Setting up ink tanks on a printer
Add a tank per colour, set its capacity, and link it to the inventory item that fills it.
A tank represents ink physically loaded in a printer. Tanks are what jobs draw from and what refills fill — they are the bridge between your ink stock and your presses.
Adding tanks
Edit the machine in Machines, make sure it is marked as a printer, and add one row per colour:
| Field | What to put |
|---|---|
| Colour | Free text — Black, Light Cyan, White, a Pantone name. |
| Swatch | The chip shown in lists. Filled in for common names. |
| Full tank (ml) | The tank's capacity when full. Required. |
| Inventory item | The stock this tank is filled from. |
Buttons are provided to pre-fill a standard CMYK or CMYKLcLm set, which you can then edit. Saving replaces the machine's tanks with exactly the rows shown, so removing a row removes that tank.
The inventory link is the important part
A tank with no linked item cannot be accounted for
When a job starts, PrintERP looks at the recipe's inks and finds, on the machine running that line, a tank fed by the same inventory item. No link means no match: the job still starts, but you get a warning and that ink is never drawn down. Getting the link right is the difference between accurate ink tracking and none at all.
The item must be one registered in Ink Usage Management for the join to be useful — that is what gives it a millilitre balance and a cost.
Choosing the capacity
Enter the tank's real capacity in millilitres. It sets the ceiling for a Full refill and the amount a Half refill adds. Too high and refills over-deduct from stock; too low and they under-deduct.
New tanks start empty
A newly added tank has zero millilitres, whatever is physically in the machine. Go to Ink, open the Ink Refill tab, and either fill it or enter the approximate level you can see. Until you do, jobs will report the tank as short.
Tip
One printer can hold two tanks of the same colour — a main and a reserve — as long as each has its own row. Fill them independently.
Open Machines
Set up the tanks on your printers.
Related guides
How ink works
Bottles on the shelf, tanks in the printer, and why only a refill moves your ink stock.
Refilling a printer
Full and half refills, entering what is really left in the tank, and what leaves your stock.
Adding a machine
Register a printer, cutter or laminator — and why production speed matters more than it sounds.