Printing Press Management

Key Features

Estimate Header/Version/Component/Operation tables with side-by-side quantity versions (1,000 / 2,500 / 5,000) recalculated from one action

Imposition and paper calculator: press sheets per parent sheet from trim size, bleed, gripper margin, colour bar and grain direction, with cut-plan output

Plate quantity derived from colours per side, work-and-turn / work-and-tumble / sheetwise imposition and press unit count, costed per plate and per make-ready

Per-press cost model on Machine Centre cards — make-ready minutes, sheets-per-hour run speed, wash-up time and hourly rate, with a minimum-charge floor

Run-up plus percentage spoilage applied per operation and carried forward, so the paper ordered is the paper the press actually needs

One-click conversion of an accepted estimate version into a Job Ticket with stage lines, planned material lines and a linked Business Central sales document

Job ticket routing through prepress, plate, press, cutting, folding, binding and despatch, with good/spoiled quantity and operator time posted per stage

Paper and ink consumption posted through standard Item Journals with Item Tracking (lot/reel), so item ledger, costing and valuation remain native Business Central

Outwork management: a purchase order raised against a job stage, with the downstream stage blocked until receipt is posted

Substrate master data on the Item card — grammage, caliper, grain direction, parent sheet dimensions, reel width and buy-in unit conversion (sheets / reams / kg / m2)

Delivery and billing that respects part-deliveries and agreed over/under-run tolerance, invoicing delivered quantity and flagging anything outside tolerance

Live job cost vs estimate variance by material, machine time, outwork and spoilage, with WIP recalculated by a job queue entry

API pages (REST API v2.0 / OData v4) for estimates, tickets and stage postings, ready for shop-floor tablets, Power Apps, Power Automate and Dataverse

Permission sets separating estimator, press operator (stage postings only), purchasing and controller, with event subscribers instead of base-object modification for upgrade safety

Built to order, done for you

No DIY setup — a working app, built, installed and supported by ECOSIRE.

You order

Start with a one-time build price. We scope it with you at kickoff.

We build & install

ECOSIRE builds, configures and installs it on your Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Go live + support

You go live in about 2–4 weeks, with a post-launch support window.

About this Product

A commercial print shop loses money in the estimate, not on the press. A 5,000-run brochure is priced from sheet size, grain direction, imposition and run-up spoilage, plate counts per colour per side, make-ready time on a specific press, and whether the lamination goes outside. Dynamics 365 Business Central prices a sales line from a unit price or a price list — it has no concept of a parent sheet cut down into press sheets, no plate math, no per-press make-ready and run-speed rates, and no way to hold three alternative quantities of the same estimate side by side. So estimators end up in spreadsheets, the accepted price never reconciles to the job that was actually run, and the workshop finds out about the job when a printed docket lands on the bench.

The second gap is production. Business Central's Jobs (Projects) module tracks planning lines, usage and WIP for a professional-services shape of work: tasks, hours, resource usage. It does not model a job ticket moving through prepress, plate-making, press, cutting, folding, binding and despatch, with a live good/spoiled count at each stage, an ink and paper draw against a specific lot, and an outwork purchase order that must come back before finishing can start. Item Tracking gives you lot numbers; it does not tell you that reel PA-0442 has 1,180 sheets left after run-up. Consumption gets keyed in days late, and job profitability becomes a post-mortem rather than a control.

What we build is an AL extension for your Business Central tenant. Estimation lives in new tables — Estimate Header, Estimate Version, Estimate Component and Estimate Operation — where a codeunit computes press sheets per parent sheet from trim size, bleed, gripper and colour-bar allowances, derives plate quantity from colours per side and press units, applies run-up plus percentage spoilage per operation, and costs each operation against a Machine Centre card carrying make-ready minutes, sheets-per-hour and a rate. Version the estimate so one enquiry can be quoted at 1,000, 2,500 and 5,000 from a single recalculation. Accept a version and it materialises a Job Ticket: stage lines, planned material consumption bound to real Item/Variant/Unit of Measure records, and a linked Business Central sales document so the commercial side stays native. Paper and ink move through standard Item Journals and Item Tracking, so inventory valuation, costing and the item ledger stay Microsoft's — we post into them, we do not shadow them. Outwork raises a purchase order against a job stage and blocks the downstream stage until receipt is posted.

