Shop Inventory Tracker

This is a leftover-bar and leftover-parts tracker for a machine shop. You run it on one Windows PC. Same screens for the person at the saw, the person who buys stock, and the person who watches the dollars. No cloud. No accounts. No monthly fee.

It was built first for AG Innovation. First run is an empty shop — your racks, your jobs.

You do not need Git.

1. Open this page: github.com/NiftyRaven/shop-inventory-tracker/releases/latest
2. Under Assets, click the zip named like shop-inventory-tracker-1.1.0.zip (or Source code (zip) if that is what you see).
3. Save the file. Downloads is fine.

1. Open github.com/NiftyRaven/shop-inventory-tracker
2. Click the green Code button
3. Click Download ZIP
4. Save the file

1. Find the zip in Downloads (or wherever you saved it).
2. Right-click the zip → Extract All... (or Extract).
3. Choose a place you will not lose:
   • Desktop is fine
   • Documents is fine
   • Do not leave it inside a zip. The program needs a real folder.
4. Open the new folder. You should see Start Inventory.bat.

If Windows made a folder inside a folder (two folders with the same name), keep going until you see that .bat file.

You can rename the folder to Shop Inventory if you want.

1. Double-click Start Inventory.bat
2. A black window opens. Leave it open. That window is the program. Closing it stops the tracker.
3. The first time can take a minute. It is getting itself ready.
4. Your browser should open http://localhost:3000

After the PC sleeps or restarts, double-click Start Inventory.bat again.

Want an icon on the Desktop? Double-click Install shortcut on Desktop.bat.

Even plainer notes live in START HERE.txt.

The tracker uses a free program called Node.js. You only install it once.

1. The black window may already open nodejs.org
2. Click the big LTS button (the recommended one)
3. Run the installer. Next, Next, Finish is fine.
4. Double-click Start Inventory.bat again

Materials opens first. The rack is empty. That is correct — this is not a demo dump.

Tap Add stock. Pick a grade (6061, CRS, 304, and so on), put it on a rack, type what you paid. Markup defaults to 30% if you leave it blank.

Then:

• Cut a bar → type a job number, then the length. The leftover stays on the rack as a remnant.
• Inventory is bought parts (nuts, 80/20, fittings). Take always needs a job number.
• History is every cut and take, with the time and dollars.
• Costs is leftover dollars, charged to jobs, profit.
• Settings password starts as free. Shop name, logo, default markup, then Format if you ever need a clean slate.

Same tabs every time: Materials · Inventory · History · Costs · Settings

Look in the black window for a line like:

Other shop PCs: http://192.168.1.40:3000

On those PCs, open a browser and type that address. Same LAN. No login.

The PC that runs Start Inventory.bat is the one that holds the books. Leave that black window open.

• Name: Settings. Default is AG Innovation (AGI).
• Logo: Settings → Change shop logo, or drop logo.png in this folder.
• Password: free. You may change it once in Settings. After that, edit admin-password.txt in this folder.
• Markup: a percent, default 30%. Charge to a job = what you paid for that portion ×ばつ (1 + markup/100).

Format writes a zip first (in a backups folder on this PC), then empties stock and history. Name goes back to AG Innovation. Password goes back to free. Markup goes back to 30%. The factory logo.png in this folder is not deleted. A logo you uploaded in Settings is cleared.

Those backups, the database, and the shop password file stay on this PC. They are not part of the download.

I believe in planting a lot of seeds.

Not every seed becomes a tree. A kid walking onto a floor for the first time, or an owner who has been doing this thirty years with a notebook, should not have to buy a bloated system to know what a cut cost.

If this saves you a stalled job, a wasted plate, or a Saturday spent hunting a remnant — keep it. Give it to the shop down the road.

If it helped, and you want to say so the way people used to say so — a coffee, a little, whatever is honest — there is a place for that below. Or give nothing. Both are allowed.

I will not put a paywall on a leftover bar.

A small donation is a thank-you, not a license. Skip it if the week was tight. Send something if a job shipped because the remnant was still on the screen instead of in someone’s memory.

X Money: https://x.com/NFTRVN

Bitcoin
bc1qm3tj6vzpmdmrg26vvmzv4j3tcwuqfns277u3cj

Dogecoin
DJjLK8Ua5yiwZVvMpeVMMXv7y8eirys7mt

Solana
H9bQ96B7AAhZCGsSdag7hkbWRG4Kr6hnVHLaKJCFLxpg

Ethereum
0xd0e3c4d7432dccdb2d0daf9004582a7418d207b5

The word donate in the app footer goes to the same X Money page. Quiet. No popup. No guilt.

git clone https://github.com/NiftyRaven/shop-inventory-tracker.git
cd shop-inventory-tracker
npm install
npm start

Opens the same app at http://localhost:3000. Runtime files (data/, backups/, *.db, admin-password.txt, admin.json) are gitignored so a clone starts empty.

MIT license. Node 16 or newer.

MIT. Take it. Fork it. Put your logo on it. Run it on a dusty shop PC.

Plant the next seed.