Materials

Raw materials and supplies you purchase from vendors for use in production.

Materials are items you purchase from vendors and consume in production. They carry fields beyond the standard item properties, plus supplier relationships that connect them to your purchasing workflow.

What a material is

In addition to the base item fields (SKU, description, category, units, cost), materials have:

FieldPurpose
Order pointMinimum inventory threshold; signals when to reorder
Lead timeTypical delivery time after ordering (informational today; in the future, derived from purchase order history)

A material represents a specification, not a supplier's SKU. If three suppliers sell equivalent boxes, create one material and link it to multiple suppliers. This simplifies purchasing, quoting, and reporting.

Material categories

Materials use their own category type: material categories: separate from the product categories used by parts and products.

  • A category defines the unit group (measurement system) for all materials in that category
  • Categories carry properties (e.g., "Fiber Content" on a Yarn category) with selectable attributes (e.g., "Cotton", "Polyester", "Wool")
  • Assigning a material to a category gives it access to that category's properties; you then set attribute values per material
  • Categories drive filtering, reporting, and organization across the materials list

Suppliers

Materials are linked to vendors through supplier-material records. Only materials have supplier links: parts and products do not.

  • Each link stores the supplier's part number, description, and active status
  • One material can have multiple suppliers; one supplier can provide multiple materials
  • Supplier links power purchase order line items and vendor comparison

For more on managing vendors, see suppliers.

How materials are used

Materials flow through several workflows:

  • Purchasing: materials appear as line items on purchase orders
  • Receiving: received into inventory with quantity, unit cost, storage location, and lot number
  • Production: consumed as inputs in production steps; cost rolls up into part and product COGS
  • Inventory: full tracking: receipts, issues, allocations, and available-to-promise
  • Costing: unit cost feeds production cost calculations (material cost is one of three COGS components alongside labor and overhead)

Creating a material

  1. Navigate to Materials → Create Material
  2. Enter SKU (required)
  3. Select category (required): determines the unit group and available properties
  4. Optionally set: description, lead time, order point, unit cost
  5. Set attribute values for category properties
  6. Click Create

Bulk create: upload an Excel file with columns for SKU, category, description, quantity, unit cost, lead time, and order point. The system creates new materials, updates existing ones (matched by SKU), and reports skipped rows with reasons.

Managing materials

  • Card-based grid view showing SKU, description, category, inventory level, burn rate, lead time, order point, and unit cost
  • Inline editing with auto-save
  • Search by SKU or description
  • Filter by category, date range, and attributes
  • Export to Excel
  • QR code generation per material
  • Discontinue (soft delete): the material remains in historical records but is no longer active

Tips

  • Model the specification, not the supplier SKU. If you buy the same 10"x12"x8" cardboard box from three suppliers, create one material (e.g., BOX-001) and link it to all three suppliers.
  • Set order points based on lead time and burn rate to avoid stockouts. If a material takes two weeks to arrive, your order point should cover at least two weeks of consumption.
  • Use categories and properties consistently for clean reporting and filtering across your materials list.

Related

Next: Parts