Around that core: table and page extensions surface the ticket on Item, Customer and Sales Order; event subscribers on posting codeunits keep the ticket in step when a shipment or invoice posts; API pages (REST API v2.0 / OData v4) expose estimates, tickets and stage postings so a shop-floor tablet, a Power App, a Power Automate flow or a Dataverse virtual table can read and write without a bespoke gateway; job queue entries handle nightly WIP revaluation and stalled-stage alerts; and dedicated permission sets separate the estimator, the press operator who may only post stage quantities, and the controller. Everything ships against the current Business Central release waves on SaaS and on-premises, as a per-tenant extension or — if you intend to resell it — packaged for AppSource submission. No table modifications, no legacy C/AL, integration through published events and interfaces so a Microsoft update wave does not stop your shop floor.

This is build-to-order. There is nothing to download today. You request a quotation, we run a scoping call — usually 30 minutes — to pin down your presses, finishing kit, paper buying units, spoilage conventions and how price should be presented to the customer, then we send a fixed scope and price. On confirmed scope, typical delivery is 2-4 weeks: we build against your Business Central version, deploy to your sandbox for UAT with your own estimates and your own paper stock, then install to production in an agreed window with a rollback plan. You get the AL source, the git repository, technical and user documentation, a training session, and a post-go-live support window.

What you get

Installable AL extension source and compiled .app package, built and tested against your exact Business Central version (SaaS or on-premises)

Installation and configuration on your sandbox and production environments, including permission set assignment and job queue entry setup

Technical documentation: object ID ranges, table/page extension map, event subscriber list, API page endpoints and integration notes

User guide plus a live training session for estimators, press operators and the controller, recorded for later staff

UAT on your sandbox using your own estimates, presses and paper items, signed off before any production install

Production install in an agreed window with a documented rollback plan (extension uninstall path and data retention behaviour)

Git repository handover with full commit history, a tagged release branch, and the AL project and launch configuration

Post-go-live support window for defect fixes and configuration questions, with an agreed response commitment

Who this is for

Estimator

Quotes 10-40 enquiries a week and currently lives in a spreadsheet nobody else can audit. Needs paper, plate and press-time math applied consistently, alternative run quantities on one screen, and an accepted quote that becomes the actual job without re-keying.

Production Manager

Owns the schedule across prepress, press and finishing. Needs to see which tickets sit at which stage, what is waiting on outwork, and where spoilage is running above estimate — before the job is invoiced, not after.

Print Shop Owner / Managing Director

Wants to know which jobs, customers and presses actually make money. Needs true job cost — paper at the lot cost paid, real machine time, outwork and spoilage — reconciled against the quoted price inside Business Central rather than in a monthly spreadsheet.

Finance Controller / Business Central Administrator

Responsible for inventory valuation, WIP and a clean upgrade path. Needs consumption posted through standard item journals and item tracking, permissions scoped by role, and an extension that survives Microsoft's release waves without emergency remediation.

