Bills of Materials

A Bill of Materials, or BOM, is the recipe Arcus uses to plan a manufacturing run. It identifies the product being built, disassembled, or converted, the quantity handled per run, and what happens to each material line. Open Purchasing > Manufacturing > Bills of Materials, the path the breadcrumb prints, or search for Bills of Materials in the command palette, which has a navigation entry for it. Work Orders, Production Planning and Reports sit beside it in the same group. The build, disassemble and convert buttons on a recipe, a product’s Manufacturing tab and work-order links also lead to a recipe. You need manufacturing.view to open the list and recipe details. Actions that create, change, or retire recipes require additional manufacturing permissions. A link to a recipe, or to a comparison of two revisions, that belongs to another of your companies switches you to that company and says “Switched to NAME to open this BOM” (or “BOM comparison”). If the switch fails it says “Could not switch to NAME to open this BOM. Try again.” You only ever see recipes from companies you belong to. Before choosing a recipe, know the physical process, exact product or SKU, intended output quantity, and whether you are reviewing current production or historical work. Do not select a BOM by name alone.

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Find The Right Recipe

1. Search by BOM name, product, or SKU.
2. Narrow the list by Type, Status, or a BOM tag.
3. Choose By product, All, or Catalog for the amount and arrangement of information you need.
4. Click Load more if Arcus reports more results.
5. Review the active work-order count, then open the recipe and verify its type, product, revision, output quantity, status, and component lines before using it.

Outcome: You are reviewing one exact recipe. Opening it does not reserve stock, create a work order, change its default, move inventory, or post an accounting entry. The normal list leaves archived recipes out. Add the Archived status filter when you need to inspect an old recipe or its documents. The active work-order count is a current-use warning, not the BOM’s complete history. Arcus checks all work-order history again when a user tries to archive or permanently delete a recipe. The list page title reads Bills of Materials, “Recipes for building, disassembling, and converting products”. New BOM opens New Bill of Materials, where you choose the BOM type, a name and the product (Product to Build, Product to Disassemble or Output Product; a conversion also needs its source product). Arcus says “BOM created”, or “Failed to create BOM” with the reason. With no recipes yet the page offers Create First BOM. A row’s star is the product’s default recipe. Click it to make that recipe the default (“Default updated”); the tooltip reads “Default BOM for this product” on the current one and “Click to set as default” on the others, and an archived recipe cannot be the default. The row menu offers Edit (or View when you cannot edit), and Archive or Delete with manufacturing.delete. On an archived recipe it offers Restore.

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Choose The Right List View

The view buttons change how the same filtered recipes are presented. Arcus remembers the selected view for the current entity. None of these list views calculates production capacity. An active work-order count shows current use, not how much can be built. Open the exact recipe to read Can Build Now, Can Disassemble Now, or Can Convert Now using current entity-wide stock.

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Use Tags And Filters

BOM tag chips appear only when BOM-scoped tags exist for the entity. One tag can be selected at a time:

1. Click a tag chip to show recipes with that tag.
2. Click the selected chip again to remove that tag filter, or click Clear.
3. Continue using search, All types, and the status filter as needed.

Clear beside the tag chips clears only the selected tag. It does not reset search, type, or status. The default status choice is All except archived; choose Archived explicitly when you need retired recipes. Filters apply to all three views, and Load more continues the current filtered result set.

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Choose The BOM Type

The type changes the available material dispositions, availability calculation, primary action, and inventory result. It is more than a reporting label. Select an eligible specific product or SKU for the output, source, and component fields. Kits, services, variant-parent shells, and box packaging records are not eligible BOM choices. Eligibility does not guarantee that a product is active, inventory tracked, or correctly configured for planning.

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Read A Recipe Before Using It

Check these areas in order:

1. Header: Confirm BOM type, product, revision, status, and output quantity per run.
2. Availability: Read Can Build Now, Can Disassemble Now, or Can Convert Now as a current entity-wide planning estimate.
3. Components: Verify quantity per run, disposition, and floor instruction for every line.
4. Cost Breakdown: Treat the material and labor rollup as a current estimate, not a historical cost snapshot.
5. Labor Plan: Confirm planned time, rate, and whether planned labor should auto-book at completion.
6. Full Material Explosion or Recovery Preview: For an Assembly or Conversion, simulate a whole-number output and review resolved leaf requirements, stock, and estimated current cost. For a Disassembly, simulate source units and review returned quantities, allocation percentages, and recovered value.
7. Work Orders: Open the work that used this exact BOM and inspect its actual quantity, cost, inventory movements, and accounting entries.
8. Documents: Open the current work instruction, drawing, or specification before the floor starts.
9. Lifecycle: Confirm whether this is the intended active revision and whether it is the product default when planning depends on it.

