Introduction
The goal of this document is to guide you through the setup and configuration of a new Finale Inventory fireworks or pyrotechnics type of business.
There are several different types of fireworks customers.
- Professional display fireworks company
- Professional fireworks importer/distributor/wholesaler
- Consumer fireworks importer/distributor/wholesaler
- Consumer fireworks retailer
- Close proximate fireworks manufacturer/wholesaler
- Close proximate fireworks display
- Fireworks manufacturer
Most of the professional and close primate fireworks companies will also be using our Finale3D software in addition to Finale Inventory. The fireworks industry is regulated by many government agencies but the most common ones they deal with are the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms(ATF), the U.S. Department of Transportation(DOT), and the Consumer Protection and Safety Commission(CPSC). Most all fireworks companies must deal with the US DOT, but only professional fireworks are regulated by the ATF.
Steps to Onboarding your Fireworks business
Here is a summary of steps to make sure you are successful in configuring your Finale Inventory account for Fireworks operations:
- Enable all the Fireworks and Pyrotechnics specific features of Finale Inventory
- Know what type of Fireworks business you are
- Make the key application setting changes for fireworks users
- Know where to find the other normal setup features and functions for all Finale Inventory accounts
- Learn the proper use for the key fireworks fields if required
- Review the reporting features that you may need to use for record-keeping purposes
Enabling Fireworks features of Finale Inventory
By default, your Finale Inventory account will not have any Fireworks or pyrotechnics features enabled. You must turn them on to use them. Here is a video that shows you how to enable them.
What type of fireworks business are you?
When configuring your new Finale Inventory account, you can look at the following fireworks usage types defined by three different usage categories:
- ATF Regulated
- Not ATF Regulated
- Professional use only, not ATF regulated
When you look at the above, you can then see that you may be regulated by the ATF or not, but all fireworks when they are transported are regulated by the US DOT. Thus, when you are configuring your new Finale Inventory account for fireworks you should ask yourself some questions to help you know which features you will need to configure.
- Do you use/store/sell professional ATF-regulated fireworks?
- Do you use Finale3D scripting and choreographing software?
- Do you need US DOT transportation Hazmat Bills of lading for shipping documents?
US DOT Hazmat features and settings
Most firework customers will likely use the HAZMAT BOL features in Finale Inventory.
Thus, it does not matter if you are ATF-regulated or not or what types of fireworks you use or sell, you will need to use the Hazardous Materials features for shipping documents and paperwork. Make sure that you enable the OLD STYLE reports and know that you must use specific fields to get the Hazmat BOL to populate correctly.
ATF Regulated customer settings
Important record-keeping concepts and decisions
There are five key record-keeping requirements for the ATF-regulated customers:
- Daily Summary of Magazine Transactions - DSMT
- Records of Acquisition
- Records of Disposition
- Magazine total Net Explosive Weight(NEQ)
- Date-Shift code tracking
Also remember that if you are an ATF-regulated customer, your records are required to be available for review at all times, even after you close or go out of business. You cannot just erase or wipe your Finale Inventory account. If you ask to reset your account, make sure you understand that there will be no recourse for that action and you need to make sure you have a paper copy of anything you have stored in Finale Inventory as backup.
DSMT
The Daily summary of Magazine Transactions is the key report the ATF inspection agent will require the Finale Inventory user to produce. This report is located in the Pyrotechnic reports, under the Legacy ATF reports. This Report should be run for only ONE Sublocation at a time.
Notice that there are 6 reports listed here. ONLY USE THE FIRST TWO. Do not use these Legacy reports for Acquisitions and Dispositions.
Note the Daily summary of magazine transactions, with product detail report option will add more detail to the DSMT report using the Manufacturer and the Mfg Product ID field(Not Product ID).
There are no customizations whatsoever available to the DSMT reports. They cannot be changed or updated. The data on this report come from the data on the Product ID detail page and all ins and outs transactions. The values for the groupings on this report come from the Category field on the product ID.
Records of Acquisition
This is a report that is designed to show all the times you have created a Purchase order and received products into your magazines. It is intended to track the BATF license number of the person or business entity you acquired the product from.
Make sure your suppliers have the ATF License number entered on the Supplier’s name record in Finale Inventory.
Records of Disposition
This is a report that is designed to show all the times you have created a Sales order and shipped products out of your magazines. It is intended to track the BATF license number of the person or business entity you sold the product to.
