Manufacturing and procurement (POs, costing, production)

First: these menus are hidden by default

Purchase orders (Procurement) and Cost management, Production management, and Plan vs. actual (Manufacturing) are conditional core features. They are meant to be turned on only by spaces in the industries that use them — such as manufacturers with a factory — so they are hidden by default.

If you cannot find these menus, check this first. Choose your industry in account settings and they appear in the sidebar. This is also noted on the Features page. Everything below assumes the four menus are visible.

Menus and tabs

Menu	Tab	What it does
Purchase orders	Orders	List, register, edit, and receive purchase orders
Cost management	Items	List and add items (standard cost is rolled up from the BOM)
Cost management	Routing	Routings, operations, work centers, and standard cost from them
Cost management	Actual costing	List and create cost objects, and close the month
Cost management	Allocation	Overhead allocation rules and running an allocation
Cost management	Manufacturing cost report	Pick a period and review cost of goods manufactured
Production	Production plan	Edit the master production schedule (MPS) by product × week
Production	Material requirements	MRP planned orders, capacity load (CRP), and planned orders
Production	Schedule	Load levelling and dispatching constrained by work centers
Production	Orders	List, create, edit, and delete production orders
Production	Progress & actuals	Review progress and record completed quantity and status
Plan vs. actual	Cost variance	Standard versus actual variance (read-only)
Plan vs. actual	Profitability	Standard, actual, and unit cost by product (read-only)

Every menu also has a Guide tab that explains the terms and the flow inside the screen. You can hide it from tab settings.

The overall flow

Manufacturing and procurement connect as a single line, in this order.

1. Register items and the bill of materials (BOM) — what you make, and what it is made of
2. Register routings — which operations, and how many minutes each takes
3. Build the production plan (MPS) — when, what, and how much to make
4. Run material requirements (MRP) — net requirements after stock, and when to arrange them
5. Issue purchase orders and production orders — BUY items become purchase orders, MAKE items become production orders
6. Enter actuals — receipts, completed quantity, actual labor hours
7. Close and allocate actual cost — finalize completed cost and ending WIP
8. Read the cost of manufacturing report for cost of goods manufactured
9. Review cost variance — break down the gap from standard by cost element

You can open a later step while an earlier one is still empty, but it will simply show nothing if there is no data behind it.

Items and the bill of materials (BOM)

The Items tab of Cost management is the starting point. "Add item" registers the code, name, kind (raw material / part / semi-finished goods / finished goods / purchased goods), unit, and the standard cost breakdown (material, labor, overhead). Ticking "Has composition" makes the item a BOM parent. The standard cost in the list is the value rolled up by recursively expanding the BOM, not simply the amount you typed on the item. The search box matches the item name and code, and you can filter by kind.

Clicking an item name opens its detail page, which has four tabs.

Tab	What it does
Basic info	Edit the code, name, kind, unit, and the standard cost breakdown
Standard cost	Material, labor, overhead, and total expanded from the BOM (read-only)
Composition	Add, edit, and delete the direct child items
Where used	Reverse lookup of parents that use this item (read-only)

"Add child item" on the Composition tab takes the child item, quantity per unit, and scrap rate (%). Quantity per unit is how much of the child one unit of the product needs; scrap rate is the share of input that becomes scrap, and the required quantity is increased to cover it. The list shows each child's standard unit cost and its contribution. Only the one level directly below is shown, so to walk a multi-level structure, click a child name to move to that item's Composition tab. If the composition contains a circular reference, it is reported.

Routings and work centers

A routing describes "how this item is made" and is the source of standard labor cost and standard overhead cost. On the Routing tab of Cost management, the left side lists routings and the right side lists that routing's operations.

1. "Add routing" registers the routing code, routing name, and output item (the output item cannot be changed after creation)
2. Select a routing on the left, then "Add operation" registers the sequence number, operation name, work center, run time (min/unit), labor rate (JPY/hr), and overhead rate (JPY/hr)

Work centers are registered from "Work centers" (code, name, labor rate, overhead rate, capacity in min/day). If you leave an operation's labor or overhead rate blank, it inherits the work center's default and the list marks it "Inherited". Once operations exist, "Standard cost from routing" shows the standard labor and overhead cost (accumulated per unit from run time × rate; setup time is excluded from unit cost). "Reflect to item standard cost" updates the item's standard labor and overhead cost (material cost is left unchanged).

Production plan (MPS)

The Production plan tab of Production management is a directly editable grid of product × week. Type a quantity into a cell and it saves when you leave the field.

Each cell also carries a recommended value forecast from past shipment history; click it to adopt that value. "Adopt all recommendations" applies them across the whole grid at once. Only items whose kind is "finished goods" are planned here, so if the grid is empty, register your products on the Items tab of Cost management first.

Material requirements (MRP)

The Material requirements tab explodes the production plan through the BOM and nets it against lead time, stock, and already-firm orders to produce weekly planned orders. Each item is marked as make (MAKE) or buy (BUY).

1. Press "Firm" beneath a planned quantity to turn it into a planned order
2. Press "Release" in the planned order list to convert it — a production order for make items, a purchase order for buy items

The same tab shows a capacity load (CRP) table with utilization by work center × week. Overloaded weeks are shown in red. This is an infinite-capacity estimate and is not levelled automatically; levelling happens on the Schedule tab.

Placing and receiving purchase orders

"New purchase order" in the Purchase orders menu opens the form. You enter the supplier, item, order quantity, unit price, order date, expected delivery date, and notes.