Component estimates use the current recorded product or variant cost, not list price. Actual work-order cost can differ because inventory issues use the stock and costing records present when work is posted, and because substitutions, scrap, partial completion, and recorded labor can change the result. BOM maintenance is planning setup. Inventory movements and manufacturing accounting entries begin from work-order material, labor, completion, undo, close, or cancellation actions, not from viewing or organizing a recipe.

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Actions On A Recipe

The recipe page has its main buttons beside the title and a menu for the rest. A button you may not use stays visible and turns off with its reason: “You do not have permission to edit BOMs (manufacturing.edit)” or “You do not have permission to create work orders / revisions (manufacturing.create)”. Adding a component opens Add Component (product, Quantity per Run, Disposition, optional instructions) and says “Component added”, or “Failed to add” with the reason. Removing one says “Component removed”. Attached documents say “Document uploaded” or “Document removed”. A name, labor, overhead or allocation edit says “BOM updated” or “Failed to update cost allocation” when it cannot save. The disposition choices are Consume (pull new from stock), Add (a new part to install), Return to stock (a removed part goes back to inventory), Scrap (removed and discarded) and Retain (stays with the unit, no movement).

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Archive Or Delete

Archive BOM says the recipe “will be hidden from the default lists and MRP, and can no longer be the product’s default recipe”, that its history is kept and that you can restore it any time from the Archived filter. Arcus says “BOM archived. Restore it any time from the Archived filter.” Delete BOM appears only for a recipe that has never been used to build anything. It permanently deletes the recipe with its lines, tag links and reverse-recipe pairing, and archives any attached documents (the files stay recoverable in the Document Manager). It cannot be undone. Arcus says “BOM deleted.” A recipe that active work orders still reference is refused with the work orders named: “Complete or cancel them first.”

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Use The Detail Views

The explosion is hypothetical and does not reserve its displayed stock. A Disassembly uses Recovery Preview instead because its returned parts are outputs, not consumed leaf requirements.

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Understand Status And Default At A Glance

Arcus can technically place the default flag on any nonarchived BOM, including a Draft or Superseded recipe. MRP only uses a BOM when it is both Active and Default, and the product is active, inventory tracked, and uses the Manufactured or Both supply method. See BOM Lifecycle before changing a default.

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Common Scenario: Two Ways To Make One Product

Suppose the same output can be assembled by hand or on an automated line. Keep each physical process as its own BOM rather than hiding both methods in one recipe.

1. Name each BOM so the process is obvious in search.
2. Keep only verified recipes Active.
3. Set the recipe MRP should normally use as the active default.
4. Open the alternate BOM directly when a planner intentionally needs its exact process.
5. Use revision comparison when either recipe changes.

The default flag does not delete, merge, or disable the alternate active recipe.

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Troubleshooting And Refusals

• A recipe is missing from the normal list: Clear filters, search by product or SKU, click Load more, and include Archived when appropriate.
• Clear did not reset the whole list: The Clear action beside tag chips removes only the selected tag. Reset search, type, or status separately.
• A product does not appear in a picker: Confirm it is an eligible specific product or variant. Kits, services, variant parents, and box packaging records are refused.
• The primary action is missing: Confirm the BOM is Active and that you have create permission. Draft, Superseded, and Archived recipes are not normal production choices.
• The recipe appears active but MRP ignores it: Confirm it is also Default and that the product is active, inventory tracked, and supplied as Manufactured or Both.
• Availability looks higher than one warehouse can support: BOM availability is entity-wide. Confirm the work-order location before release.
• The cost changed without a recipe edit: BOM comparisons and rollups use current recorded costs, so product-cost changes can change the estimate.
• Tree view failed to load: Return to Flat and retry. Do not treat a failed hierarchy view as proof that the BOM has no components.
• Full Material Explosion has no leaf rows: Confirm the recipe has lines and that nested products resolve to leaf requirements for the simulated quantity.
• Recovery Preview is empty: Add at least one Return to stock line. Scrap lines are not recovered outputs.
• Work Orders failed to load: Retry before concluding that the BOM has never been used; retirement behavior depends on server-confirmed history.

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FAQ

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