It is a recipe, scaled up.
You say how many portions you want. It looks in the cupboard, counts what is already on the shopping list, and tells you exactly what is missing. Nothing is ordered and nothing is built until you say so.
This page covers:
What the planner asks you for
Three inputs, then it calculates.
- Target SKU — the finished product you want to end up with. The search only offers products that are built from other products, because a plan needs a parts list to explode. A product with no parts list gets a warning instead of a plan.
- Target Qty — how many finished units you want to have, not how many more you need. It defaults to 50.
- On-Hand Location — whose stock counts. Only warehouses and retail counters can be chosen, since those are the places that actually hold parts.
Click Calculate. Picking a product or changing the location recalculates on its own, so you can compare two locations in a couple of clicks.
The plan is held in the page address. A reload rebuilds it, a shared link opens the same plan for somebody else, and Print produces a paper copy for a workshop bench.
The summary strip
Six numbers across the top, describing the finished product only.
| Number | Reads as |
|---|---|
| Target | What you asked for |
| On Hand | Finished units already built and sitting at that location |
| Need to Build | Target minus On Hand — the real shortfall |
| Assembleable Now | How many more you could build today from parts in stock |
| POs Needed | How many separate products have to be bought, across how many suppliers |
| Est. Cost | Rough spend in MYR to cover every shortfall |
Read the third and fourth together. "Need to Build 120, Assembleable Now 45" means you can start on 45 this afternoon and the other 75 are waiting on parts.
A red Bottleneck pill appears when a part is at zero stock. That is the item holding up the whole plan, and it is usually the only line worth acting on first.
The component table
One row per part, nested — a sub-assembly opens to reveal its own parts.
- Qty — how many of this part the whole plan needs.
- Supplier — the linked supplier with the lowest price. A dash means no supplier is linked yet.
- On Hand — units at the chosen location.
- Assemble — for a part that is itself built, how many could be built now.
- Incoming — units already on the way, from purchase orders at that same location that are Authorised, Incoming or Partial.
- Short — what is left after On Hand and Assemble are used up. This is the number that drives the suggested action.
- Est. Cost — Short multiplied by the product's average unit cost. A dash means the product has never been costed.
Three rules explain most surprises in this table.
- Parts are sized for the whole target, not the shortfall. If you ask for 200 and already hold 80, the plan still checks you could build a full 200's worth of parts. That is deliberate: it stops a second run failing for want of a component you quietly spent.
- Waste is included. If a parts list allows for offcuts, the planner orders for the offcuts too.
- Incoming is location-specific. Stock on order to a different location does not count towards this plan, because it will not be on this bench.
A part at zero stock is flagged ZERO STOCK on its own row, as well as in the bottleneck pill above.
Turning the plan into orders
Two panels sit under the table, and both create drafts only.
Assembly Orders lists what to build, sub-assemblies first. Create AO makes one draft build order with its parts already worked out. Create All does the lot. A row marked optional can already be covered from stock you hold, so building it is a choice rather than a blocker.
Purchase Orders lists what to buy, grouped by supplier, because one supplier should get one order. Create PO raises a draft for that supplier with the quantities and their agreed prices filled in. A group headed No Supplier carries an action needed pill and cannot be raised — link a supplier on those products first. While any group is missing a supplier, Create All stays disabled rather than half-doing the job.
Nothing here touches your stock figures. Every record lands as a draft, prices are re-read from the supplier's price list on the server rather than trusted from the screen, and the goods only become real when a delivery is received against the authorised order.
If the numbers look wrong
Check the location first. The planner reports one location at a time, so a part that looks short is often sitting on a shelf somewhere else. Then check the parts list: a missing component makes the plan optimistic, and a wrong quantity per unit scales that error by the whole target.
Explore
Raising the order the plan suggests. A draft still has to be authorised before a delivery can be booked against it. Learn more →
Where the parts list comes from. The plan is only as good as the bill of materials it explodes. Learn more →
Built, buildable, available. Why a built product needs three numbers rather than one. Learn more →