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Production

Purchase orders, suppliers, supplier bills, production tracking, and receiving deliveries.

How do I create a purchase order?
  1. 1Go to Production and click New PO (or start one straight from the Allocation page to cover uncovered demand).
  2. 2Pick a supplier, then add products and quantities per size.
  3. 3Submit — the PO starts as a draft you can send to the factory.
From Allocation you can raise POs for *all* uncovered demand at once (one per supplier), or for a single order line.
How do I manage suppliers?

Click a row on the Suppliers page and the factory opens in a panel beside the list, in tabs — spend, what you owe them, contacts, purchase orders, the styles they make and your uploaded files, without leaving the list.

  1. 1Overview — spend over a window you choose, on-time delivery and lead time, top styles, contacts, terms (default currency, payment terms, agreed lead time) and the factory and office addresses.
  2. 2Contacts — the people at the factory, and which documents each of them receives.
  3. 3Purchase orders — Open or All, each with a received / ordered progress bar and its due or received date.
  4. 4Bills — the invoices and credit notes *they* sent *you*, and what is still outstanding.
  5. 5Products — every style linked to them, searchable and sortable by name, quantity or cost price.
  6. 6Documents — the files you've uploaded against the supplier.

Terms, addresses, contacts and custom fields are edited in place — click a field, type, and it saves when you leave it. Only the supplier's name and country still go through a dialog, because Add supplier has to create the record before there is anything to edit in place.

The open supplier and its tab are in the address bar, so /suppliers?supplier=…&tab=pos is a link you can bookmark or send to a colleague.
How does the colour library work — Pantone, RGB, and colours off my bills?

Settings → Color library has two tabs. Brand colours is your own palette, editable in place: name, code, hex and the RGB triplet beside it. Pantone is the TCX book — 2,801 colours, the same for every brand — searchable by name or code.

Adding a Pantone copies it into your library with its code recorded, rather than pointing at it. Your colour is then yours to rename, and it still says where it came from: a small dot on the pill and the code in its tooltip, wherever that colour appears.

The hex box takes RGB too. Paste 231, 223, 216 straight off a spec sheet and it converts; the RGB column beside it is derived from the hex, so the two can never disagree.

Under the list, any colour your bills of material use that the library has never heard of is offered for one-click adding — 30 of one brand's 50 bill colours were in that state. They arrive with no shade, because a colour lifted off a bill has a name and nothing else, and inventing a hex would be a guess wearing the authority of a record.
Where do I count component stock?

Inventory → Components, and only there. Find the component, click Set stock, and record what is on each shelf — every place at once, so a component held in three places is one visit rather than three.

It used to be editable from Production → Components as well. That was the wrong room: the plan is where you decide what to order, and a stocktake is somebody at a shelf saying what is actually there. With both on one screen the number being planned against could be edited by the person planning, mid-plan — which is how a shortfall quietly becomes covered without anything arriving. The plan now reads on-hand and does not touch it.

Allocating stock TO a production order stays on the plan, because that is a planning decision rather than a count: it commits stock that exists, it does not invent any.

Each figure REPLACES what that place held — it is a count, not a delivery. Receiving a component order adds to it separately.

Where do I see stock of every component, not just the ones I hold?

Inventory → Components lists one line per component, with With stock only on by default — the everyday question is "what have I got". Turn it off and you get the whole catalogue, because you cannot record the first holding of a component you cannot find.

Open a line to see the breakdown: every colour, size and place it is held in, each with its own quantity. Those are separate holdings because they are separate things to order, and the line above them shows the total plus how many colours and sizes it is made of.

Totals are stated per unit — metres and pieces do not add up, which is the same rule that forced the unit into the requirement key.
Can I record component stock per colour and per size?

Yes — a holding is a component, at a place, in a version, in a colour. Size labels exist in 44, 46 and 48 and each runs out separately; black interlock and ecru interlock are dyed separately and held separately. Counting them together gives a number you cannot order against.

Open a component's stock and use Add a holding: pick the warehouse or supplier, the quantity, and then the colour and the size. Both are offered, not typed — the colours and sizes come from the component's own bills and orders, so counting a box of size labels is picking 46 rather than remembering that 46 is one of them. Leave either blank for the unspecified one.

A warehouse already holding the black is still offered for the ecru — only the exact combination is taken. Editing one holding never rewrites the one beside it, and the adjustment log records which colour and version each count was for.

The plan matches on all four, so stock in the right colour covers the requirement for that colour and nothing else.

Can one component be measured differently on different bills?

Yes. The unit under a component in the bill of material is now that bill's unit — elastic bought on a roll for one style and cut to pieces for another no longer has to pick one and be wrong for the other. Leave it blank and it uses the component's own unit, which is still set on the Components page.

