In any digital print production, it’s important to keep track of costs for materials, inks, printer uptime, etc. to have control over your expenses and plan appropriately. Ergosoft offers a suite of tools to effectively estimate print production costs beforehand as well as track effective costs during production. Through Ergosofts integrated approach, you only need to set up the data and price points for different consumables once to be able to use them across the program.
To track production costs, we must first assign cost factors to our consumables. This way Ergosoft can then calculate the costs based on the expended resources. In Ergosoft you can configure all your materials from a single, convenient place. To do so, start the Cost Manager by going to Control Center > Tools > CostManager.
At the top of the dialog, you’ll see several tabs separating the different kinds of consumables for printing. Note that configuring consumables in the CostManager will add them to the RIP, but they still need to be set active elsewhere for cost calculation to work (Except Printer cost as that is automatically assigned to the Print Environment). The available tabs are:
Features a list of media types and their associated cost per area (e.g. square meter). To add a material, click the New button. Enter the cost per unit into the dialog and add a description for the material so you can better identify it later.
Once you are done, confirm with Ok and enter a name for your newly added material. Confirm with Ok again and you should see your new material pop up in the list. This material can then be selected in your Print Environments under General and/or the PrintQueue for printed jobs to keep track of material costs.
Once you have added an item, you can always edit, rename, delete or export it using the button to the right side of the list.
Features management tools for both Ink costs and running cost of a printer per hour. The top dialog Manage Printer costs will display all the Print Environments you have set up in your Ergosoft installation. Select the one you want to assign a running cost to, then click the Edit button to the right. Enter a cost factor for running the printer per hour.
If you also know that this printer has an increased ink consumption or requires more ink cost to be factored in, you may also enter an Ink Volume correction.
Finish by adding a description and confirm with Ok. The printer cost information is written directly into the Print Environment, so it does not need to be set elsewhere for the printer costs to be factored in the cost calculation.
In the lower half of the dialog under Manage Ink Costs you’ll be able to set a cost for your inks. To add an ink type, click the New button. Enter the cost per unit into the dialog (Do so for each ink color if they are priced differently) and add a description for the ink so you can better identify it later.
Once you are done, confirm with Ok and enter a name for your newly added ink. Confirm with Ok again and you should see your new ink pop up in the list. This ink type can then be selected in your Print Environments under Cost Factors and will then be applied to all jobs printed with that Print Environment.
Sets the cost to run the printers per printed area. In the left column, you can select for which printers you want to keep costs per printed area. Check those that you wish to apply this cost tracking for.
To change its cost per area, select the respective printer in the right column and click the Edit-button to specify a cost per unit. Confirm with Ok. Ergosoft will then track the area printed by this printer and the cost associated with it.
This dialog lets you specify which materials are compatible with which Print Environments. This limits the selectable options in the Print Environment/Print Dialog/PrintQueue to let you find the suitable material and ink quicker.
Select materials, ink type and printer that are suitable for each other by checking the respective boxes, then click Assign Selection to Print Environments to associate these materials and this ink type with the selected Print Environment(s).
You can remove assigned combinations by selecting them and clicking the Remove Media Selection from Print Environments button.
After they are defined in the CostManager, some of your consumables will need to be assigned in the RIP before costs can be calculated. First open the Print Environment you intend to use for printing.
Go to the Cost Factors Tab. For many printer models, there are already predefined dot sizes in place, but if the dot size is not there yet, check the printers manual or inquire with the printer manufacturer about the correct dot sizes. Select Custom and enter the size for each dot so it can be used to calculate the ink costs.
Under Ink Type, select the appropriate ink type that you have slotted into this printer (The drop down menu will show all the types you have defined and set as suitable in the cost manager). Once you have set an Ink Type here, Ergosoft will assume this is the ink loaded in this printer and will use it to calculate costs whenever you print something with this Print Environment.
You can also assign suitable materials for this Print Environment. In the Quality tab and in Media > Global Media List, select the materials you want to use with this Print Environment and use the + button to add them to the list (The media listed here are those set up in the CostManager). This configures which materials appear for selection in other dialogs while this Print Environment is active. Note that you still need to select a material in the estimate printer cost or PrintClient window for them to be counted in the cost calculation.
Before printing, you can estimate the production costs of a job. Prepare your job to print, but instead of clicking the Print button, make sure no image is selected in the job (E.g. by clicking into an empty area) and go to Job Properties & Actions > Estimate Production Cost.
Set the number of copies, the repeat mode (With Gap, Without Gap, etc.) the material type you want to use and click Calculate to have the RIP create an estimate of the production costs for you.
A Production Data window will appear and display the estimated costs for this job based on the ink and printer cost set in the Print Environment as well as the material you selected.
To export this estimate to a .txt file, click the Production Report button and select a save location.
To track the effective costs during production, make sure you have set your material, ink type and printer running costs detailed in the chapter Assign your Consumables.
Open the PrintQueue for the Print Environment you want to use. Make sure it is set to Offline and look at the Media section. Select the media type you want to use from the dropdown menu.
Enter a media width for your loaded material, either by typing it in manually, or by clicking the Refresh button if your printer supports it.
Setting the media width is important as the cost calculation needs to know how much empty material is left on either side of a printed image to determine the correct material cost.
Prepare your job for printing as normal and click the Print button (You may of course estimate production costs first if you like). In the Print dialog, set your number of copies and make sure the selected material under media is correct. Confirm with Ok to send your job to the PrintQueue.
After the Job has been rastered, you can access the cost for job production from any Queue Viewer in the RIP (Queue Monitor in the JobComposer, PrintQueue, QueueManager) by right clicking on the job in the list and selecting either:
Production Data will open a production data window that displays the cost for the job divided into ink, printer, material, etc. as well as a total cost for the job. To export this estimate to a .txt file, click the Production Report button and select a save location.
Job Ticket will open a html page in your default browser showing a range of information about your job including the tracked cost of inks.
You can also find this html job ticket in the default folder C:\Users\Public\Documents\EsRip\17\Data\JobTickets.