Creating a Production Order

Creating a Production Order

A production order starts as a plan. You specify what you want to make and how many units, and CrafterBy calculates the materials required based on your product's bill of materials (BOM). You then review and confirm before any stock is touched.

Before You Start

Make sure the product you want to produce has a complete bill of materials. Every material in the BOM must have stock tracking enabled for the reservation and consumption features to work correctly. If your product uses machines, those should be configured with hourly rates before the run.

Steps to Create a Production Order

1. Open Production Orders
   From the main menu, go to Production > Production Orders. Click Create Production Order.
2. Select the product to manufacture
   Search for and select the product. CrafterBy loads its bill of materials automatically.
3. Enter the quantity to produce
   Type the number of units you intend to make. The materials list updates instantly to show the total quantities required for that batch size.
4. Set the planned dates
   Enter a Planned Start Date and a Planned Completion Date. These are used for scheduling and reporting — they do not affect cost calculations.
5. Review the planned materials list
   CrafterBy shows each material from the product BOM multiplied by your production quantity. Check the quantities are sensible. You can adjust any line if you know in advance that this run will use a different quantity (for example, a larger batch where you plan to pre-mix more fragrance than usual).
6. Review optional fields
   You can optionally assign the order to a team member, add a reference number (useful if you track orders in a separate system), and add production notes.
7. Save the production order
   Click Save. The order is created with status Planned. No stock has been reserved or consumed yet.

The Planned Cost

Once the order is saved, CrafterBy displays a planned cost breakdown. This is the theoretical cost assuming you use exactly the quantities specified in the product BOM — no more, no less. It includes:

• Material costs (BOM quantities x material unit costs)
• Machine costs (estimated hours x hourly rates from the product spec)
• Labour costs (estimated hours x the organisation's default labour rate)

This planned cost is your baseline. When the production order is completed, CrafterBy calculates the actual cost from what was actually logged and shows you the variance.

What Happens Next

From the Planned status, your next step is usually to reserve materials so they are set aside for this run. See Reserving Materials for Production.