A Bill of Materials (BOM) is an internal document that is used, like a recipe, to automate the creation of standardized Assemblies and Disassemblies for your inventory. BOMs allow you to outline the component products and quantities required to create one unit of the assembled product's Stock On Hand (SOH). When an Assembly or Disassembly is created for the assembled product, its BOM will determine which component products are automatically included, and how many units will be required or produced, based on the Assemble or Disassemble Quantity entered, respectively.

Prerequisites for creating a Bill of Materials

To create a BOM, the following conditions must be met:

To create a BOM for an assembled product, the Type setting "Assembled Product" must be enabled in the product record's Details tab.
To include a product as a component on a BOM, the Type setting "Component Product" must be enabled in the product record's Details tab.

Bill of Materials role permissions

To create and manage BOMs, users will need the following role permissions granted in their respective roles:

Bill of Materials Details
View Bill of Materials
Import Bill of Materials

Tutorial Videos

How to create a Bill of Materials

Creating Multi-Layered Bill of Materials

Create a Bill of Materials

A BOM can be created in any of the following ways:

Add Bill of Materials from the main menu.
Add Bill of Materials from the product's record.
Import Bill of Materials with a CSV template.
Add Bill of Materials from an Assembly.
Clone a Bill of Materials

Once a BOM has been created, the components, quantities, and details of the BOM can be updated at any time. The changes made to a BOM will only apply to Assemblies or Disassemblies created after the BOM has been updated.

📌 Note: Only one BOM can be created per assembled product.

Add Bill of Materials

To create a new BOM:

From the main menu, go to Production > Assemblies > Add Bill of Materials.
Use the Product Code and Product Description fields to select the assembled product the BOM is being created for.
The BOM will be created with an auto-generated BOM Number.

Add Bill of Materials from a product's record

To create a BOM for a specific product, directly from its product record:

Open the product's record.
In the Details tab under Type, click on "Assembled Product".
Use the Product Code and Product Description fields to select the assembled product the BOM is being created for.
The BOM will be created with an auto-generated BOM Number.

Add Bill of Materials from an Assembly

To create a BOM from an Assembly that's been created for the product:

Open the Assembly.
Click on the blue plus icon, displayed next to the Bill of Materials field in the Assembly's details.
A BOM will be created with an auto-generated BOM Number. The BOM's Component Lines will be pre-populated with the same products and proportional quantities that are listed in the Assembly's Assembly Lines.

Clone a Bill of Materials

To create a new BOM, auto-populated with the details and components of an existing BOM:

Open the original BOM.
In the top right corner, select Clone.
Enter the assembled product's code.
Select Clone.
Enter the product code for he new BOM will be created for.
Click Clone.

Manage a Bill of Materials

After the BOM has been created, any time an Assembly or Disassembly is created for the assembled product, its BOM will be used to populate the appropriate component products and quantities required to complete the transaction. It is therefore important to ensure the BOM's details, components, and quantities are updated when changes to the manufacturing or production processes are made.

Bill of Materials details

At the top of a BOM, you will find the data fields that outline how the assembled product is produced and how long it is expected to assemble or disassemble one unit of the assembled stock. The table below describes each BOM detail field and how they are used.

BOM detail fields	Description
Assembly Template	Use the drop-down menu to choose which Assemblies Doc Designer template will be used to generate a printed or emailed version of the BOM.
Can Auto Assemble	Enable this setting if the assembled product is made to order. When the assembled product is allocated to a Sales Order, if there is not enough SOH available at the time it is allocated, an Auto Assembly will be created for the outstanding quantity required.
Auto Assign Oldest Batch/Serial	Tick the checkbox to automatically assign the oldest Batch or Serial Numbers available from the component's SOH.
Can Auto Disassemble	Enable this setting if the assembled product should be automatically disassembled into its component parts when it is receipted on a Purchase Order.
Sort By Product Code	Tick the checkbox to sort the Component Product list within the BOM, and its subsequent Assemblies and Disassemblies, by their Product Codes.
Obsolete	If the BOM is no longer needed, but has been used to create Assemblies or Disassemblies, toggle on Obsolete. If the assembled product has any open Assemblies its BOM cannot be obsoleted.
Duration Type	Use the dropdown menu to determine whether the duration times in the BOM should apply per assembled unit or Assembly.
Expected Duration	Based on the Duration Type selected, enter how long production is expected to take, in hours, minutes, or seconds, e.g., 6h 15m.
Average Duration (read-only)	Displays the average time it has taken to complete the last 50 assemblies.
Production Hours Per Day	Enter how many hours are available for production per day. By default, Production Hours Per Day populates from your Company > Settings, but will be overwritten by the hours advised within the BOM.
Production Days	Select which days of the week production is available for. By default, Production Days populates from Company > Settings, but will be overwritten by the hours advised within the BOM.
Comments	Add any additional information relevant to the production of the assembled product. Comments added to the BOM will populate in the Comments field of subsequent manually created Assemblies and Disassemblies. However, the BOM's Comments will not be included on Auto Assemblies or Auto Disassemblies created.

🤓 Tip: To turn off the Type setting "Assembled Product", you must obsolete the product's BOM.

