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"Shopping List" Does Not seem to Represent Actual Shopping List

HeyNoPie

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Jul 10, 2011
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I'm not sure the shopping list truly represents what needs to be purchased.  For example, suppose I have a recipe consisting of 10lbs of pale malt and I have 2lbs in my inventory.  This would mean that I must purchase 8 additional pounds to brew this recipe.  When I add this recipe to the shopping list, it shows "amount" 10, "inventory" 2, and "needed" 8.  I can tell that when I go shopping I need to buy the "needed" amount of 8.  I think there are better ways to represent that, but I can handle it.  The problem though is that when I click "Add to Inventory", it adds 10 (the "amount") to my inventory rather than the 8lbs I needed.  That doesn't seem very intuitive to me.  If I adjust the "amount" to 8 (the original "needed"), the "needed" then changes to 6 which is even more confusing.

I'm really not clear how the shopping cart and inventory are supposed to be used.  Beersmith aside, if I were to buy groceries as an example, I am only concerned with items and quantities I need.  At the time I am making the purchase, I just need to know I need 2 more items and when I get home, I will then have 2 more than I did before.  There really is no distinction between what I need and what I will buy.  I buy what I need.  The Beersmith concept of buying an amount other than what I need (separate fields for "amount" and "needed") doesn't make sense to me.

In addition to the confusions above, creating a shopping list for a recipe where I already have some ingredients will add ingredients I have to the shopping list.  If I have 10lbs and need 10lbs, why would I want to go buy 10 more pounds?

Overall, I've found BeerSmith to be a powerful tool, but I'm quite disappointed with how this inventory is handled as the inventory feature was a key differentiator for me compared to the other free tools for recipe formulation.  If I had realized this behavior earlier today, I'm not certain I would have purchased Beersmith.

Does anyone have any insight?  Am I misunderstanding something?
 
Hi,
  The system worked off the "amount" field in BeerSmith 1 for many years, and no one ever suggested we change it.  However I can certainly see how it might be nice to have the option to move over the "needed" amount instead, so I've added this to my list to add in a future version.  I would likely make it optional so you could use either system.

Brad
 
Thank you, Brad.  I hope I didn't come off as too much of a rant, but I just find the "amount" and "needed" values counter-intuitive.  In the meantime, my thinking is:

1- Print the shopping list to go shopping
2- Buy based upon the "needed" field (and buy any additional quantities by whim)
3- Enter actual purchased amounts into the "amount" field
4- Add to inventory

I saw a post from a long time ago suggesting that the "needed" column should be the difference between the amount a recipe calls for and the inventory on hand.  I partially agree with that.  I'm just not sure the "amount" and "needed" columns should maintain any relation.  If a recipe calls for 10lbs, I have 2, and buy 50, I didn't "need" 48lbs.  I only needed 8lbs when I added the recipe to the shopping cart and still only needed 8lbs at the end.  I just happened to have purchased 50.  To me, a "need" should only represent a differential between inventory and a recipe.

Does that make sense?
 
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