Comments on: QuickBooks Manufacturing Bill of Materials

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 17:59:01 +0000

Mena, either upgrade to Premier, or consider using Group items instead. http://qbblog.ccrsoftware.info/2008/06/groups-vs-assemblies/

By: Mena

Mena — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:21:24 +0000

Hi Charlie,

I have just purchased QB Pro 2010 for our t-shirt printing company. As i am entering all my data into the software i noticed that there is no BOM option. What do i do?

Help

Thank you

By: Charlie

Charlie — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:46:14 +0000

Sohail: I don’t use the Web Connector, but I know that the regular SDK will let you add and update a BOM – but there may be some restrictions.

By: sohail

sohail — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:59:22 +0000

We are considering using a product management program (Arena) to get BOM updates into QB Premier. We currently use the Intuit web connector to get finished-goods data into other versions of QB – but not BOMs.
Does anyone know if its possible to create & update BOMs in QB Premier, using an external program and Intuit’s web connector API?
Thanks in advance -

By: Charlie

Charlie — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:40:32 +0000

I’m not sure I follow your description in detail, but in general there are a couple of things you can try.

QuickBooks Enterprise 10 has the ability to adjust the amount of the individual component items that you use in a particular build. Very useful.

In other versions/years of QB you can modify the BOM itself before the build, then change it back after the build. I don’t usually like this, but some people do it. If you change the BOM structure it does NOT affect existing builds, only those that you make using the new BOM.

You can do a “value inventory adjustment” to post the value of the extra components that are used into the value of the inventory assembly item. That is a bit of a pain to do, but it works well.

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 22:25:28 +0000

I hope you can help me figure this one out. We manufacture organic animal care products and I am trying to figure out how to manage our inventory better. The question I have is how do you take into effect the fluctuation of one ingredient such as water. The inventory assembly consists of multiple items that are fixed every time we make our shampoo base. Those items have a certain cost value, but that can change with the amount of water we use which fluctuates the total output of base being made each time. We then take the shampoo base assembly and use it to build our individual shampoo items and then sell these finished items. If the total output of base is changing each time because of the water being added (which has no $ value)this then changes the value of the base. How do you justify the value of this assembly item?

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:32:52 +0000

Bob, in Enterprise 10 (not Premier, not any older versions) they have added a new feature that I haven’t gotten around to writing about yet. You still create your bill of materials for the assembly item, but when you issue the “build” you have the ability to edit the quantities in that build. So if your BOM says that you need 10 of a part, you can change that to be 11 of that part just for that build. You can add parts. You might be able to delete parts (haven’t tested that to see if it causes problems yet). So you don’t have to go to the BOM and edit it and save it, you can just do an edit “on the fly” that only affects that build.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:17:20 +0000

I am sorry, It is “by recipe”, not receipt.

By: Bob

Bob — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:12:11 +0000

Thanks Charlie. I don’t upgrade my Quickbooks to Enterprise 10, so I don’t know its build feature. But I think, if Quickbooks can provide a function that we can directly build our products by total raw materials used, not by receipt, it should be more convenient for users. For example, we directly open the build assemblies, enter the total amount of each raw material used and the total amount of finished goods we got, that’s all.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:09:50 +0000

Bob, there are several options, but the best answer depends on things I don’t know about your situation.

-If you upgrade to Enterprise 10, the build feature includes the ability to alter the quantities when you build the assembly.

-With other versions, you can issue the build and then do an inventory adjustment for the variation. A bunch of different ways to handle that depending on what you want to accomplish.

-Instead of using inventory assembly items, use group items. Then on the sales receipt you can vary the amount of the raw materials used. There are tradeoffs, though.