Materials Terminology

What the words on the inventory screens mean, and which stock figure answers which question.

Last updated About 2 hours ago

Introduction

Inventory covers several screens, and the same material turns up on all of them wearing a different word. This guide defines the words you meet across the catalog, bills of materials, pick lists and deliveries, and points you at the guide that covers each area properly.

For the production vocabulary (stages, steps, routes, phases, orders and projects) see Key Terminology.

The Catalog

Inventory holds one catalog, split across a Materials tab and a Parts tab. Which tab an item sits on comes from its Type.

Item. One row in the catalog. Everything below is a property of an item.
Type. Materials are raw material. Parts are Purchased or Manufactured, which is also how you filter the Parts tab.
SKU. The code people search and scan by.
Base unit. The unit every quantity for that item is counted in. Settle it before anyone counts stock, because changing it later re-reads every number already recorded against the item.
Category. Your own grouping for the catalog.

Setting all of this up is covered in Materials and Parts. Units, vendors and locations come from the lists in Catalogs.

Stock Behavior

The Stock behavior column on the Items list answers one question: does this item move inventory at all? Three of its four values mean it does not.

Value	What it means
Stocked	The normal case. The item reserves, picks, and draws down as it is used.
Consumable	Appears on bills of materials, picks and deliveries, and draws no stock.
Ship-loose	The same, and it ships with the order.
Tracked only	Counted through production stages. Never stocked, reserved or picked. Parts only.

A consumable will never tell you it is running out
Reserved, Available and Short only describe items that draw stock. An item marked Consumable, Ship-loose or Tracked only sits on the bill of materials and reserves nothing, so those figures stay quiet however much of it you get through.

The Stock Figures

Four numbers, each answering a different question. Mixing them up is the usual reason two people disagree about whether there is enough material.

Figure	What it means
On hand	Physical stock. What is actually there to touch.
Reserved	Open reservations from project and order allocations. Material spoken for that has not moved yet.
Available	On hand minus Reserved. What you can still commit. A negative Available means you are short: more is promised than you physically have.
On order	Quantity on inbound deliveries that has not been received yet.

Filter the catalog to a department and these headers narrow with it, except On order, which stays organization wide because inbound material arrives for the company rather than for one department.

Materials and Parts goes through all of this in detail, including the Roll-up, which asks the separate question of whether the work already booked in will have enough.

Bills of Materials

A bill of materials is the list of what an order or a route consumes. You build it on the Materials & Production tab of an order or a route.

Every line carries a quantity and a scaling, and the scaling is the part that catches people out:

per unit. The figure is for one order unit. An order for 20 panels needs 20 times it.
per order. The figure is the whole requirement, whatever the order size. One crate per order, whether the order is for 5 or 500.

The quantity column shows which one a line is using as a /unit or /order suffix.

Moving and Storing Material

Location. Anywhere stock sits. Locations nest, so a rack can live inside a warehouse. Unassigned is stock with no location on it yet.
Receiving. Booking an inbound delivery in against what was expected. This is what turns On order into On hand.
Pick list. A list of material to pull for a piece of work, walked by location and staged for whoever needs it.
Pick location and staging location. Where a line is pulled from, and where it is put once pulled.
Backorder. A pick line flagged short because the stock is not there.
Count. Recording what you actually counted so it becomes the new On hand, with the difference kept as a record. Counting is how you correct a number. Editing an item does not move stock.

See Storage and Locations, Pick Lists and Inbound Deliveries for how each of these actually works.

Tips

Read Available, not On hand. On hand includes stock that is already promised to somebody else.
Check Stock behavior before you trust a shortage. A consumable will sit at zero reserved forever, because it never reserves.
Say per unit or per order out loud when you add a bill of materials line. It is the difference between one crate and five hundred.
Use the same word your crew uses. Where this guide and the screen disagree, the screen is right and this guide needs fixing.

FAQ

Why does an item on my bill of materials never show as reserved?

Check its Stock behavior. Consumable, Ship-loose and Tracked only items appear on the bill of materials but never draw stock, so they never reserve.

What is the difference between a material and a part?

They are one catalog split by Type across two tabs. Parts also carry a lifecycle Status and can be filtered by Purchased or Manufactured.

Available says I am fine, so why am I running out?

Available is about what is reserved right now. Whether the work already booked in will have enough is the Roll-up, and it is a different number.

Conclusion

When two screens seem to disagree about a quantity, it is almost always because they are answering different questions. Check which figure you are reading, and check the item's Stock behavior before you trust a shortage.

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