A component used in two units is two requirements, and each is ordered separately. That is not a limitation — summing them would give a number in no unit at all, since 3 metres plus 2 yards is not 5 of anything.
Why is the same component listed several times when I raise component orders?

Because they are different buys. A requirement is a component in a colour, in a version, in a unit — black interlock and ecru interlock are dyed separately, held separately and short separately, so they are two rows, two order lines and two stock holdings.

Before this they were added together. Twenty-three bill lines calling for one jersey in ten colours became a single requirement, and the order raised from it asked a mill for 412 metres of nothing in particular.

Each row carries its own buffer, its own agreed price, and its own supplier, so you can top up one colour without touching the others.

What does the light green background on a bill of material mean?

That cell is finished: it states both how much the article consumes and which colour the component comes in. Reading a long bill down the green tells you where the gaps are, which is the only question a half-entered grid gets asked.

There is deliberately no second colour for the unfinished ones. Marking them would paint a brand-new bill from top to bottom and mean nothing — the absence of green is the gap, and it stays quiet. The count under the grid says how many of the cells are done.

A component that genuinely has no colour — a care label, a hangtag — will not go green until you give it one. Give it the colour it is actually printed in and it counts like everything else.
Can I copy just one section of another article's bill of material?

Yes. Copy from another article, pick the article, and it opens that bill's sections with a line count on each. Tick the ones you want and copy just those, or Copy everything in one click.

This is the packaging errand: the same polybag, hangtag and care label go on every style you make. Pulling the whole bill across to get them would replace the fabric and trims you had already worked out, so you take the section and leave the rest alone.

A section here is what the grid files a line under — the heading you set, or the imported one, or the component's kind if nobody has filed it. That is why "Packaging" catches lines that were never explicitly filed.
Why does a component show several colours?

Because it is bought in several. The Colours column reads the bills, not the component record — one interlock jersey sits on twenty-three bill lines in ten colours, and naming one of them would be a wrong answer rather than a short one. The busiest colours come first and the rest are counted as +N; hover to see every one with how many bills calls for it.

The colour on the component record itself is only a default — the shade a new bill line starts from. It shows here, marked as such, only while the component is on no bill to contradict it.

Two different edits, one column. Changing WHICH colour a line calls for is done on the bill of material, or from the component panel — the same bill seen from the other end. Clicking a colour here renames THAT COLOUR, everywhere it appears.
Can I rename a colour?

Yes — click the colour in the Colours column on Components, or the pencil beside it in the Colours & sizes tab of the component panel, and type the new name.

It changes that colour on that component only. Its bill lines, its component orders, its stock and the cover held against them all move to the new spelling; another component that happens to spell a colour the same way keeps its own, and your palette is not touched. "Black" on a zip and "Black" on a lining are two dyes from two suppliers that share a word, and correcting one has no business rewriting the other's stock and open orders.

Everything the component itself carries moves together, though, which is the part that matters: renaming half of it would split the colour rather than correct it — the bills would ask for "Khaki" while the order and the stock still said "Light Khaki", and the requirement reader, which matches cover to need colour by colour, would quietly stop seeing them as the same thing.

Before you confirm it says what it will touch on this component: how many bill lines, how many articles — and, louder, whether the colour is on a component order that is still open, with the order number. Changing the name on something a mill is already dyeing is a different act from tidying a spelling.

Fixing only the capitals — "off white" to "Off White" — is the same colour, never a merge. Everything spelled either way lands on the new spelling.
Renaming onto a name this component already uses merges the two colours. They become one, stock held in both at the same place is added together, and nothing records that they were ever separate. It asks first, and it cannot be undone.

To change a colour across the whole catalogue — a spelling to tidy everywhere — rename it in the colour library instead. That is the brand's list; this is one component's.

Can I see and count a component's stock without leaving the catalogue?

The On hand column on the Components list is the total, and clicking it opens the same stocktake Inventory uses. Where a component sits in more than one place, colour or size, the number of holdings is shown beside the figure — in amber when they are not even the same colour, because 40 black and 60 ecru is not 100 metres of anything you can cut.

Open a component and its Stock tab lists every holding in full: the place, the colour, the size, and what is there — with At supplier marked, since a roll at the mill is yours to plan against but is not on your shelf.

It is the one stock editor in the app wherever you open it from, and it works the same way everywhere: each figure REPLACES what that place held, it is not added to it. Every change is logged with the reason you type.
How do I make a care label from the care instructions?

In the care section of an article — where you pick the wash symbols — give the label a reference number and click Create and add to the bill. That makes a component with the reference as its code and puts it on this article's bill of material in one step, so the label is planned, costed and ordered like anything else the garment is made of.

