How GPN works

Signing in

GPN uses your Google account — there is no separate password to remember. The first time you sign in, the app creates your profile and asks you to complete a short onboarding form.

1. Tap "Sign in with Google" on the sign-in screen.
2. Pick your Google account and approve the sign-in.
3. Fill in the onboarding form the first time you sign in.
4. Choose your account type — Standard user, or Buyer if you buy packaging.

Module access

GPN's modules are the Flexible Laminate, Printed Box, Rotogravure Cylinder, Packaging Label, Woven Sack & FIBC and Laminated Tube cost calculators, the Packaging Directory, and RFQ. A new account starts with everything locked. Activating your account — a one-time ₹449 payment from the Packaging Directory card on the dashboard — unlocks the directory for good, on every account type. All six calculators are each a yearly subscription on top, in separate seat pools: once your account is activated, each one's dashboard card shows its current price and takes you to the payment page. Prices are subject to change anytime. After you pay, the card unlocks by itself within a few seconds.

Roles

Every account has a role. Users price quotes against published cost models. Buyers are packaging buyers rather than sellers: SCM takes the place of CRM, and with calculator access they price jobs against published cost models. Suppliers can additionally create their own cost models and manage their Packaging Directory listing. Admins create the shared cost models, manage users and module access, and moderate the directory. You choose between a Standard and a Buyer account when you first sign in.

Finding your way around

The dashboard lists the module cards plus one more: CRM on a standard account, or SCM on a Buyer account. On wide screens the app bar switches between modules; on phones the same links live in the navigation drawer. Your account menu (top right) holds My Profile, the user guide, What's new, Developer info, and Sign out.

What it does

The Flexible Laminate Cost Calculator prices a laminate job from a cost model — a set of six rate tables covering the materials and processes that make up a laminate. You pick a model, describe the job, and the calculator shows a live cost breakdown.

Cost models

Template models are published by GPN admins and are ready to use. Suppliers can also create their own models with their own rates. In the model picker each entry is badged: Template (admin-published), Mine (created by you), or Supplier (published by another supplier).

1. Open Flexible Laminate and choose "Cost models" to browse models.
2. Suppliers: tap "New model" to create one, then fill in each of the six rate tables.
3. Tap an existing model you own to edit its rates.

Pricing a quote

A quote is priced against one cost model. The breakdown updates as you change the job details.

1. Choose "New quote" and pick a cost model from the list.
2. Enter the job details — structure, materials, sizes and quantities.
3. Review the live cost breakdown at the bottom of the form.
4. Tap the save icon to keep the quote, choosing the customer it belongs to.

Saved quotes

Saved quotes are listed under "Quotes". Reopening a quote recalculates it at the current rates in its cost model — if the rates changed since you saved it, a banner points out that the totals have moved from what was originally saved.

Manage inputs

The "Manage inputs" screen lets you maintain your own reusable inputs so you do not have to retype them on every quote.

What it does

The Printed Box Cost Calculator works just like the Flexible Laminate calculator, but for printed boxes: pick a cost model, describe the box job, and read the live cost breakdown.

Cost models

Models carry six rate tables for box materials and processes. Template models come from GPN admins; suppliers can create their own. In the model list, tap any rate row to edit it in place.

Pricing a quote

A quote is priced against one cost model.

1. Choose "New quote" and pick a cost model — entries are badged Template, Mine, or Supplier.
2. Enter the box specification and quantities.
3. Review the live cost breakdown.
4. Tap the save icon to keep the quote against a customer.

Saved quotes

Saved quotes reopen at the current rates of their cost model, with a banner when rate changes have moved the totals since the quote was saved.

What it does

Prices PP woven sacks and the products built the same way — plain and laminated sacks, cement and valve bags, and FIBC jumbo bags. What makes a sack different from the other calculators is that the bag's WEIGHT is calculated from the fabric you specify rather than typed in: tape denier, mesh, fabric width and length, coating and any liner. Extrusion, weaving, lamination, printing and conversion then price off that calculated weight, so changing the mesh moves the whole cost the way it does on the shop floor.

