13:55

you are selling at a market on the weekends, in the evenings, we have this markets area. This markets area is fantastic. You can track all of your upcoming markets on a calendar so that next year you'll be able to remember what and when markets are going to be. Now, you can also track if on your market, what you have a market here, you'll be able to track it what stage you are at, whether you have applied for it, whether you have been accepted into that market. Then come the day of the market. Let's say here was the um downtown market that I did, and this here were the contact information I can have for the for the person that is in charge. Uh, if there's an application, I can put in that application, and I can see if there's an application fee so that we are keeping track of all those costs. Um, the deadline to apply, what date you applied on, when the market is, and if it's a multi-day uh when it ends, you can also put on here, uh you can categorize how what status you're in, whether you submitted your application, whether you've been accepted, whether you've been with uh rejected, whether you're on the wait list, all that information is right here inside of the market area. Then when you have your event, because it can be recurring, right? It might be something that you're doing every single Saturday. Um, and you can track all of the stuff, all of your expenses, uh, what your net is based on your sales. You input your sales on here and your expenses, and then you're gonna have your performance. So that is what is really cool about this. And you can see what you sold by category as well. You'll be able to do all of that right here inside of the market area, and you'll be able to see your entire market calendar here as well. And you can look at it from month to week. You can have an agenda, all of that right here. Now,

Sales Tracking With Shopify Imports

SPEAKER_00 15:46

moving on past markets, let's take a look at the sales. So, all your sales orders. Now, if you're out of the market, you will then be able to just put that sales order from that market. So everything that you sold from that market, you can simply and easily put it all in one um order here. Or what you can do is right out of Shopify, you can export a full day or a full week or a full month of orders out of Shopify, and you can just simply import it right here by dropping that sales report in here. Very easy to do. And then you'll be able to track all of your sales here as well. Now, if you're already using Shopify for a lot of your sales, then maybe you're not gonna even need or want to use our sales tab, which is totally fine. But we built this in case you do not have those other options for tracking. Instead of tracking it in a spreadsheet somewhere, we allow our uh software

Financials Tax Numbers And Schedule C

SPEAKER_00 16:40

to do that for you, which makes it really handy. Now, under financials, um, you can then take a look and see, hey, these are my year-to-date revenue, this is my year-to-date expenses, net profit, inventory value, and resale value. These two numbers here: inventory value and total resale value, these are very, very important year-in numbers for your accountant to know when you are doing your taxes. These numbers here will go into your Schedule C, which is a tax form that we will be able to provide for you here inside of Makers Manager that makes doing taxes a breeze. All right, you can also take a look at our cost intelligence and then any transaction. This is gonna show everything that went out. So supplies, uh, market fees, everything that's going out, but also all the money coming in from your sales will be tracked in here as well. When you first sign up, you are going to want to spend a little bit of time setting it all up. Have

Setup Help Center And Support Tickets

SPEAKER_00 17:46

fun with it. Also, anytime you have issues, you can come down here and go to help and support. And this gives you all the manuals on how everything works, all the different areas within Makers Manager. We have some help guides for you, and we have explanations of what everything is so that you understand the maker lingo for your space. So take a look at all that. Also, if you ever have any issues at all, you can click on my tickets and you can open up a help ticket. And our support team is phenomenal, and they will be able to assist you. This is all under the help center as well. There's also some quick starts here on what you should do first. So please take a look at that. I am so, so excited for you to use Makers Manager. This is going to help you no matter the stage of business that you are in. In the comments below, tell

What To Do Next

SPEAKER_00 18:52

me what feature you are most excited about. I respond to all of the comments. And also, thank you so much for being here. I greatly appreciate you spending time with us today. Take care.