Composition now lives in that same section. It is not a fact about the photographs it used to sit beside; it is the other half of what the label says, and the two were being written in different rooms.

Use one from another style copies an existing label: a brand prints a handful and puts them on everything, and retyping per style is how the fourth one comes to say something slightly different from the first three. It attaches the SAME component, so a correction later reaches every article wearing it.

On the bill of material the care label carries a small violet tag, so a line you did not type reads as one that was put there for you rather than one you forgot you had.

Importing brings the composition across but NOT the wash symbols. The printed sentence and the structured symbols are two fields, and copying the sentence alone would leave a label saying one thing and symbols saying another — so the symbols are left for you to confirm.
The same colour is on a component twice under different spellings — can I fix it?

Yes, and this is usually where the real duplication is. Open the component and go to Colours & sizes: every colour and size it actually appears in, with what open production needs of it, what you hold, and what is on order.

One zip on this catalogue carries Steel Gray needing 15 and Steel Grey - 18-4005 TCX needing 10 — two requirements for one grey. Since each spelling is its own requirement and its own stock holding, the plan asks you to buy both while stock sitting under the other name covers neither.

Tick the ones that mean the same thing, choose the spelling to keep, and merge. Bills, orders, stock and cover all move onto it, so demand and stock end up on the same line — which is the point.

Nothing is merged for you. "Steel Gray" and "Steel Grey - 18-4005 TCX" are one colour; "Black" and "Washed Black" are not, and no rule can tell them apart. There is no unmerge.
I have the same component several times over — can I merge them?

Yes. The Components page shows a duplicate names chip when any exist; click it to see only those, tick the ones that are the same thing, and Merge. You choose which to keep, and its bills, orders, stock, cover and history all move onto it while the others are archived.

This is worth doing rather than tidy-minded: each copy carries its own stock, its own price and its own requirement, so the plan asks you to buy the same care label twice and neither figure is the real one.

Watch the unit. Copies are often measured differently — one catalogue had the same care label as pieces, metres and metres — and "0.5 per garment" means half a piece on one and half a metre on another. Each bill line KEEPS the unit it was written in, so nothing changes meaning, but the merged component then shows a mix and the dialog says so before you commit.

Where a copy WAS a colour ("Lining · Off White") and its bill lines said nothing, the colour moves onto the lines — one component, the colour stated per bill, which is how it should have been. There is no unmerge.

Some of my factories buy their own trims — can the plan know that?

Yes, at two levels. On the components plan, the Buys its own components strip lists the makers whose production is in scope; mark the ones that source everything for themselves. From then on the demand arising from their orders comes off what you have to buy.

For anything finer, click the figure in the By factory column on a component's line. It lists every maker that needs that component, with how much each one needs, and you tick the ones buying it themselves. That is the usual case: a maker is nominated the fabric and sources its own zips, and the arrangement differs per maker.

It is recorded per maker and remembered, because it is a standing commercial arrangement rather than a decision taken order by order — otherwise you have to hold in your head, every time, which lines belong to whom.

The demand does not disappear. The garment still needs it, so it stays in Required and only comes off To cover — a figure that silently vanishes is one nobody can reconcile.

A maker marked for everything shows ticked and locked on the per-component list. Unticking it there would write a row that changes nothing; the place to undo it is the strip that set it.

A component is listed as used but not sized, and nobody here will ever buy it

Park it. Each row in the used, but not yet sized panel has a Maker buys it button (a maker picker, where more than one is in scope). It records the same arrangement as the By factory column, and once every maker who needs it is marked, the row folds into a collapsed bought by the maker list underneath.

This is the honest answer for most of them. A bill line saying the garment has pocket bags is correct; what is missing is a per-garment figure nobody here needs, because the factory buys them. Before this the only way to quiet the panel was to delete a bill line that was right.

Parked is folded away, not deleted. The bill still says the garment uses it, and the row comes straight back if the arrangement changes.
I buy the zips for one manufacturer but not the other — can I raise just that order?

Yes. Raise component orders opens on a Buying for row listing the makers on the plan. Untick the ones this buy is not for and the shortfall is recalculated from the remaining production orders alone — including the stock and the cover already against them — so the quantity is that maker's real shortfall rather than a share of a combined total.

A second From row narrows it to particular component suppliers, when the shortfall spans several and you are only placing one today. That one is a filter and nothing more: no quantity changes when you use it.

The draft order is allocated back against exactly the production orders it was calculated from. Raise for one maker and the other's line stays uncovered on the plan, which is correct — nothing has been bought for it.
Can I undo covering a component from stock?

Yes — Release on the plan line. The quantity goes back to the exact holding it came from and the line returns to uncovered.