Cost models and tape recipes

A cost model holds the rates a sack is priced against, including its tape recipes — the blends the tape is extruded from, with the proportion of each material. A recipe's blended rate per kilogram is what the fabric prices against, so a change to a filler percentage or a granule rate reaches every quote using it. If you price against someone else's model rather than authoring one, keep your own materials and recipes under Manage inputs.

Pricing a sack

The form shows only the steps the product actually has — a plain woven sack is never asked about lamination.

1. Choose "New quote" and pick a cost model.
2. Choose the product type, then the tape recipe and the fabric: denier, mesh, width, length, coating and any liner.
3. Add the job: quantity, printing, conversion, packing and freight.
4. Read the live break-up — the bag weight and the price update as you type.
5. Tap the save icon to keep the quote against a customer.

Quoting on the basis your customer buys on

Pick Quote by — per bag, per 1,000 bags, per kilogram or per metric tonne. The price on screen, the documents and the WhatsApp or email message all state that one basis, so a sack never reaches a customer described two ways. The price table prices the same sack across several quantities at once, every row recalculated in full rather than scaled.

Sending and locking a quote

Send a quotation, a job cost sheet, a product specification or a proforma invoice by WhatsApp or email — or share a locked copy inside GPN, which your customer opens in their own account and can compare against other suppliers' quotes. Marking a quote submitted or confirmed locks it, and a locked quote keeps the price it was sent at however the rates move afterwards.

What it does

Prices laminated tubes — ABL and PBL, on web you buy or laminate yourself — and extruded and co-extruded plastic tubes. What makes a tube different from the other calculators is that the DIAMETER drives everything: the tube body is cut from a flat strip whose width is the circumference plus the seam overlap, that width decides how many strips fit across the master web you buy, and that decides the trim you throw away. Change the diameter and the material cost moves for reasons that have nothing to do with the rate per kilogram.

Three ways to get the web

Most tube makers buy their laminate; some make it. Pick a bought structure from the cost model and its micron, density and rate do the work. Or switch the web to in house and build it from its layers — each film with its micron and density, the adhesive and the passes through the laminator — and the grammage and cost per kilogram are worked out for you, so you can compare the two on the same screen. If you also have the Flexible Laminate calculator, a third option takes the weight and rate from one of your saved laminate quotes; those figures are copied in and stay editable, and the tube quote keeps no link back, so re-pricing that laminate later can never move a tube quotation you have already sent.

Pricing a tube

The form shows only the steps the product actually has — an extruded tube is never asked about strips or trim, because its body is a pipe with no side seam.

1. Choose "New quote" and pick a cost model.
2. Choose the product type, then the tube: diameter, cut length, seam overlap and the master web width you buy.
3. Choose the web — bought, laminated in house, or taken from a saved laminate quote.
4. Fit the shoulder, any barrier insert, the cap and any seal. Each is bought by the piece or moulded in house.
5. Add the printing and any finishing, the tooling, the packing and the freight.
6. Read the live break-up — the strip width, strips across, trim, utilisation and the price all update as you type.

Shoulders and caps: make or buy

A bought component is priced per piece. One you mould yourself is priced from its resin weight AND from the machine — the machine rate per hour, the number of cavities in the tool and the cycle time — so the build-up shows how much of that shoulder is plastic and how much is press time. Leave the machine fields blank and the component costs its resin only, exactly as before.

What the tube will hold

From the diameter, the cut length and the head allowance the calculator works out the tube's capacity and its usable fill — what it actually holds once filled, which is the smaller of the two and the one a contract filler means. Give it the density of the product going in and that becomes a fill weight. You can also work backwards: enter the fill you need and it sets the cut length for you.

Quoting, sending and locking

Pick Quote by — per tube or per 1,000 tubes — and the price on screen, the documents and the WhatsApp or email message all state that one basis. The price table prices the same tube across several quantities at once, every row re-costed in full rather than scaled. Send a quotation, a quotation with cost break-up, a job cost sheet, a product specification or a proforma invoice — or share a locked copy inside GPN for your customer to compare against other suppliers. Marking a quote submitted or confirmed locks it, and a locked quote keeps the price it was sent at however the rates move afterwards.

