Create and Manage a Bill of Material

A bill of material (BOM) is a product variant built from other variants, called parts — the recipe a manufacturing order assembles into finished stock, or breaks back down on a disassembly. You create one by turning an existing variant into a bill of material and listing its parts and the quantity of each.

This article shows you how to convert a variant into a bill of material, add and edit its parts, the rules Qoblex enforces before it saves, and how to dismantle it. A manufacturing (production) order can only be raised against a variant that is already a bill of material, so build the recipe here first.

Before you start

• Create the part products and their variants first, so you can search for them when you build the recipe.
• Confirm the product and the variant you want to convert has been saved.
• Decide the option values (size, colour, and so on) for the bill-of-material variant if the product has variants — Qoblex requires every option value to be filled in.

You start a conversion from the product’s variant list. Select the checkbox of exactly one variant, then open the variant bulk-actions menu.

Qoblex blocks the conversion when no variant is selected, when more than one is selected, or when the selected variant is already a Bill of Material.

Create (or edit) a bill of material

1. Open the product from the product list.
2. In the variants list, tick the checkbox of the single variant that should become the bill of material.
3. Open the variant bulk-actions menu and choose Convert to Bill of Material. The bill-of-material editor opens on the Settings tab, showing the note This is a manufactured product.
4. Under Add product variations which will be part of this bill of material, choose Add line to create a part line.
5. In the part line, type the part’s product name or SKU into the Enter product name or SKU box and pick the matching variant from the suggestions.
6. Enter the recipe amount in the Quantity in Bom column. Each line defaults to a quantity of 1.
7. Repeat for every part. Each line shows the part’s SKU, In stock, Allocated, Incoming, and Cost so you can review availability and cost as you build the recipe.
8. If the product has variants, fill in every option value at the top of the Settings tab.
9. Choose Save & Close.

To edit an existing bill of material later, open the product, click the bill-of-material variant to reopen the same editor, change the lines, and choose Save & Close.

A bill-of-material variant has no inventory-tracking restriction, so you can convert a batch- or serial-tracked variant into one.

Changing a bill of material that active manufacturing orders rely on can affect how components are consumed and how cost and yield are calculated on those orders. Review open manufacturing orders before you change an established recipe.

Rules Qoblex enforces before saving

When you choose Save & Close, Qoblex validates the recipe and shows the messages below in a red pane at the bottom of the editor. It will not save until every message is resolved.

• A Bill Of Material must have at least one bundle part — add at least one part line.
• Line N : empty. Please remove this line or enter a product name — a line has no part selected.
• Line N : unknown product name. Please remove this line or enter a product name — the typed name did not match a real product.
• Line N : quantity undefined. Please remove this line or enter a valid quantity — the quantity is blank, non-numeric, or zero.
• Line N : seems to be a bundle. Bundling a bundle into another one is not supported — a part cannot itself be a bundle; choose a plain variant instead.
• Please enter a valid value for [option] — a required option value on the bill-of-material variant is blank.
• Variant: [option values] already exists — another variant of the product already uses that option-value combination.

Editing is never locked

A bill of material’s editing is never locked. The editor skips the usage check (api/products/CanUpdate) for a bill of material, so the part lines, the Add line button, the quantity fields, and the Dismantle button always stay available — regardless of where the recipe is used.

Dismantle a bill of material

Use Dismantle to turn a bill of material back into an ordinary variant.

1. Open the bill of material in its editor.
2. Choose Dismantle.
3. Confirm at the prompt (Are you sure you want to dismantle this BOM?).

Qoblex then removes every part line, clears the bill-of-material status, saves, and closes the editor.

Dismantling deletes all of the recipe’s part lines and cannot be undone; the item becomes a plain variant. For a bill of material, Dismantle is always available.

Other tabs in the editor

The bill-of-material editor shares the same tabs as the variant editor. Use them the same way, subject to the rules above.

• Inventory — the inventory tracking policy, Continue selling when out of stock, and the per-location stock table.
• Images — pick a variant image from the product’s images.
• Price Lists — set or remove the variant’s price on each price list.
• Batches / Serials — shown only when the variant’s tracking option is not Standard.
• View History — saves the current changes and opens the variant’s transaction history.

Troubleshooting