Plates, inventory and remnants
Every job needs a plate. On paid GCnester plans, Standard uses a one-off plate typed into the job; inventory stock and saved remnants are included with Pro and Business. Jobs that came from a work order can also record what was produced. This guide covers the Plates window, Complete Nest and Save Remnant.
Set the job's material, thickness, dimensions and program origin. For a temporary rectangular plate, use One-off plate for this job. For inventory, open Plates.
The box labelled Only plates that match this job is ticked by default; it filters the list to plates of the job's material and thickness. A plate appearing in the list doesn't mean there's quantity on hand, that it can be reserved, or that every part will fit on it. Columns include Use, Plate, Material, Thick, Width, Length, Remnant, Qty, Heat, Location, Reserve and Reserved For. Refresh reloads the list, and the preview shows the selected plate or remnant outline with its origin and avoid zones.
Tick Use on the rows the job may draw from and drag them into the order you want. When new stock is added, matching material and thickness come first, then remnants and smaller pieces. The order of stock already in the queue is kept. A plate reserved for another work order can't be used here, and unticking the match filter doesn't change what is eligible.
Cut This Sheet On It applies the selected stock to the current sheet (double-click does the same). Edit in Inventory opens the underlying entry. Then nest and review the layout and cut paths as usual.
Work orders come with Business and the demo. Once the plate is actually cut, Complete Nest records production for a job that came from a work order. A job with no work-order link is asked to use From Work Order first. It counts the placed, unsuppressed copies, matches them to the order lines, shows you the quantities to confirm, and tells you about any part it couldn't match. For inventory stock it then takes the sheet out of inventory, unless this job has already recorded that (a saved remnant counts too). If that step fails, it tells you plainly: fulfillment recorded, plate not taken out. Recording fulfillment a second time doesn't take a second sheet. Run it again and it asks whether to record another run or replace the earlier record.
Save Remnant is its own action and doesn't run as part of Complete Nest. It keeps the stock outline with the part cutouts, writes a remnant DXF and adds an inventory entry with material, thickness, name, heat, location and quantity; a duplicate name gets a suffix. Straight, axis-aligned, edge-to-edge skeleton cuts give exact rectangles, recognised closed skeleton cells give shaped pieces, and other cuts save one whole plate face without splitting it, with a notice. Save the job afterwards, and label the real material to match.
Questions people ask
Remnants and smaller stock are preferred when stock is first organised, but the order you set in the Plates window is kept. It's a default preference, not a rule that overrides your queue.