Bill of Materials - an Overview
Bill of Materials was introduced in Easify Version 5. You will have to be running version 5 or later to use this feature.
Bill of Materials, sometimes known as BOM, Assemblies or Kits is the ability to manage products that consist of other products.
So if you manufacture products it could be the ideal solution for you.
Assemblies are seamlessly integrated into Easify, so all you need to do to create an assembly is open a product, go to the Assembly tab and add the desired products.
Below is an example of a product that has had other components (products) added to its assembly tab to make it into an assembly:
Multi-Level
Easify is a multi-level Bill of Materials system which means you can have an assembly, that consists of other sub-assemblies, and those sub-assemblies may also consist of other sub-assemblies and so on and so on...
It is fully multi-level and there is no limit to the level of sub-assemblies that you can have.
This product contains sub-assemblies - when you expand them you can easily see which products make up these sub-assemblies.
Version Control
Easify also handles different assembly versions - for instance if you have a component within an assembly that becomes obsolete or is discontinued, you can easily create a copy of the original assembly as a new version.
You can disable the original version, or if you prefer you can keep both versions active - Easify will ask you which version you wish to use.
You can also make one of the versions the Default.
Assembly Pricing Helper
As you add items to your assembly you can see the cost prices and sell prices totalise realtime...
You can choose whether to use the calculated cost price automatically - the sell prices will be calculated automatically based on the margins that you've set, or you can choose to ignore the calculated tools and set your own prices.
Automated Stock Control
One of the main challenges in manufacturing a product from component parts is knowing how much stock you need to order in to be able to manufacture enough of the required products.
Easify's Bill of Materials allows you to simply add an assembly to an order, and it will automatically work out which parts you already have in stock, and which parts you need to order.
You can drill into an assembly on an order and instantly see the status of each part that is required for the assembly.
As per the regular Easify Stock Control system, you can allocate stock to the order to make sure that sufficient items are reserved for the order.
Workflow Statuses
Each product on an order, whether a stand alone product or an assembly has a workflow status under it.
This can be accessed using the + next to the product.
The workflow statuses show how many of the product you have in which status.
For example:
- How many you have to Purchase
- How many you already have on order with your Suppliers
- How many are currently being Assembled
- How many you have in Stock
- How many you have ready for Delivery
- How many you have already Delivered.
The workflow statuses automatically update as orders and purchases are progressed and updated.
For instance, when you book items into stock on a purchase, Easify will automatically move the status from Purchasing to Picking showing that this product is now ready for picking and delivery to your client.
It will similarly update the statuses on products needed for assemblies.
Auto Stock Control or 'Doing the Robot'
Easify's Bill of Materials includes a full stock control system.
You can run Auto Stock Control or Do the Robot (the icon is a robot) and this will automatically allocate any available parts to the order.
It will also automatically raise purchases for all the products that need to be ordered in to fulfill your orders.
The example below shows Auto Stock Control (Doing the Robot) on an order - you can see that some of the products will be allocated to the order, while others will be added to new or open purchases:
Auto-Raising Purchases
When you run Auto Stock Control or Do the Robot Easify will automatically add all the parts that you need to fulfill the order to open purchases, or if there are no open purchases for that supplier, it will raise a new purchase.
It keeps track of what you have already got on order from your suppliers so you don't buy it twice.
You can easily see which customer order the parts are being ordered for by clicking on the + next to each product on a purchase.