Make sure your Customer has the ATF License number entered on the Customer’’s name record in Finale Inventory.
Magazine/Bunker NEQ Weights
When you as a Firework business store your firework product in a building, magazine, trailer, bunker, or warehouse you are responsible for the safety of the people and property around them. You are given a specific limit on the amount of energetic(explosives) material that can be stored in one spot. This is determined by what the ATF calls the table of distances. Depending on how close the storage location is to the nearest inhabited structure, it will limit the amount of fireworks you are allowed to store there. Finale helps you track this by tracking an NEQ Weight on every single item. Finale uses an NEQ per unit and multiplies this by the case packing to determine the total NEQ weight of a case if it is stored that way. Finale also takes this weight times the quantity on hand and computes a total NEQ per magazine or Sublocation.
It is important that YOU, the Finale Inventory user, know that the NEQ per unit is exactly that, a per unit weight and not the NEQ weight for the entire case. Also, the reports will derive all weights for shipping and storage to pounds for US and Kilograms for Metric. This is determined by the system unit of measure on the Application settings, Company Info tab.
Date-shift code tracking
When Fireworks customers bring new fireworks into the country or when they purchase and store them in their magazines or bunkers, the ATF requires them to know a date-shift code for each and every item. This date-shift code is normally the date the item was manufactured in China or the country of origin. This date-shift code may take many forms. It could be a Julian date or a normal MM/DD/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD formatted date. Different fireworks users store or track this information differently. Finale is designed to use the LOT ID field to keep track of this very well. Many users that are not using the mobile scanner will not like to use the LOT ID feature because it is too much work. Another way to keep track of Date-shift codes for all of the inventory items is to create a new Product id(SKU) each and every year or time you purchase the fireworks. Thus, the product id would contain the year it was manufactured. This way is simple and easy to execute. The key to setting up the fireworks customer is to have a conversation about how they do it now and how Finale Inventory may be configured to help them. In the end, it is up to them to decide.
Packed shows
A lot of our fireworks customers do fireworks shows. Each firework show will be tracked in a Sales order. In order to prepare for a fireworks show they will normally pull, pick, and pack the show weeks or months ahead of time. Firework shows take a lot of time to prepare and also require special transportation requirements. Therefore they must pull the products from the sublocations for a show and put them all together on a pallet or in boxes, and restore them in a magazine or sublocation. They are still responsible for the explosive weight of this product and they are still responsible for possession records for these packed shows. There are numerous reports in the system that may show the user where they are and how much they contribute to the magazine's NEQ weight calculations. The ATF inspectors may also need to know the content of the show so a report listing what is in the shipment will be requested. They also need to be reminded that they have to SHIP the shipment for it to be removed from their magazines and records. The DSMT will still show all the packed items until they ship the show.
The Stock NEQ by sublocation reports will also help identify where packed shows/shipments are located and how much they are contributing to the storage weights.
Key Product ID fields for DOT and ATF record-keeping compliance
There are many fields in Finale Inventory that are specifically fireworks and pyrotechnics related. They are not enabled by default. Be sure to go to application settings and enable them.
Besides the Category field being mandatory for ATF users, the following Product id fields must also be used. You may need to enable them on the Application settings, Product tab, Industry specific fields section:
The NEQ, EX, and Manufacture country fields are important for both ATF regulated and non-regulated firework customers.
Product Categories must be used and contain specific information
The Category field in Finale Inventory is used for the DSMT reports. It must contain a description of the effect type or type of firework device and the size or caliber of the effect. For example, there are shells, cakes, mines, comets, candles, salutes, and more. These indicate the type of effect or item the product id may be. Also, these effects come in different sizes. Sizes are normally tracked in inches(in) or millimeters(mm). So a 5” display shell should have a category of “5in Shell” or “Shell - 5in” or something like it that conveys both what type of a device it is and how big it is. Size is often called caliber in the fireworks industry. Failure to create and use categories in this manner in Finale Inventory could lead to issues, problems, citations, or fines with the ATF.
NOTE: Here is a link to a useful article on how to create custom fields in Finale Inventory for other product categories or grouping methods. How do I create custom fields for products?
You must keep this rigid category structure field for the ATF reporting requirements.
See the other fields on the product ID that must be used.
EX numbers and or CE numbers must be used
All pyrotechnic devices have one or more EX numbers. If a product id has more than one EX number, enter them all in the EX number field separated by a space or a comma.
