Setting Up Piece Tracking
Before piece tracking is available for your studio to use, you will need to determine and set up your firing fees. This is where you will create pricing structures, billing schedules for piece submission, etc.
NAVIGATE TO: Studio > Pieces & Firing Fees.
Firing Fees
Automatically Charge Accumulated Firing Fees
Kiln Fire does not automatically bill for each individual firing fee immediately upon submission. This is because most firing fees are small, a few dollars or so. Instead, we have it structured for you to choose how often your studio will charge accumulated firing fees (weekly, biweekly, or monthly). Once you select and save this setting, the system will automatically collect all unbilled work for each user at midnight on that schedule, sending an invoice and using the credit card Users already have on file. Users will receive a receipt as well as a notice if their card fails for any reason. In the event of a failed transaction, the email will include instructions on how to log into Kiln Fire and pay for their firing fees manually.
All studio managers will receive a summary email on the schedule you set for Firing Fees as well.
Firing Prices & Glaze Notes
To build out different firing types for users to select when submitting piece, studios can create different Firing Prices. A lot of times, studios build a Bisque, Glaze, and maybe one other option (like Luster or something like that) here, so that when users go to submit piece, they will choose from a drop-down menu of those three.
Many studios choose to change the field name for “Glaze Notes” to something that helps their customers know to put glaze preference there when submitting piece (i.e. “Glaze Notes - REQUIRED FOR GLAZING”. Note: if you toggle Glaze Notes Required ON once you've built out several Firing Prices, then it would require notes there even for other types (like bisque).
User Perks for Firing Fees
As a studio you also have the ability to assign free firing for specific users (students, employees, etc.). You can assign a free number of pieces or up to a specific weight or volume. You can find these settings in Studio > User Perks. To learn more, click here to read about user perks.