Use stock draws the holding down as well as recording the cover, so before this a wrong colour or a double click left the stock gone from the shelf, the line reading covered, and no way back except hand-editing the count — which left the allocation behind still claiming it.

Where the holding it came from has since been deleted, that quantity has nowhere true to go. It is reported rather than dropped onto another row: a stocktake that gains units from nowhere is worse than one that says it lost track of some.

Cover that comes from a component ORDER is released by deleting that order, which already puts what it covered back on the plan. Removing the link while the order still exists would show the line uncovered and invite ordering the same fabric twice.

I ordered more than the shortfall — where does the buffer show on the plan?

Beside the cover. The Covered column reads "250 on PO · 275 ordered": the first figure is what answers this production's shortfall, the second is what was actually placed with the supplier, buffer and all.

They are different numbers on purpose. Cover is capped at the gap it closes — an order cannot cover more than the production is short by — so folding the buffer into it would make Required − Covered − By factory = To cover stop adding up. Hover the figure for how much of it is buffer.

Only component orders covering the production orders you have ticked are counted, so an order raised for another season does not appear in this plan's figures.

I raised a component order but the plan still shows the line as uncovered

What an order covers is recorded as a link back to the production orders it was bought for, and that link is now rebuilt from the order's own lines every time they change — when it is raised, when you edit a quantity in the order panel, and when you delete a line.

Before this it was written once, in the browser, as a separate step after the order and its lines. A failure there left an order with lines and no cover: real, sitting in the list, and invisible to the plan, which went on asking for fabric that was already bought. One order was in that state and has been repaired.

Raising is all-or-nothing now. If the attribution cannot be written the half-made order is removed rather than left behind, so what you see in the list is always an order that covers something.

It also means an edit does what it looks like it does: raising the quantity on a line from 250 to 400 covers 400, and removing a line takes its cover away with it.

Where do component orders show up once I have raised them?

In the Production purchase order list, with every other order, tagged Components so the two are easy to tell apart. Filter to one kind with the chips above the list.

They used to be listed again at the bottom of the components plan, which meant the same order in two places and two ideas of what an order list is. The plan is now for planning; the list is for orders.

Do component orders count towards committed spend?

Yes. Money committed to a mill for fabric is committed exactly as money committed to a factory for garments, so component orders are in the committed figure on Production and on each supplier card.

They stay out of the unit figures. "Units on order" is garments; components are metres and pieces and kilos, and adding those together gives a number in no unit at all. Component orders are counted separately beside it instead.

A supplier you buy only components from now gets a card of its own — before this the money committed to them was invisible on the page. The garment progress bar is left off such a card rather than drawn at 0%, which would read as "none of it has arrived" about goods that do not exist.
Why can I not receive a component order?

Because it is still a draft — nothing is on its way until the order has been sent. Change the status to Sent (or email it, which does that for you) and Receive becomes available.

The button used to disappear entirely on a draft, so an order you had just raised had no way to book anything in and nothing said why. It is now shown and disabled, with the reason on hover.

Received and Partially received cannot be set by hand. They are worked out from what you actually book in, so setting one by hand would claim goods arrived with no receipt, no stock movement and nothing to reconcile — the same rule production orders follow.
Can I fix or remove a stock holding I entered wrongly?

Yes, both. The pencil beside a holding moves it to a different colour or size, keeping its count — a holding filed under the wrong colour used to be fixable only by counting it to zero and adding another, which leaves a zero row behind and a log claiming stock left the building. It did not; it was mislabelled.

The bin removes the holding altogether. That is a different statement from counting it to zero: zero means you hold none of it there and keeps the record, removing says the holding should never have existed.

A move onto a colour and size that place already holds is refused, not folded together. Which of the two counts survives is a decision with a number in it, and picking one silently is how a stocktake stops being trusted.
Where does a component order say it should be delivered?

On the order — Deliver to, a picker of your warehouses, in the panel. Leave it unset and nothing prints, which is the honest answer when nobody has said.

It used to print your FIRST warehouse without asking. A brand with two was told on every order that everything went to whichever sorted first, with no way to say otherwise — and a guess that cannot be corrected prints with the same confidence as a fact.

Currency is a list rather than a free-text box, for the same reason: a typo there does not fail, it prints. Left blank it inherits the supplier's own currency, which is what the totals were already computed in.

Can I email a component order to the supplier?

Yes. Open the order, click PDF, and if the supplier has an email on file the preview offers Send to supplier — the same recipient picker the production order uses, so you can add or change who gets it before sending. The PDF goes with it as an attachment.

Sending a draft marks it as sent, because an order emailed to a mill that still says draft is a state nobody can act on.

