Planning, make from sales order, and make to order
Planning works out what to make and buy, and when, from open sales orders, open manufacturing orders and reorder points. Make from sales order lists sold lines not yet in production; Make to order on the line starts the order.
Where it is
- Manufacturing → Planning
- Manufacturing → Make from sales order — In the Manufacturing menu under Production, or from the Overview or Orders page.
- Sales → Orders → All orders — Make to order is on the sales order.
Settings for this
- Inventory → Products — Reorder points and preferred suppliers drive the plan.
- Settings → Team → Roles — Raising POs from the plan needs purchasing access.
Planning
- Open Manufacturing → Planning.
- Choose how far to Look ahead, and tick Keep stock at reorder points to top made items and their parts up to each product's reorder point.
- Press Run planning (Run again later). It works level by level down every BOM.
- Tiles: To make, To buy, Late to start and Products checked. Filter Make, Buy, Late or Created.
- Each line says what it's for (Why), the Need by and Start by dates.
- Tick the ones you agree with and press Create orders. It drafts the manufacturing orders and the POs. Dismiss hides lines until the next run.
Items with No supplier can't be bought from the plan: set a supplier on the product and run again.
Make from a sales order
Manufacturing → Make from sales order lists sold lines for products you build that aren't in production yet. Search by SO number, product or customer, open the sales order and use Make to order on the line.
Make to order
On a sales order (or a quote), the Make to order card lists the part lines you could build.
- For a line with no product it creates a one-off product and a draft BOM.
- When the product's BOM has options, the options the customer bought on this document are ticked for you to confirm (Keep as ticked or change them, then Save and open the order).
- The order drafts linked to the line. On a quote it links to the sales order when the quote converts. The finished item is allocated to its line when built, and invoiced with the order as usual.
- A line already built into an order shows Built into MO-… instead.
Check the drafted order and release it (Manufacturing orders).
If something's not right
- "A BOM uses itself somewhere down its tree": planning stopped there. Check the BOMs for a loop.
- "You need purchasing access to raise POs": someone with purchasing access must create the buy lines.
- Make to order isn't on the sales order: the business needs the Manufacturing add-on.