How Printing Press Management Compares

Criterion	ECOSIRE	Custom Build	Competitor	Dynamics 365 Business Central Native
Paper, imposition and plate math	Codeunit-driven: press sheets from parent sheet, plate count from colours per side and imposition, spoilage per operation	Achievable, but the estimating logic is the hard part and usually the piece rewritten twice	Present in print-specific apps, though the formula set is fixed to the vendor's assumptions	None — Business Central prices a sales line from a unit price or price list
Estimate versions at multiple run quantities	Estimate Version records recalculated together, priced side by side, one version accepted into a job	Needs a version data model designed from scratch; teams commonly ship single-quantity first	Usually supported, though the version model may not match how you quote	Duplicate quotes, kept in step by hand
Job ticket through press and finishing stages	Stage lines with good/spoiled quantity, operator time and stage-level material draw	Buildable; routing and blocking rules are where scope tends to grow	The vendor's stage model, rarely reshaped to your specific press and finishing kit	Projects/Jobs tasks and planning lines — a services shape, not a press routing
Paper and ink stock behaviour	Posts through standard Item Journals with Item Tracking, so valuation and item ledger stay native	Depends on the developer; shadow inventory tables are a common and costly shortcut	Usually native-compliant, but substrate attributes and buy-unit conversion can be thin	Full inventory and costing, with no substrate attributes, reel handling or job-stage draw
Outwork (lamination, foiling, external binding)	Purchase order raised against the job stage; downstream stage blocked until receipt is posted	Often deferred to phase two and run by email in the meantime	Varies widely — some track it, few block the downstream stage on it	A purchase order with no link to a production stage
Shop-floor and Power Platform access	API pages (REST API v2.0 / OData v4) plus a stage-postings-only permission set for tablets and Power Apps	API pages are straightforward; the permission scoping is the part usually skipped	Some expose APIs, others assume the web client on the floor	Standard Business Central APIs, with no print job or stage entities to call
Fit to your presses and spoilage conventions	Scoped to your machine list, run speeds, make-ready times and spoilage rules before a line is written	Exactly your process — you fund the discovery and the rework yourself	You adapt your process to the app, or pay for customisation on top	No print process to fit
Ownership, cost shape and support	Fixed quote, 2-4 weeks from confirmed scope, AL source and git repo handed over, post-go-live support window	Day rates and an open-ended timeline; you carry the estimating-logic risk	Per-user monthly licence indefinitely, source closed, roadmap set by the vendor	Already licensed — the gap is functional, not commercial

Frequently Asked Questions about Printing Press Management

Can I download and install this today from Microsoft AppSource?

No. This is a build-to-order Dynamics 365 Business Central extension, not an existing AppSource listing. You request a quotation, we scope it with you, and we build, install and support it. If you want it published to AppSource under your own publisher account, we can package it and prepare the submission as part of the scope.

How long does delivery take?

Typical delivery is 2-4 weeks from confirmed scope. The clock starts when scope and price are agreed in writing, not at first contact. That window covers building against your Business Central version, sandbox deployment, UAT with your own data, and the production install. Unusually complex kit — a web press with reel-based costing, or integration to an existing prepress workflow system — is scoped and quoted separately with its own timeline.

Will this break when Microsoft ships a new Business Central release wave?

It is built as an AL extension using table and page extensions, codeunits and event subscribers — no base-object modification and no legacy C/AL — which is what makes it upgrade-safe by design. We target the current release waves for SaaS and on-premises. During your support window we test against the next wave on a preview sandbox and ship a compatibility update if Microsoft deprecates something we subscribe to. After that window, wave-compatibility work is available as a support agreement or a fixed-price update.

Does it replace Business Central inventory and costing for paper and ink?

No, deliberately. Paper and ink stay as standard Items with Variants, Units of Measure and Item Tracking. Consumption posts through Item Journals, so the item ledger, value entries, FIFO or average costing and your financial reporting are all native Microsoft behaviour. We add the print-specific layer on top — substrate attributes, buy-in unit conversion, and reel or lot draw against a job stage.

Can shop-floor staff post stage progress from a tablet instead of the Business Central client?

Yes. Stage postings are exposed through API pages using REST API v2.0 / OData v4, so a Power App, a Power Automate flow, a Dataverse virtual table or a third-party kiosk can post good and spoiled quantities and operator time. A dedicated permission set restricts those users to stage postings only — they cannot see pricing, estimates or customer data.

How are over-runs and under-runs handled on the invoice?

The job ticket carries the ordered quantity, the tolerance agreed with the customer and the actual delivered quantity. Delivery and billing invoice the delivered quantity within tolerance and flag anything outside it for a decision rather than silently invoicing it. Part-deliveries across multiple despatches are supported and roll up to the sales document.

What do we get at handover — are we locked in to ECOSIRE?

You get the full AL source and the git repository with its commit history, plus technical documentation covering object ranges, event subscribers and API endpoints. Your own developer or another Business Central partner can take it forward. We would rather earn the support contract than hold the code hostage.