Browsing suppliers

The directory lists approved packaging suppliers. Open any listing to see its full profile — capabilities, materials, markets and contact details.

Searching with filters

Search combines filters across categories. Within one category, picking several values widens the search (a supplier matching any of them counts); adding filters from another category narrows it (suppliers must match every category you used).

1. Open "Search" in the directory.
2. Pick values in one or more filter categories.
3. Tap through a result to see the full supplier profile.

Managing your listing (suppliers)

Suppliers maintain their own listing from "My listing" — edits go to an admin for approval before they are shown publicly.

Moderation (admins)

Admins can edit any listing and approve, feature, or verify suppliers from the manage view.

What Connect is

Connect writes your emails and hands each one to your own mail app to send. Write a template once, pick who it goes to, and every email arrives filled in with that company's details and your signature. GPN never sends it for you, so it comes from your own address and replies land in your own inbox. It comes with Packaging Directory access at no extra cost, and needs your designation filled in on My Profile, because every email is signed with it.

Templates

Seven ready-made templates come with it — request for quotation, sample request, supplier introduction, price revision enquiry, vendor onboarding, follow-up and thank you — and you can copy any of them or write your own with paragraphs, bullets and a specification table. Insert fields for the company you are emailing (their company, contact, city, product category) or for yourself, and Connect fills them in per recipient.

1. Open "Templates" from the Connect screen.
2. Copy a starter template, or create a new one.
3. Give it a name and a subject, then build the body.

Sending

Pick a source — Packaging Directory or My Contacts — tick the companies and choose a template. Connect prepares each email in turn: on a phone your mail app opens with it written, and on a computer the formatted email is copied to your clipboard while your webmail opens with the address and subject filled in. You confirm whether each one went; say no and your allowance is given back.

1. Tap "Send emails" on the Connect screen.
2. Choose Directory or My Contacts, then tick the companies.
3. Pick the template and start.
4. Send from your mail app, then come back and confirm.

How many you can send

Five emails a day to Packaging Directory suppliers and twenty-five a day to your own saved contacts, counted separately and both resetting overnight, with a fourteen-day gap before you can email the same directory supplier again. Your own contacts have no such gap. Suppliers who have asked not to be contacted are never included.

Sent and follow-ups

Everything you confirm is kept under "Sent" with the company, the date and the template used. Record how each conversation is going and set a date to chase it. If you have a directory listing, your dashboard shows how many members have contacted you through GPN — their company and the date, never the email itself, which is in your own inbox.

What CRM is

CRM is where a standard account keeps everything customer-facing: your customers, the contacts across all of them, your directory inquiries, and the multi-job quotations built in each calculator. It opens from its own card on the dashboard, below the module cards. CRM itself is never locked — every signed-in account has it, whether or not any module has been granted — but the rows leading into a module stay locked until you have access to that module. On a Buyer account CRM is replaced by SCM, which does the same job on the supplier side.

Customers

Customers holds one record per customer: name, billing and shipping addresses, tax number (GSTIN/VAT), company registration number, payment terms, currency, and a default profit per kg that seeds new quotes for that customer. The invoice details are optional — fill them in once and customer-facing documents such as proforma invoices pick them up automatically. Contacts live inside each customer record.

1. Open CRM from the dashboard and pick Customers.
2. Tap "New customer" and fill in at least a name.
3. Add one or more contacts inside the customer record.
4. If your customer is also on GPN, "Add using User Code" creates the customer and the contact from their account — you see whose account it is and can edit the details before anything is saved.

Contacts

Contacts is one flat list of every contact across all of your customers, so you do not have to remember which company someone sits under. Each row shows the contact and their company with one-tap Call, SMS, WhatsApp and Email, and opening a contact shows the quotes that have been sent to them.

Quotations

A quotation is one customer-facing document covering several saved jobs at once, rather than a single quote. Quotations are per calculator, so you choose Flexible Laminate or Printed Box; each needs that calculator's access.

What SCM is

SCM is the Buyer account's home for supplier relationships — it takes the place CRM has on a standard account. It brings together your suppliers, the contacts behind every approved directory listing, your directory inquiries, and — coming soon — the quotations suppliers share with you.

