Mike,
To be honest, I hadn't even started thinking about the printing process, I'm still trying to figure out the best way to enter the orders in the first place?
We've considered a couple of options, but thought we'd ask the experts first
So far we've thought of:
1) treat a subscription as an order for multiple units of a single item (so a 12 month subscription would be a qty ordered of 12), and process the order. We would then use custom fields to track how much has actually been 'dispatched', and possibly when last something was sent.
2) setup each subscription as a 'kit', so a 6 month subscription would be a part with 6 components, a 12 month subscription a part with 12 components, etc. When adding the subscription to the order, it would then populate with all the components, the idea being that we would then ship them one line at a time (can you do this?).
3) there was a third one.... but I can't remember what it was now...
something to do with creating batches within inventory.
From a financials point-of-view, the client will receive payment for the subscription right up front, but then have a liability for any magazines not yet sent out, and they would like to be able to track that.
tia,
/Ryan