Bills of Materials

A bill of materials (BOM) is a list of materials — what, how many, at what price, from which supplier — agreed with a client. A list can be for a client, one of its projects and the systems on it, or stand on its own; the client sees the lists that are theirs in the portal, adds to them and approves or rejects each line.

Bill of Materials is on by default. Switched off under Company Settings → Features → Bill of Materials, the Materials page and the project tab leave the app and the Materials pages leave the client's portal; the lists already made are kept and come back when it is switched on again.

Creating a List

Click New list and give it a Name (e.g. Electrical Materials). Everything else is optional:

The pencil at the top right of the list's page (Edit details in the ⋮ menu on a phone) changes any of these later. The Materials page filters by client, project and status, and searches by name.

Adding Items

The list's page opens on the Items tab: who the list is for, its estimated cost, and the lines. Add Item adds a line. Pick a Product from your catalogue — its name, SKU, description and price are copied onto the line and can still be changed — or leave it empty for a custom item. The table shows Catalogue or Custom under each line.

Purchase Orders and Invoices

The Documents tab of the list's page shows the Purchase Orders and Invoices attached to it, each with its number, date, total and status, and a link to it. Attach adds one: any of your purchase orders, since a list's materials can come from several suppliers, and the client's invoices (only invoices to the client — never your suppliers' bills). The cross beside one detaches it. Attaching records the link and does nothing else: no totals change and nothing is sent.

Working With the Client

The client sees their lists under Materials in the portal: the projects that have lists as cards at the top, and every list below, with a search. A card narrows the list to that project. A contact limited to some locations sees the lists on those locations and the ones with no project.

The client can create a list and add lines, picking one of your products from the list offered or describing a custom item; they cannot add products to your catalogue. Every line shows Added By, so you can see who proposed what.

A new line starts as Suggested. Either side can Approve or Reject it: you from the … menu at the end of the row, the client with the tick and cross on the row in the portal. The line records who decided and when. Once a line is approved, the client can no longer edit or delete it. You still can, but a change you save sends the line back to Suggested, so the client approves it again as it now is; saving it unchanged keeps the approval.

Statuses

A list and its lines move through your company's own statuses, set up under Company Settings → Statuses (the BOM and BOM Items tabs), where you can rename them, recolour them and add your own — Accepted, Ordered, In progress or whatever fits.

• The list: ⋮ at the top right of the list's page, then Set status.
• A line: … at the end of the row, then Set status, sets any line status, including Ordered and Received once you have bought the material. The line records who set it and when.

The client sees both statuses on the portal but does not change them, apart from approving or rejecting a suggested line.

PDF

Download in the ⋮ menu of the list's page (or PDF in the portal) downloads the list as an A4 document grouped by category. The list is named on it as BOM- followed by its number.