BOMs Away

Guides

Getting started

BOMs Away keeps your parts, bills of material, stock, purchase orders and work orders in one place. This page walks you around the screen, suggests an order for setting up a new company, and shows the everyday loop once you are up and running.

Your first login

When you create a company from the sign-up page, BOMs Away emails you a confirmation link. Open it and click Create my company: BOMs Away creates the company, signs you in, and makes you its administrator. You land on the dashboard with the message "Welcome to BOMs Away — your company is ready."

If a colleague invited you instead, you set your own password from the invitation email and join their company with the permissions they chose for you. See Your account for changing your name, email or password later.

Finding your way around

The dashboard: five headline counts, open purchase and work orders, and the low-stock list

Every page has the same three layers:

  • The navigation bar (dark, across the top) takes you to each area: Parts, Vendors, Manufacturers, Purchase Orders, Work Orders, Inventory (a menu with Inventory and Locations), Buy, Import and Reports. On the right are Help and your name, which opens your personal menu.
  • The action bar (light grey, under the navigation) shows the page title on the left and the page's buttons on the right, such as New, Save or New Purchase Order. It stays put while you scroll, so the buttons are always in reach.
  • The page content below.

The dashboard is your home page. Click BOMs Away in the top-left corner to get back to it. It shows:

  • counts of open purchase orders, open work orders, parts, vendors and locations. Click a card to open that list.
  • Open Purchase Orders, soonest delivery date first.
  • Open Work Orders, soonest due date first.
  • Low Stock: parts at or below their reorder point. Only parts with a reorder point above 0 appear here.

Note

You only see buttons for things you are allowed to change. If a colleague sees a New button that you don't, they have a permission you don't have. See Roles at a glance.

Setting up your company

Set things up in this order. Each step uses what the step before it created.

  1. Company settings. Enter your company name, address, logo, receiving address, home currency and default purchase-order terms. These appear on every purchase order you raise. Open your name menu, then Company settings. See Company administration.
  2. Locations. Create the places you keep stock, such as stockrooms, the production floor or finished goods. Go to Inventory, then Locations. See Inventory & locations.
  3. Vendors and manufacturers. Add who you buy from (with their currency and terms) and who makes the parts. See Vendors & manufacturers.
  4. Parts. Add each part with its unit and reorder point, then give it one or more vendor sources with prices. See Parts & BOMs.
  5. Bills of material. On each assembly's part page, list the parts it is built from. Subassemblies can have their own BOMs. See Parts & BOMs.
  6. Opening stock. Record what you have on hand at each location. See Inventory & locations.
  7. Invite your team. Open your name menu, then Users, then Invite user. See Company administration.

Already have a spreadsheet?

Steps 4 to 6 can be done in bulk. Import loads parts, BOMs and stock from CSV files. See Importing data.

The day-to-day loop

Once your data is in, most work follows two loops.

Buying parts

  1. On Buy, choose an assembly and a quantity and click Compute. BOMs Away works out every part you need, subtracts what you already have, and shows the shortfall.
  2. Click Generate Purchase Orders to create draft orders, one per vendor.
  3. Take each order through approval (Ready for Approval, Approve PO) and send it with Issue to Vendor.
  4. When the goods arrive, receive them into a location. Stock goes up, and the order closes once everything has arrived.

See Purchasing.

Building assemblies

  1. Click New Work Order, pick the assembly and quantity, and choose which subassemblies to build rather than take from stock.
  2. Click Release WO, then Begin Kitting and kit it by pulling each part from a stock location.
  3. Click Begin Production. When the work is done, complete it into a location. The components are used up and the finished assemblies go into stock.

See Work orders.

Roles at a glance

Everyone in your company can view everything. Changing things needs a permission, which a company administrator grants:

Permission Lets you
Edit parts, BOMs, inventory & imports Add and edit parts, sources, BOMs, locations and stock. Use Import.
Edit vendors & manufacturers Add and edit vendors and manufacturers.
Edit purchase orders & generate POs Create, approve, issue and receive purchase orders. Generate POs from the Buy page.
Edit work orders Create, kit, produce, complete and cancel work orders.
Company administrator All of the above, plus managing users and company settings.

The person who creates the company is its first administrator. See Company administration for how to change someone's permissions.

Where to find help

  • Help in the navigation bar opens these pages. The list on the left lets you jump between topics, and each page lists its sections under "On this page".
  • Many pages also have a ? button in the action bar. It opens the help section for the page you are on.

The help home page, listing every topic

The topics:

Try it on your own parts

Free during early access. Create your company and be working in it this afternoon.

Create your company