No email on file means no Send button — a button that opens onto an empty recipient list is a dead end. The panel says so, and the address is added on the supplier record.
My notes are not on the component order PDF

They are — but only if Notes to the supplier is ticked, and until now that switch was nowhere to be found: the Fields menu on the preview offered the line columns and nothing else, so the notes typed into the order panel had no control anywhere and the document read as though it did not support them.

The menu now carries both halves of the document. Line columns is what it always had; under it sit Document (date, status, currency, totals, terms, deliver-to, required-by and the notes), Your company and Supplier.

The switch above is for the note on the order as a whole. A note on an individual line is separate — see below.
How do I put a note against one component line?

Every line has a Note field underneath it — the same place the note prints on the PDF. Type what the supplier needs to know: *tape colour to match body*, *slider from the March sample*.

Most of the time you will not have to. Raising a component order copies the notes from the bill of material onto the lines they belong to. One order line gathers several bill lines, so a component said the same thing about at three placements prints it once — and the placements only appear when a component carries more than one note, because that is the only time they tell the supplier anything: *Cuffs, Pockets: H401 · Fly: 19cm*.

On the PDF, Notes on a line and Placement in the note are separate switches under *Line columns* in the Fields menu. A mill that makes one trim rarely needs telling which seam it goes on, and the placements make a two-word note three times as long.

Notes stay editable after the order is sent. They say nothing about what was ordered or what it costs, so they are not locked the way quantities and prices are; change one and use Send again. A cancelled order is the exception — there is nothing left to tell the supplier.

A note you type is never overwritten by the bill. The copy only fills a line that is blank, so correcting a note for one order does not mean rewriting the style — and rewriting the style does not silently change an order already sent.
Component names are too long for the page — can I print it landscape?

Yes. Open the order's PDF and pick Landscape under *Page* in the Fields menu. Every column widens in proportion, not just the component name — so a colour like *Steel Grey - 18-4005 TCX* stops wrapping too.

The choice is per order and is remembered the next time you open that one. A run of long trim names can print sideways while the next order, of three buttons, stays upright.
Can I rename a column on one document without changing Settings?

Yes. Open the PDF, click Fields, and click the pencil beside any column — including the ones marked *always*, like Component, which print on every copy and so have a pencil but no tick. Type the word you want; leaving it empty puts the original back. It applies to that document alone and is remembered the next time you open it — your Settings default is untouched.

The three scopes stack, narrowest first: this document, then the brand's label in *Settings → Documents*, then our word. So a house style set once still applies everywhere you have not said otherwise.

On a component order the Version column is the exception — it has a home of its own on the order, so renaming it from the pencil or from the table heading in the panel writes to the same place, and the two can never disagree.
Can I call the “Version” column something else?

Yes, order by order, from either end: click the word Version in the panel's table heading, or the pencil beside it in the PDF's *Fields* menu. Type *Length*, *Gauge*, *Ligne*, *Finish*, whatever that order is actually about — both write to the same place, so the screen and the document always agree.

“Version” is our word for the thing that distinguishes one variant of a component from another — a zip in 17cm and 21cm, a thread in two weights. It is set per order because one word could never be right for all of them: an order of zips is about lengths, an order of yarn about gauges, an order of buttons about lignes.

Leave it blank and the order falls back to the brand-wide label from Settings → Documents → Component order, and then to our word. So a house style set once still applies everywhere you have not said otherwise.

Like a line note, the name stays editable after the order is sent — it changes what the document is headed, not what was ordered.

Can I choose what prints on a component order PDF?

Yes — Settings → Documents → Component order, the same field chooser the invoice and packing list use. Tick the columns and header fields you want and the live preview shows the result.

Version / size is off by default, because most components have none and a column of dashes down a page is worse than no column. Turn it on for the zips.

The column beside Quantity is Unit price, not "Unit". It was headed "Unit" and sat next to a quantity that already prints "460 pcs", so a column of money read as the unit of measure. Renamed, on the PDF and in the order panel.

The document also now carries what a supplier needs for their own books: your full legal identity — company name, address, VAT, EORI and registration number, each individually toggleable — their address, the delivery address, the date it is required by, and payment and delivery terms. Before this it printed your brand name and nothing else.

How do I receive a component order?

Open the order and click Receive. Choose where the goods are landing, put in what arrived on each line — or click *Everything still outstanding* — and Book in.

One action does three things together: the line records what has been received, the quantity lands in that location's component stock, and the order moves to Partially received or Received on its own. The status is worked out from the lines rather than chosen, so an order cannot say it is complete while a line is short.

A negative figure reverses a receipt booked twice or against the wrong line. It will not take a line below zero received, and if the stock has since gone it books back what is actually there and tells you the difference rather than pretending.

Closing an order by hand is still there for goods that arrived before anyone was counting — but it only moves the status, it puts nothing on a shelf.

Is the buffer a percentage or a quantity?