Component Products

Below the BOM's detail fields, you will see a grid that lists all of the products and quantities that have been included as components for the assembled product. The products and quantities saved in the grid as components of the BOM will be used to populate the assembled product's subsequent Assembly and Disassembly transactions' Assembly and Disassembly Lines.

To add a product as a component to a BOM:

Open the BOM.
Search and select the product being added in the Component Product field.
Enter how many SOH units of the component product are required to build one unit of the assembled product in the Quantity field.
If any additional units from the component product's SOH are expected to be wasted during production, enter the total number of units per one assembled unit in the Wastage Qty field.
Click Add.

After a product is added as a component to a BOM, click on the Quantity and Wastage Qty fields in the grid to edit them. You can also click on the bin icon along a component's row to delete it from the BOM.

📌 Note: A product cannot be added as a component to its own BOM.

The component product grid in the BOM will also provide an overview of the component product's details, which have been listed in the table below.

Component Products grid column header	Description
Component Product	Displays the code and description of the component product of the BOM, in the format "[Product Code] Product Description". If the component product can also be assembled and has a BOM, click on the > icon to display sub-BOM's components and quantities. Click on the "open" icon in the field to open the sub-BOM in a new tab.
Image (read-only)	Displays the component product's default image.
Quantity	Displays the number of SOH units required of the component product to create one unit of the assembled product's SOH. Click on the field to edit.
Wastage	The number of units from the component's SOH that will be wasted during the production of one unit of the assembled product's SOH. Click on the field to edit.
Unit	The component product's base unit of measure.
Unit Cost	The current cost of one unit of the component product, populated from the product's Average Landed Cost (ALC). If the product has no SOH, thus a zero ALC, the product's Last Cost will be populated instead. If the product is Never Diminishing, the product's Cost will initially populate, but it can be updated in the BOM to overwrite the product's Cost when an Assembly is created.
Total Cost	The sum-total cost of the component product and wastage quantities included in the Assembly, calculated as Unit Cost x (Quantity + Wastage).
Delete	Click on the bin icon to remove the component product from the assembled product's BOM.

Using Never Diminishing Products in BOM

To account for standardized intangible costs that are incurred during the assembly or disassembly of a product, you can use Never Diminishing Products (NDP). NDPs can be added as a component product to the BOM, and will then be included in the subsequent Assemblies and Disassemblies to ensure accurate costs are calculated for the stock produced.

By default, the NDP's Cost will automatically populate in the BOM's Unit Cost when it is added as a component product. However, you can overwrite the NDP's default Cost by updating the Unit Cost in the BOM. If the NDP's Cost changes, the NDP's Unit Cost in the BOM will not change, and Assemblies created from the BOM will continue to use the Unit Cost advised for the NDP in the BOM.

If your account is integrated with an accounting provider, such as Xero or Quickbooks, when an NDP is added to a BOM, an additional column called "Expense Account" will be displayed. By default, the Expense Account selected in the NDP's product record will automatically populate, but you can use the drop-down menu available in its BOM's grid to select an alternative Expense Account for the NDP's cost to export to when the subsequent Assemblies are completed.

Sort the order of components

The order in which components are displayed in your BOM will be replicated in the Assemblies or Disassemblies created for the assembled product. By default, the components listed in a BOM will be sorted by the order they were initially added, with the first added at the top.

To display the component products on a BOM, and their subsequent Assemblies or Disassemblies, in alphabetical order by their product code, tick the Sort By Product Code checkbox at the top of the BOM.

Alternatively, use the 6-dot icon in each Component Product field to drag and drop the component into its preferred order position.

BOM Costs

Underneath the grid in a BOM you will see a Total Cost value. This Total Cost is calculated to advise how much it would cost, in your base currency, to assemble one unit of the assembled product, given the Unit Costs and quantities advised per component product in the BOM.

The Total Cost displayed in a BOM does not update the assembled product's current ALC, default sell price, or default purchase price.

BOM costs vs Assembly costs

A BOMs total cost is the sum of each component's current ALC, rather than its assembled product's current ALC; providing the most accurate estimation of how much it would cost to assemble stock given the current value of your inventory.

As an assembled product's ALC is recalculated each time it is receipted, assembled, adjusted, or returned, its current ALC is not always expected to exactly match its BOM's costs. Similarly, if its component costs have changed since the product was last assembled, the BOM's cost will provide the latest expected cost, which will subsequently affect the assembled product's ALC when next assembled.

Multi-level Bill Of Materials

Multi-level BOMs can be created when components of an assembled product can also be assembled from your inventory.

Parent BOM: The final assembled product's BOM. This assembled product is not a component of another product's BOM.
Sub-BOM: The assembled product is a component of another product's BOM.

If an assembled product, with a BOM, is added as a component to another product's BOM, the component product's BOM is available to view in its parent product's BOM grid, by clicking on the > icon next to the component product's code. And if a component of the component product's BOM also has a BOM, the second layer component's BOM will also be available to view in the parent product's BOM.

Use the "Expand All" and "Collapse All" links in the BOM's grid to display and hide all Sub-BOMs that exist for all the components and sub-components on the BOM.

📌 Note: Sub-BOMs cannot be edited through the parent BOM.