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Add a material

A material is anything you buy or make to go into something else: wax, clay, a jar, a box, a half-finished part. Finished goods you sell are products in the catalog. Materials live in Warehouse → Materials.

Add one

Section titled “Add one”
  1. Open Warehouse → Materials.
  2. Click Add material/component.
  3. Enter the Name. The SKU fills in from the name, short and label-friendly; edit it freely.
  4. Choose the Unit, or add your own with Add a custom unit (for example a flacon equal to 30 ml). Everything about this material is counted in this unit.
  5. Optionally set the Category, Minimum stock, Supplier and Notes.
  6. Click Create.

Stock starts at zero and changes only through movements, receipts, transfers and counts. To start with a real balance, use Opening stock in the same dialog. See Start with the stock you have today.

A material counted in pieces must be a whole number in every specification line. For a fraction, use a measurable unit such as grams or meters.

Kinds of material

Section titled “Kinds of material”

Kind is Raw material, Semi-finished or Packaging. You do not set semi-finished by hand: a material is semi-finished exactly while an active specification makes it. To make packaging, switch on Packaging material and say what the package does, which opens a Packaging tab for dimensions, tare weight and pallet specification.

Costs on the card

Section titled “Costs on the card”
  • Opening cost is the price of stock you entered by hand. Later purchases update the actual cost instead.
  • Production cost is the figure price lists and planned costs are built from. Purchases never move it. It is saved with a button rather than as you type, because prices are built from it.
  • Actual cost blends in each receipt. See How a purchase changes what a material costs.

If a supplier quotes in liters and you stock by weight, or the reverse, enter the Density, kg/l. Without it, such a purchase line is refused.

Read the card

Section titled “Read the card”

Open a material to see its tabs: General, Stock and cost, Packaging (for packaging), Print, Specialized data, Attributes, Specification, Where it is used, Files, Suppliers and History. Where it is used lists every specification, in products and in other materials, that consumes it. Specification shows how it is made, if you make it.

You can mark a material as Similar to another so a specification that names one can use the other, with the quantity recalculated by an attribute such as potency.

Import many at once

Section titled “Import many at once”

Click Import XLSX, upload a file, review the preview and click Apply. Name and unit are required for a new material; sku is optional and generated when blank. Rows with an existing SKU update that material.

Stop using a material

Section titled “Stop using a material”

Archive moves it to the Archive, with its movement history intact. A material still used by a live specification cannot be archived: the message names the specifications. Remove it from them first.

Section titled “Related”