Your suppliers

The Suppliers list shows every approved supplier in the Packaging Directory alongside the suppliers you have invited yourself. An invited supplier is tagged "Waiting to Onboard" until a directory listing with their email address is approved.

1. Open SCM from the dashboard and pick Suppliers.
2. Tap "New Supplier" and fill in at least a contact person plus a mobile number or an email address.
3. Send the pre-written invitation by email or WhatsApp — it carries your name, company, contact details and User Code.
4. Your invitee registers at app.globalpackagingnetwork.com; once their listing is approved they appear as a full supplier.

Contacts

Contacts lists the named contact person from every approved directory listing, with one-tap Call, WhatsApp and Email, and shows the cost models each company has shared with you.

Inquiries

Inquiries in SCM opens the directory Inquiries board — post what you need and matching suppliers respond in the app, without your contact details being shown unless you choose to share them. Choose who can see each inquiry: Public, only the suppliers on your shortlist, or suppliers you pick by name.

What an RFQ is

A Request For Quotation asks several suppliers to price the same job so you can compare what comes back. Access is granted per user by an administrator, like the calculators. Buyers reach it from SCM; suppliers find the requests sent to them under RFQ in CRM.

Building one

Each job on an RFQ is built from one of your saved estimates, and its specification is frozen when you add it — editing that estimate later never changes an RFQ already with suppliers. Your own costing is never included; suppliers see the specification only.

1. Open RFQ in SCM and choose New RFQ.
2. Give it a title and pick the currency — your own by default, USD as the alternative.
3. Add a job for each thing you want quoted, choosing the estimate it comes from.
4. Attach artwork, a drawing or a specification if you have one.

Sending it

Choose the suppliers and send. Each is notified in the app. An RFQ can only be sent to a company with a GPN account — suppliers you have added but who have not joined yet can be invited by email or WhatsApp from the same screen, and added to an RFQ once they have joined.

How suppliers quote

Each job carries the basis you priced it on — per kg, per pouch or per box — so every supplier quotes the same job the same way. Suppliers give a price, MOQ and lead time per job, then validity, freight, payment terms and remarks once for the whole RFQ. A supplier does not need calculator access to answer; they can simply type the price.

Questions and revised quotes

Either side can raise a clarification, and each supplier has their own private thread with you — no supplier sees another supplier's questions. Quoting stays open throughout, which is when a price is most likely to move. A revised quote is what compares and awards, and the earlier one is kept.

Comparing and awarding

Compare quotes puts the suppliers side by side and marks the lowest price for each job. Where a price cannot be read as a number, or two suppliers tie, no lowest is marked and the reason is shown. Awarding closes the RFQ and tells everyone who quoted the outcome. Both the request and the comparison print or share as a PDF on your letterhead.

For suppliers: pricing from the calculator

On an RFQ job, Calculate Price offers New Quote or Saved Quotes. New Quote opens the calculator with the job already filled in — name, unit, quantity, dimensions, the buyer as customer and the RFQ number as the reference. You pick your own cost model and structure, because you price against your own rates. Either way the price fills in, stays editable, and the estimate stays linked so you can reopen the working later.

What the Academy is

The Academy holds training courses written for people entering or working in the packaging industry, starting with Packaging Foundations — a complete 10-chapter basic course. It is included with your one-time account activation — the same activation that unlocks the Packaging Directory — at no extra charge. New courses grow over time: chapters appear in the Academy as they are published, so a newer course may show fewer chapters today than its full plan.

Taking a course

Each chapter is a branded PDF you read at your own pace, followed by a short self-check quiz taken in the app. You pass a chapter by scoring 4 out of 5 or better; passed chapters are ticked and fill the course progress bar.

1. Open "GPN Academy" from the dashboard or the account menu.
2. Pick a course to see its chapters.
3. Tap "Read chapter (PDF)" and study the chapter.
4. Tap "Take the quiz", answer all five questions, then "Submit answers".
5. Score 4 or more to pass — or review the marked answers and "Retake quiz" after another read.

Your progress

Progress is saved to your account, not your device: your best score per chapter is kept, so a lower retake never undoes a pass, and the same progress appears wherever you sign in.