A work order is an instruction to build a quantity of one product from one BOM.
#Creating a work order
Manufacturing → Work Orders → New work order:
- Product *, Quantity *, Bill of materials (defaults to the product's default recipe).
- Planned start, Planned finish, Expected delivery.
- Finished goods — the warehouse the product lands in.
- Issue components from (the store), Work in progress (the WIP warehouse) and Scrap (where scrap and by-products go).
- Consume straight from source — skips the staging step, for short runs where material never sits in a separate work-in-progress area.
- Explode sub-assemblies — off issues sub-assemblies as parts, for when a plan has already raised their own orders.
- Additional cost, Analytic dimensions, Notes.
- The Components table (from the BOM, scaled to the quantity) shows Component, Code, Quantity, Rate and Amount.
#Statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Editable; nothing reserved. |
| Released | Confirmed for the shop floor; job cards are created from the routing. |
| In progress | Material staged or time booked. |
| On hold | Paused with Hold; Resume continues. |
| Completed | The full quantity has been built. |
| Cancelled | Abandoned. |
#Working an order
The work order page shows the Building header (product, quantity, completed, status), Details (order number, planned dates, Staged to WIP, Process Loss), Cost (Material consumed, Conversion planned, Conversion actual), and sections for Materials (required, transferred, consumed per component), Operations, Job cards and Stock movements.
Buttons by status:
- Draft — Edit, Release.
- Released / In progress — Stage material, Return material, Record production (primary), Hold.
- Completed — Unbuild.
- Cancel is available until the order is completed.
Each movement opens a dialog explaining what it does and asking for the quantity:
- Stage material to work in progress (Stage) — moves components out of the source warehouse into WIP. Stock moves; no journal is posted, because both warehouses share the same inventory account.
- Return material from work in progress (Return) — sends unused staged components back to the store.
- Inspect — shown when the product is inspected in process (Chapter 10.17): raises the inspection the build waits for.
- Record production (Build) — consumes the components, receives the finished goods at what was actually consumed plus the conversion cost booked on job cards, and posts the journal. Record it in parts as units come off the line; the order completes when the full quantity is built.
- Unbuild finished goods (Unbuild) — takes finished units apart and returns their components to stock. The conversion cost cannot be un-spent, so it unwinds to the account that capitalised it.
A movement that would drive a component negative at its warehouse is refused before anything moves — and "available" here means what is for use: stock in a receiving or quality-hold bin (Chapter 10.14) and stock a sales order holds (Chapter 5.6) are not, and the message says so ("6 needed but only 2 available in Store, 8 reserved for SO-0042").
#Lots and bins on the shop floor
Each movement dialog lists the lines it will create — every component that leaves, and what lands (finished goods, scrap, by-products) — with a Lots cell per line, the same picker every other stock document has (Chapter 10.11):
- Components — pick the batch or the serial units to take; left alone, the oldest lot goes first and the bin rules decide where it comes from. A staged component lands in work in progress as the same lot it left as.
- Finished goods — a batch-tracked product lands in a batch named after the work order (every partial build of the order shares it) unless you name another; a serial-tracked product needs one serial number per unit before it can be built — type them, or use Scan the finished units and scan each one. Scrap and by-products take a lot the same way.
- Finished goods are put away by the receiving warehouse's putaway rules (Chapter 10.14).
The Movements tab shows the lots each line used.