A bill of materials (often called a BOM) is a recipe for one finished item. It lists the raw materials you use up, and any by-products or scrap that come out alongside the finished goods. Once you save a bill of materials in Inventory, you can see what one batch of your product should cost to make. This guide shows you how to create one.
Before you start
- The finished item and every component must already exist as items in Inventory.
- You need permission to add bills of materials. Without it, the screen opens in view-only mode and you only see a Back button.
Open the new bill of materials form
Open Masters in the left menu and select Bill of materials. Select New bill of materials. The form opens with one empty line, ready to fill in.
Fill in the finished item
- In Name, type a name that your team will recognise. This field is required.
- Leave Active ticked (Available for production) if the bill is ready to use. Untick it to keep the bill on file without offering it for production.
- In Finished item, search for and pick the item you are making. This is required.
- In Yield quantity, enter how much of the finished item one run of your lines produces. For example, if the lines below make 10 pieces, enter 10. It must be more than zero.
- Leave Yield unit on Item's base unit, or pick a different unit from the list.
Add the lines
Each row in the Lines table is one material or output. Quantities are always per yield, so they match the yield quantity you entered above.
- Pick the Kind: Component for something you use up, By product for a useful extra output, or Scrap for waste.
- In Item, search for the item.
- Enter the Quantity and check the Unit. The unit fills in from the item, and you can change it.
- If some material is normally lost, enter a Scrap %. Inventory works out the Gross qty for you: the quantity plus the scrap share. You cannot type in this column.
- Use Add component, Add by-product or Add scrap to add more rows. Use the up and down arrows to reorder rows, and the bin icon to remove one.
Check the estimated cost
If you have permission to see costs, the Cost / unit and Est. cost columns fill in as you type. The Estimated cost section shows Raw material, Scrap cost, Total estimated cost and the cost per unit of the finished item.
The cost counts materials only. Labour and overheads are not included. It uses each item's weighted-average cost where stock has moved, and its standard cost otherwise. If a component has no cost on record, you see a dash instead of a zero, and the total is a minimum rather than the full cost. You can still save the bill.
Save the bill
Select Create. Inventory shows "Bill of materials created". If anything is missing, the form points it out in red. To change a bill later, open it from the list and select Save. To remove one, open it, select More actions, then Delete, and confirm.
If you leave the form with unsaved changes, Inventory asks "Leave without saving?" so you do not lose your work.