Create a bill of materials (the production recipe)

Why this matters

When you make what you sell (bread, juice, soap, clothes), the stock of your materials drops with every batch, with no sale to explain it. The bill of materials writes your recipe down once and for all: what it consumes and what it produces. Each production order then uses it to take the materials out and add the finished product, with no manual calculation.

Summary

A bill of materials is a recipe: a list of inputs (what is consumed, with the quantity per cycle) and a list of outputs (what is produced, with the quantity per cycle). Both sides are required. A bill of materials moves no stock: the production order is what applies it.

Prerequisites

• The bill_of_materials.create permission to create, bill_of_materials.update to edit, bill_of_materials.delete to delete, bill_of_materials.view to view.
• The materials and the finished product must exist as stocked items in Inventory & Stocks. A material you do not sell is created with New stocked item (see "Understanding stock").

Steps

1. Open Settings › Catalog › Bill of Materials (/bill-of-materials) and click New bill of materials.
2. Enter the Title of the bill of material, for example "250 g bread: batch of 40".
3. In Inputs, search for each consumed material and add it. Enter the quantity consumed per cycle. Decimals are accepted (0.5 for half a kilo).
4. In Outputs, search for the product or products obtained and enter the quantity produced per cycle.
5. Click Save.

A cycle is one application of the recipe. If the recipe says "10 kg of flour makes 40 loaves", an order of 3 cycles will consume 30 kg of flour and produce 120 loaves.

Fields and options

The Bill of materials list shows the Title, the Inputs, the Outputs and the Creation date, with three indicators: Total bills of materials, With production orders and Production runs.

Editing or deleting a recipe

• Open the bill of materials from the list, change what you need, then Save.
• Editing a recipe does not change past productions: each production order keeps the recipe as it was when it was launched.
• Delete removes the recipe from the list. Production orders already launched with it keep their recipe and their history.

Edge cases and common mistakes

• "Please add at least one output". A recipe with no finished product would consume your materials without producing anything. Genuka refuses it, on creation as on editing. An old recipe saved with no output can no longer be saved or launched until you add its finished product.
• "Please add at least one input". Same rule on the other side: a recipe must consume something.
• The finished product does not appear in the search. Only stocked items are offered. Turn on the product's stock tracking, or create its stocked item, then come back to the recipe.
• One recipe for several sizes. Create one bill of materials per variant produced: each output is a specific stocked item.

FAQ

Does the bill of materials calculate my product's cost price? No. It says which quantities to consume and produce. The manufactured batch enters stock with no purchase price: fill it in on the item's page if you want it to count in the value of your stock.

Can I produce several items at once? Yes. A recipe can have several outputs, for example a main product and a by-product.

Where can I find this page if it is not in my menu? In Settings › Catalog › Bill of Materials. If your company only shows the enabled modules, turn on the Manufacturing & production module from Settings.

See also

• Launch a production order
• Understanding stock — warehouses, batches, stock tracking and stockouts
• Record a stock entry (entry voucher)
• View the stock movements ledger