CE number is the European marking for Consumer fireworks. It is not used in the USA.
See more here on the ATF website: What is an EX number?
Hazardous Materials(UN numbers) - required
All fireworks have a hazardous material identifier called a UN Number. It is used by the transportation industry in the USA to communicate what type of chemicals or composition make up the product that may be in transport or storage. The data must be entered into Finale Inventory as UNXXXX where XXXX is the 4-digit UN number. For example, 336 is a Consumer firework device, so the UN number is UN0336. You must have the leading zero or it will not import. Do not import the description with the UN number. All you supply is the UNXXXX.
Weight per unit - required
This is the gross weight of the item both energetic(NEQ) and non-energetic(powders, paper, the complete device)
Weight unit of measure - required
Per your company settings, you will choose what your weight unit of measure is and when entering an item gross weight, choose what increment of weight the weight per unit is recorded as.
NEQ(Net Explosive Quantity) per unit - required
This is the weight of the item’s energetic content only. Only the portion of the item’s weight that is considered explosive. This is for one single unit or each. Not the NEQ for the entire case. If the item is a chain, and they are storing the item as a chain in inventory with an SKU that is for more than one regulated unit, then this NEQ per unit would be the sum of all units in the chain.
NEQ unit of measure - required
Per your company settings, you will choose what your NEQ weight unit of measure is and when entering an items NEQ weight, choose what increment of weight the NEQ weight per unit is recorded as.
Manufacturer field - required
Who is the company that made the product or the brand identifier for the device?
Mfg product id field - required
What is the Manufacturer’s product identifier or SKU? If it is not known, use the Product id value. This means this field and the Product id are the same value. Note: This field is used on the DSMT report version that has product detail. If they wish to see their DSMT reports with Product ids they MUST set this field to the same value as their Product ID.
County of Origin field - required
Where the item was manufactured or imported from.
Std Packing field is critical if used
The default packing or number of trackable/inventoried items in a BOX or Case.
Important Application setting features
Here is a link to a how-to video on how to enable all the fireworks and pyrotechnic-related settings in your Finale Inventory account:
Enabling Finale Inventory fireworks or pyrotechnic features
Here are more specific explanations for some of these settings.
ATF license fields - required
Make sure you enable and review the ATF license fields.
For the company, go to Application settings, Screens, and Application settings(the last one in the list).
For Suppliers:
Make sure you enable and review the ATF license fields.
For the Suppliers, go to Application settings, Screens, and Supplier detail.
For Customers:
Make sure you enable and review the ATF license fields.
For the Customers, go to Application settings, Screens, and Customer details(scroll down towards the bottom).
LOT ID Field enabled
After discussing with the customer about Date-shift code tracking, if they will be using the Lot ID field, be sure to enable it. I normally configure it to be Plain Text.
Go to Application settings, Product tab.
Help articles on how to use LOT IDs:
How to bulk import initial stock qty with lot ids or serial numbers
See the advanced section here: 11. Establish your Stock Levels
How do I create a purchase order?
Hazmat BOLs - required
Pyrotechnic reports must be available
Non-ATF Regulated firework customer settings
Make sure you enable the Hazmat fields and packing fields for fireworks users of all types.
Finale3D user settings
Finale3D is a standalone software product that is downloaded and installed on a Finale3D customer’s PC.
Finale3D is a subscription service software from Finale Fireworks, not from Finale Inventory. This software has the ability to integrate with Finale Inventory for keeping track of inventory and sales orders. Below is more information on how to configure Finale Inventory to integrate and share information with Finale3D.
How to connect Finale Inventory with Finale3D
https://finale3d.com/documentation/account-setup/
Field name differences between Finale Inventory and Finale3D
https://finale3d.com/documentation/column_names_in_inventory_vs_3d/
Enabling Effect Characteristic fields
These are optional fields that you will need to turn on in the Application settings, Product tab.
They are used by the Finale3D software. Information is shared and synchronized between Finale Inventory and Finale3D. Think of these fields and firework effect-specific attributes that are not relevant for not firework related product ids.
Syncing Sales Orders with Finale3D
Firework displays like the ones on major holidays and for sporting events, municipalities, and entertainment events are called shows. A show is normally scripted or choreographed to be in sync/time with the music. This is why they use Finale3D. All the effects they script will be product ids. These effects in their shows will be sent to Finale Inventory as a Sales order so we can manage the product stock levels and shipments.
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