Cataloguing Machinery.

[Sir Stinkalot]

Following a clean up of the garage over the previous week I have found ……
1) A number of tools that I didn’t know that I owned.
2) That the value of the tools that I now own will be quite substantial and I really should recheck the insurance value.

With the two points above in mind I was thinking that I would like to catalogue all of my machinery and hand tools so that I have a record of what I have and the replacement value.

I was thinking of making an index card system which will include the following information on each tool …..

Item
Manufacturer
Model number
Serial number
Photo
Scan of receipt if available
Replacement cost (number of new model if superseded)
Accessories.

The question that I have is which program would be best to set this up in? I have the Professional Office 2003 edition. I was envisaging something like the index card system used for contacts in Outlook, where each tool would have its own card and it can be accessed from an alphabetic system. Any ideas?

[Big Clint]

access would probably be the best, but it is a bit of a bastard to use.

you could try just a table in excel, you could then add a hyperlink to the receipt image.

you could use the sort functions to get yourself a bit better listing. then if you did decide to convert it to access at a later date it would be fairly easy to import it.

[Sir Stinkalot]

Clint ......

I would have to agree ..... Access looks like it will be the program to use.
I recall having a quick look at Access 97 and it had a fairly simple template to orginise your cd collection but Access 2003 looks like it is a full blown hard to use program.

It might be a few long nights ahead.

[conwood]

Excel will do stinky.
Machinery and toll catalogue is excellent idea. I had a claim a few years ago and the insurance company had absolutely no doubt we were genuine because of our acuurate and organised record keeping.

Cheers

[HappyHammer]

Excel will do stinky.

I agree with conwood, it's much quicker to setup and make changes to Excel, just setup a sheet called Data with all your "fieldnames" along the top then stick the info in.

Then you can use Auto Filter or Pivot Tables to report on what you have.

You'll lose a lot of time in the shed if you go with Access.:eek:

HH.

[silentC]

I just stuff all of the receipts of everything I buy in a folder in my filing cabinet. A bit low tech I know but it works.

[HappyHammer]

Here you go Stinky this is a simple example to get you started.

I wouldn't bother with photos or scanning reciepts but up to you.

HH.

[barnsey]

Sir Stinky,

Whilst I have no doubt that Excel will do the job, it really should be in a database to gain the maximum flexibility in catalogueing. :confused:

I run Access 2000 which has wizards to set the thing up but you need some programming nouse to be able to get the best out of it. I would go with Access but only because I worked in the game for 20 odd years.

Guess it's a matter of whether you want to use the tools available to their greatest performance or are happy to get by with what will do

I hate how I have this perfectionist personality :eek:

If you want to go that way I'll set up a database for you - coz I probably need the practice - and email it to you. If so, you might think about giving each item a location to define where it's stored, eg the shed gets done but the garage is untouched. Or you want to find something you had forgotten you had.

Jamie

[HappyHammer]

Barnsey,

I reckon the amount of time commitment should be a factor to, it took me 1 minute to set that spreadsheet up.

HH.

[Dean]

I use Excel for mine.
Also, another tip I got from a This Old House show...

Take a video camera and pan around your shed, and each room in your house (when clean of course). This will show most of your belongings on tape and provided an excellent reference to insurace claim agents when the This Old House project house suffered from a fire. Naturally make a couple copies of the tape and store 2 of them at external locations... i.e. parents/friends/relatives house. No good to ya if the tape burns with the house

[barnsey]

Barnsey,

I reckon the amount of time commitment should be a factor to, it took me 1 minute to set that spreadsheet up.

HH.

Absolutely agree - set up time is not necessarily the criteria to do it a particular way - often referred to as a quick and dirty - the secret is to think about how it might help in the longer term. For example I would think there are probably thousands of items in my workshops If I need to find what's been pinched then the ability to find them is dependant on the location and the cross referencing of a database is far greater than a spreadsheet. And if you are like me - where are those wigets I bought, I thought they were :confused:

Depends on what you want to do with this data and I sense that Sir Stinky is like the rest of us. Where did I put that? Probably doubles the length of time to clean up first time round but with the right classifications you have more power to examine it with a database.

Having said all that - is the work worth it :confused:

How much time have you spent looking for something you know you had?

Did you lend it to?

Did it get broke?

Did it get stolen out of the car?

OK maybe I'm exaggerating the situations but they've all happened to me and I was buggered trying to remember what was in the back of the Commodore wagon when it was raided and I'm still finding things that I had forgotten to mention at the time. :eek:

Depends on you potential risk

[HappyHammer]

.....often referred to as a quick and dirty.....

Have you been speaking to my SWMBO ?

HH.

[barnsey]

Have you been speaking to my SWMBO ?

HH.

Nah that was back in the days when water was clean and sex was dirty

[MajorPanic]

I used Photoshop :eek:

and a web authoring app like front page or Dreamweaver

Go & photograph all your stuff on a digital.
Dump it all to the hard disk.
Use Photoshop to create a web photo album.
Open the resulting pages with the Front page or what ever and add the text required.

[Sir Stinkalot]

Thanks guys .....

I have the household inventory in excel but I wanted to go a step further on this one.

One thing that does bother me is if the house burns down I wouldn't be able to recall half the things in my garage and I wouldn't be able to claim on insurance. I have mocked up a sample of what I am looking at doing, it was done on Publisher but it will give you an idea.

I like the idea of using the digital camera to take a shot of everything so I have a visual record rather than just text based. This will show the condition of the goods also. I know that it will not be a quick task but it is one of those things that should be done and it can be done at night rather than watching bad summer tv. I would like to be able to click on the photo and receipt to get a larger view but now I might be dreaming.

barnsey .... if you want to have a go at making an Access data base that can do this I am sure that many forum members will be happy to use it. I will give it a go but it may take a while to master Access I think.

I have this perfectionist personality but I rarely pull it off