Managing Bill of Materials

The Bill of Materials (BOM) feature allows you to track components that make up a larger asset. This is useful for complex equipment, computer systems, toolkits, or any asset composed of multiple parts.

Understanding Parent/Child Relationships

A Bill of Materials creates a hierarchical structure:

Parent Asset: The main asset (e.g., a workstation)
Components (Children): Individual items that make up the parent (e.g., monitor, keyboard, mouse, CPU)

Component costs are automatically summed to calculate the parent asset's total value.

Creating an Asset with Components

Click Create Asset from the Assets page
Fill in the basic asset details
Check the "This asset has components" checkbox
Continue to the BOM section
For each component, enter:
- Component name
- Quantity
- Unit cost
- Manufacturer and model (optional)
Click Add Component after each entry
Review your component list
Click Save Asset to create the parent with all components

Managing Existing Components

Viewing Components

Open any BOM-enabled asset and navigate to the BOM tab to see all components with their quantities and costs.

Editing Components

Switch the asset to Edit mode
Go to the BOM tab
Click Edit on any component to modify it
Click Remove to delete a component
Click Save Changes when done

Adding Components Later

Edit the asset
Navigate to the BOM tab
Click Add Component
Enter the component details
Save changes

Value Calculation

The total BOM value is calculated as:

Total = Sum of (Quantity × Unit Cost) for all components

This total is reflected in the parent asset's value for depreciation and reporting purposes.

Best Practices

Use clear, descriptive component names
Keep quantities accurate for proper cost tracking
Update component costs when replacement parts are purchased
Use BOM for any asset worth tracking at the component level