A quantity, in the component's own unit of measure. A buffer of 10.6 on a fabric short 212 m is 10.6 metres, and the order becomes 222.6 m. The unit is printed beside the box, the same way it is beside the order quantity.

The Add buffer to every line __% control at the top is only a quick way to fill those boxes: it works out that share of each line's shortfall and writes it in as units. Nothing stores a percentage, so a line you then adjust by hand keeps exactly what you typed.

Because the boxes hold units, one percentage across a mixed order gives each line a different buffer — 5% of 212 m of jersey is 10.6 m, 5% of 88 zips is 4.4 pieces. That is usually what you want; where it is not, type over the line.
Can I order more than the shortfall — wastage, box sizes, a minimum?

Yes. Every line on Raise component orders has a Buffer beside its quantity: extra on top of what is short, in that component's unit. Type units into either box and the other follows, because they are two views of one number.

For a policy across the whole buy — 5% wastage, say — put the percentage in Add buffer to every line and Apply. That writes real numbers into the lines rather than switching on a mode, so any line you then tune by hand keeps what you typed. *Reset to the shortfall* puts everything back.

Then Preview shows the orders exactly as they will be created — one per supplier, with its lines, quantities and what it comes to — and raising happens from there. Back returns to your choices with everything intact.

How do I say whether a supplier makes products or supplies components?

Every supplier carries a Supplies tag — Products, Components, or both. Set it in the supplier panel's Supplies card, or when you first add them. The column on the list shows it at a glance, and the dropdown above the list narrows to one kind.

It decides which lists offer them: the supplier on a component, and on a component order, is picked from the component suppliers; the supplier on a production order from the product suppliers. A supplier tagged for the other kind is still there, grouped under a divider at the bottom of the list — nothing is hidden from you, it is only pushed down.

Both is normal, not a fudge — a maker who also sells you the fabric is a single supplier doing two jobs, and every one of your existing suppliers was tagged from what it is already used for.

A supplier with neither tag is offered everywhere. "Nobody has said" is not the same answer as "no", so an untagged supplier can never go missing from a picker.

Can I add a supplier without leaving what I am doing?

Yes. The supplier dropdown on a component, and on the screen that raises component orders, both end with + New supplier…. Give it a name, confirm what it supplies, and it is created and selected on the spot — the rest of the record (country, terms, addresses, contacts) waits on the Suppliers page for when you have it.

If the name already exists it selects that supplier rather than making a second one, so a supplier cannot be duplicated by typing it twice.
Can I keep contacts on a supplier?

Yes — suppliers have a Contacts tab of their own, the same as customers. Add the merchandiser, the sample room, the shipping desk: job title, email, phone, mobile, department and document language each.

Every person has a Receives row — Purchase orders, PO amendments, Shipping instructions, Remittance advice. Those chips decide who a generated document is addressed and emailed to by default; with nobody subscribed it falls back to the primary contact.

The primary contact is also the name and email the supplier shows up under in global search, so keep it pointed at whoever you actually deal with.
What do the spend and delivery figures on a supplier mean?

The big figure is what you placed with that factory in the window shown beside it. A PO counts on the day it was sent (or created, if it was never sent), and cancelled POs never happened. Switch the window with the 3M / 6M / 12M buttons, or click the date range next to them to set your own From–To.

YTD spend · Open POs · Units in production at the top of the record ignore that window: they are always this calendar year, what is still open, and the units ordered but not yet received on those open POs.

On-time delivery appears only once at least three deliveries can be judged — a PO carrying both a promised date and an actual delivery, or a shipment with an estimate and a delivered date. Avg lead time (order sent → goods landed) appears once a PO has both of those dates. Below that there isn't enough history to mean anything, so the tile is left out rather than shown.

Fill in Agreed lead time in the supplier's Terms and the lead-time tile scores the real average against it.
What is a supplier bill, and how do I record one?

A supplier bill is the invoice or credit note the factory sent *you*, recorded as data instead of filed as a PDF. Uploaded on its own, an invoice is only a file — it has a name and a size, and nothing in QUOMODA knows what it is for or how much it is.

  1. 1Open the supplier, go to the Bills tab and click Add bill.
  2. 2The new bill opens as a draft with every field empty. Fill in what is printed on their document — their document number, the date it was issued, when it falls due, the currency and the total.
  3. 3Set Kind to *Invoice* or *Credit note*, link the purchase order it covers if there is one, and pick the scan you uploaded on the Documents tab.
  4. 4Move it out of Draft — *To approve*, then *Approved* — and it starts counting towards what you owe that factory.
A bill can only leave draft once it states a total and a currency. Until then it counts towards nothing, so a half-typed capture can never slip into your outstanding figure as a silent zero.

