Some products are made by a vendor from components you supply: you send the blanks, they plate them, you receive plated parts and pay for the work. Both halves stay on your books — the components are yours while they are at the vendor, and the finished goods come in worth the components plus the charge.
- The recipe — a bill of materials for the product with Made by: A subcontractor, the Subcontractor and Their rate per unit (section 11.3). The components are what you send.
- The order — Purchases → Purchase Orders → New, pick the
Subcontract BOM: the vendor fills in, the product line is added at
their rate, and the order is marked Subcontracted. Issue it (Mark as
open, or approval) and the components move from their source warehouse
to the vendor's own warehouse — "
(subcontractor)" , created the first time, kind Subcontractor: on hand, valued as your stock, not for sale. A shortfall at the source refuses the issue with the usual message. The order page's Components at the subcontractor table shows, per component, what the order needs, what is at the vendor and what receipts have consumed. Moving an issued order back to draft brings the components back (not after a receipt). - The receipt — Receive items as for any order. Each unit received consumes its components at the vendor's warehouse (refused, naming that warehouse, when there are not enough there) and the finished goods are valued at components consumed + the vendor's charge. The journal: debit the product's inventory for both halves, credit the components' inventory for what was consumed, credit Goods received not invoiced for the charge. The bill then clears that charge as usual (Chapter 6.3).
- Replenishment — a reorder rule with Replenish by: Make on an item whose default BOM is subcontract work drafts a subcontracted purchase order to the vendor instead of a work order (section 10.8); it is never issued by the run.
Returning unused components: a normal Warehouse transfer from the vendor's warehouse back to yours (Chapter 10.6).