What Are Components?

What Is a Component?

A component is a reusable sub-assembly: a named bundle of materials and labour (and optionally machine time) that you define once and then add to as many products as you like. Think of it as a recipe inside a recipe.

When a raw material price changes, you update it in one place and every component and product that uses it is recalculated automatically. No manual hunting through dozens of product records.

A Concrete Example

Imagine you run a leather craft business. Every product in your range that has a key-fob attachment uses the exact same construction: a rectangular piece of vegetable-tanned leather (3 cm x 6 cm), a short length of waxed thread, and 8 minutes of hand-stitching time.

Without components you would re-enter that same leather, thread, and labour line on every single product. With components, you create a Key Fob Base component once:

• Vegetable-tanned leather offcut, 18 cm² — €0.42
• Waxed thread, 60 cm — €0.06
• Hand-stitching labour, 8 min — €0.72

Total component cost: €1.20

You then add this component to a dozen different products. Each one automatically carries €1.20 in its cost breakdown for the key-fob attachment.

Three months later your leather supplier raises their price. You update the leather material once. Every component and every product that contains that component recalculates immediately.

When Should You Use a Component?

Use a component whenever:

• The same combination of materials and labour appears in three or more products.
• The sub-assembly has its own identity (e.g. a clasp, a hardware set, a decorative element).
• You want a single point of control for pricing that sub-assembly.

If a combination appears only once, it is simpler to add the materials and labour directly to the product.

What a Component Can Contain

• Materials — any material already in your materials list, with a quantity.
• Labour entries — time at a specified rate, just as you would add to a product.
• Machine time — minutes or hours on a machine you have defined in Machines & Equipment.

Components do not carry overhead. Overhead is only allocated at the product level, where CrafterBy knows the full context (production run size, sales channel, etc.).

Summary

Components save time, reduce errors, and keep your pricing consistent. Define a sub-assembly once, reuse it everywhere, and update it in a single step when costs change.