Nothing is prefilled — not even the supplier’s default currency. Every field is something read off their paper, and a value QUOMODA guessed would be impossible to tell apart from one you actually read. A figure you haven’t read stays empty and shows as unknown.

Why doesn’t a bill just take its figures from the purchase order?

Because the supplier’s document is its own fact, and the two disagreeing is exactly the case worth catching. A bill carries their number (not your PO number), their currency, their dates and their stated total — the figure that is actually owed.

Net, VAT and total are three separate readings, held exactly as printed. QUOMODA never recomputes the total from net + VAT: if the supplier’s rounding leaves them a cent apart, the cent survives, because their total is what you have to pay.

Record a credit note as a positive amount and set its Kind to *Credit note* — the kind is what makes it count the other way. No stored figure is then ever ambiguous about which direction it points, and nobody has to guess whether a minus sign was theirs or yours.

A bill doesn’t need a purchase order at all. Samples, freight, tooling and corrections arrive as invoices with nothing to match them to, and they are still money you owe.

What does “Outstanding” on a supplier mean?

What you still owe that factory: approved and awaiting-approval bills, less credit notes. It sits in the stat row at the top of the supplier record, beside YTD spend, and is broken down on the Bills tab.

  1. 1Drafts are excluded — they are half-captured, so they are counted in nothing.
  2. 2Paid and cancelled bills are excluded — one is settled, the other should never have been recorded.
  3. 3Disputed bills are listed separately, not folded in: a claim you contest is not the same as one you have agreed.
  4. 4Overdue is the part whose due date has passed. A bill with no due date is never called overdue — an unknown date is not evidence of lateness.
A supplier who bills you in two currencies gives you two figures side by side, never one. Each bill is in the supplier’s own money, and QUOMODA holds no exchange rate that could honestly turn one into the other.

The Bills tab also says what its own total had to leave out — how many bills are still drafts, and whether any state no total or no currency at all. A figure that hides its gaps is worse than no figure.

Will supplier bills reach my accounting system?

That is what recording them makes possible. A bill captured this way already holds everything a ledger posting needs — supplier, document number, date, currency, net, VAT and gross — so when an accounting integration is switched on it can be posted as it stands, with nothing re-typed off the paper a second time.

The connector isn’t live yet, and we’re not putting a date on it. Recording bills earns its keep in the meantime on its own: it is what makes “what do I owe this factory” and “what is overdue” answerable at all.

Capturing bills now means no backlog later — the day an integration is switched on, everything you have already recorded is postable.
Can QUOMODA work out the fabric and trims a production order needs?

Yes — Plan components, beside New PO on Production. Tick the purchase orders you are about to place and QUOMODA multiplies the units on them by what each style is made of, so fabric and trims can be bought in parallel with the garments rather than after them, which is what their longer lead times demand.

Production tells you when there is something to do there, in the same place it tells you units need a purchase order: a banner naming how many components are still to cover and how many are used but not yet sized.

Three things sit behind it, and they are filled in in this order:

  1. 1Components — what you buy, on the Components page. Each has one unit (metres, pieces, kilos) and, usually, a supplier and a price. Nothing ever converts between units: a component is metres or it is pieces.
  2. 2Bills of material — how much of each component one unit of an article consumes, on the article itself, plus an optional wastage percentage for cutting loss. A size curve is available where a 46 genuinely eats more cloth than a 36, and is ignored unless you fill it in.
  3. 3Stock — how much of each component you already hold, on Inventory → Components. It is held per place: a warehouse, or a supplier, because fabric waiting at the mill is real stock to plan against but is not in your building. It goes up on its own when you receive a component order, and can still be typed in by hand for what was already on the shelf.

Each component then shows what is required, what you hold, and what is still uncovered. Cover it from stock — which draws that stock down, so the same roll cannot be promised to two production orders — or raise a component purchase order, one draft per supplier.

A style with no bill of material is never counted as zero. It is listed above the figures with its unit count, because "we need almost nothing" and "we cannot tell you yet" look identical in a total, and only one of them is safe to buy against.
Material POs are ordinary purchase orders — same statuses, documents, receiving and supplier — so they behave like everything else. They are in the purchase order list, tagged Components, but stay out of its UNIT counts, because a roll of leather is not a garment.

The planner is the plan and nothing else. It used to carry two more tabs — a component list with its stock, and a bill-of-material list with its own editor — and both were second copies of screens that already exist. A bill with two editors drifts apart, and that one had.

Can I send the bill of material to my factory?

Yes — PDF, beside the bill of material on the article. One document per style with every article on it, not one per article: the articles share a parts list and differ only in colour, so a document each would be the same page reprinted with one word changed, and a cutting room comparing two of them has to find that word by eye. Here the parts are the rows and the articles are the columns.

It prints what somebody making the garment needs: the components, where each one goes, how much per garment, the unit, wastage, the size curve where there is one, and which colour each article calls for. It goes landscape on its own once there are three or more articles to fit.

Cost is never on it, and there is no switch to put it there. A bill goes to whoever is cutting the garment, and what you pay your mill is not theirs to see. Supplier is a switch, and off by default — a nominated supplier is worth naming, an ordinary one is a commercial relationship the maker has no part in.

A line nobody has given a consumption figure prints not stated, never 0, and the document says how many are in that state at the bottom. A zero on a cutting document says the garment needs none of that fabric, which is the one reading that is never true.

Use Fields in the preview to turn placement, notes, the size curve, the colour columns or the supplier on and off before you download. The bill on the document is the same bill the grid shows — they are built from one place, so they cannot drift.

A component whose version simply follows the size — a size label, where S is "S" and M is "M" — says one per size and lists them, rather than printing every size twice.

If I use Resourced, do I have to type the bills of material again?

No. If your brand has the Resourced integration, every sync now brings the bills of material across: for each colourway, the components it uses with their colour, supplier, reference number, section and composition. Components are matched on their Resourced component number, so re-syncing updates them instead of making a second copy of everything.

One thing does not come across, and it is worth knowing why: how much of each component a garment uses. Resourced holds it, but on the bill of material’s underlying structure, and the data the integration is given flattens that layer away. So an imported line arrives complete except for the number.

A line with no consumption figure is recorded as not stated — never as zero. It is left out of the requirement and listed above it instead, because a zero would quietly tell you a coat needs no fabric. Type the number once and it applies to every colourway on the orders you have selected.

A quantity you type in QUOMODA is never overwritten by a later sync. And if the consumption is added to what the integration receives, the next sync fills the blanks in on its own.

How do I track production progress?

Purchase orders move through draft, sent, confirmed, in production, shipped, partially received, and received. Incoming units show up as "on PO" throughout the app, and the Production timeline plots each PO's Ordered → Production → Delivery track.

Can I link POs to customer orders?

Yes. When allocating stock, order lines can be covered by purchase orders — so you can see which customer orders each delivery will fulfil, and receiving the PO settles those allocations automatically.

How do I record what the factory has shipped?

Open the purchase order and press Create inbound — carrier, tracking number, and the quantities that are on their way. The quantities are an article × size grid, split into a block per size system so each one stays dense, and pre-filled with what is still open on the PO. A complete shipment is therefore already filled in.

A packing list rarely matches the order, though, and re-typing one cell at a time is where the mistakes come from. So the grid takes a block: drag or shift-click across the cells you mean and paste — one value fills the whole selection, and a block copied out of the factory’s spreadsheet lands cell for cell. ⌘D copies the top row down, Delete clears a selection to nothing, and ⌘C lifts one back out in a shape Excel understands.

Cells colour themselves against what the PO still has open — amber for more than was ordered, blue for short — and neither is blocked. The factory shipped what it shipped; the figures should say so, and receiving reconciles it later.

Sizes that were never on the purchase order still get a cell, with a 0 ordered hint. An over-delivery or a substitution can be recorded as it arrived rather than forced onto the wrong line.
How do I receive incoming production?

From the purchase order itself, on Production. The header says how many orders are waiting to be booked in, and the status column tells you which — an order is ready to receive once it is shipped or partially received.

  1. 1Open Production and click the purchase order that has landed.
  2. 2If a shipment is still marked in transit but the boxes are at your door, click Mark as arrived.
  3. 3Click Receive this shipment — each line shows what's in the shipment vs. what's still open on the PO.
  4. 4Adjust the quantities per line if the delivery is short (or over), pick the receiving location, and confirm.

Stock, allocations, and order readiness update automatically; anything not received stays open on the PO for the next delivery.

If you have never set up a stock location, receiving makes one called Main stock and puts the units there — you can rename it, add more, or move the stock to a Shopify location afterwards.

Receiving used to live in two other places — a Receive shipments tab in Fulfilment and an Arriving view on Production. Both are gone; it is done from the purchase order, so no two screens can disagree about what arrived. Old links redirect here.
Can I receive a partial delivery?

Yes — edit the quantity on any line before confirming. The balance stays open on the purchase order, and the PO shows as "partially received" until the rest arrives.

What happens to sales-order allocations when I receive a PO?

They carry over automatically. Units that were allocated to a sales order while on the PO become a stock reservation for that exact order line at the receiving location — in the same receive, with nothing to run afterwards. If Shopify is connected, the same units move to Shopify's "reserved" state (on-hand is pushed first, then the reservation), so they can't be sold online. Units received beyond what was allocated land as free stock.