• The supplier can either be picked from your partners or typed straight into "Supplier name (manual)"
• Only items whose procurement type is purchase can be selected. Picking an item fills the unit price with its standard unit cost (only while the field is empty)
• Order numbers are assigned automatically in the form PO-0001
• Purchase orders released from MRP appear here too. They are created with no supplier, so edit them afterwards to fill it in

The list columns are order number, supplier, item, quantity, received, open qty, unit price, due date, and status. The three statuses are "Open", "Received", and "Cancelled". The search box matches the order number, supplier name, item name, and item code, and you can also filter by status. Select rows to delete them through bulk actions.

When goods arrive, choose "Receive" from the ⋮ menu of a row whose status is "Open", then enter the receipt quantity (the open quantity is prefilled) and the receipt date.

• One inventory movement (receipt) is created and inventory increases
• The open quantity drops accordingly, and the status becomes "Received" once everything has arrived
• Posting that inventory movement records accounts payable. Clearing the payment happens on the accounting side

Schedule

The Schedule tab expands firm production orders through their routings and levels the load against work center capacity to build a feasible schedule. You switch between "Weekly (load levelling)" and "Daily (dispatching)".

Choosing the planning weeks, dispatch rule (EDD / SPT / FIFO), and direction (FORWARD / BACKWARD) recalculates on the spot. The result shows whether the plan is feasible or short on capacity, how many orders are late, utilization by work center × week, and the allocation of each operation.

In weekly mode you can write the planner's intent in plain words and press "Adjust with AI" to get an allocation proposal. The proposal is verified, and any capacity or precedence violations are repaired before it is shown. "Revert to deterministic" takes you back at any time. Schedules kept with "Save" stack up in a list, and one of them can be made active. The active schedule is the plan side of "plan vs actual" on the Progress & actuals tab.

Production orders and actuals

The Orders tab lets you create, edit, and delete production orders carrying an order number, name, output item, planned quantity, completed quantity, period, and status. The statuses are "In progress", "Completed", and "Closed".

The Progress & actuals tab is about recording. "Record actuals" in a row's ⋮ menu updates the completed quantity and status, and "Mark as completed" changes only the status (you can select several rows and do it in bulk). Progress is shown as a bar of completed ÷ planned quantity. When an active schedule exists, a plan-versus-actual comparison appears at the top.

A production order also has a detail page, where you can do the following.

• Requirements: expands the planned quantity through the multi-level BOM and shows net requirements after subtracting available stock (stock minus other orders' reservations). Each row lets you reserve stock for this order
• Components: shows the direct composition of the output item (quantity per unit, scrap rate) for reference. Composition is edited on the Items tab of Cost management
• Record production: entering the completed quantity (and optionally actual labor hours and actual labor cost) issues materials from stock at the BOM's standard consumption, records the actual cost, and receives the finished goods. If you enter actual hours, labor is broken down into rate and efficiency variance in Plan vs. actual

Aggregating and closing actual cost

The Actual costing tab of Cost management lists cost objects (the containers costs are collected into). "Create cost object" registers the code, name, period, output item, previous process, process sequence, and costing method (weighted average / FIFO). The statuses are "Aggregating", "Completed", and "Closed". Clicking a name opens the working screen, where the left side accumulates cost details (cost type, occurred date, amount). The four cost types are material, labor, expense, and manufacturing overhead.

The right side is the month-end close. Material and conversion costs are aggregated from the details automatically, so there are only three things to enter.

Field	What it means
Completed quantity	The quantity finished in that period
Ending WIP quantity	Unfinished goods left at period end
Conversion progress	How far along the WIP is in processing (0 to 1)

As you type, a preview before finalizing calculates the completed goods cost, completed unit cost, and ending WIP cost on the spot. Check the numbers, then press "Finalize month-end closing". If you need to correct it afterwards, "Reverse closing & recalculate" takes you back.

If the previous period for the same output item is already closed, beginning WIP is carried forward automatically, and if you set a previous process, its completed cost is added to the current month's input as transferred-in cost.

Allocation

The Allocation tab is where you build rules that spread an overhead pool across cost objects. Each rule has a name, a pool label, an allocation basis (direct labor hours / machine hours / quantity / amount), and an active flag. Pressing "Allocate" on a row opens the run dialog, where you enter the target period (YYYY-MM) and, if needed, the pool amount. Leaving the pool amount blank reallocates the existing overhead. After running, you can review the driver quantity, share, and allocated amount for each cost object.

Cost of manufacturing report

Choosing a period on the Manufacturing cost report tab shows the aggregation for that period.

Row	What it is
I. Material cost	This period's cost details aggregated by cost type
II. Labor cost	Same
III. Expenses	Same (subcontract cost is broken out when present)
Total manufacturing cost	The sum of the three above
Beginning / ending WIP inventory	Recorded only for closed cost objects
Cost of goods manufactured	The figure that flows into cost of sales in accounting

If there are no cost objects in the period, the report is empty. Create a cost object on the Actual costing tab and accumulate cost details first.

Reviewing cost variance

Plan vs. actual is a read-only menu. There is no create, edit, or delete anywhere in it. It holds no data of its own and simply aggregates, by period, what Cost management and Production management have produced — so it opens safely even if one of them is not set up yet (it just shows nothing).

The Cost variance tab lists, for the chosen period, the material, labor, and overhead variance and the total variance for each cost object. Variance = actual − standard, where + is an unfavorable variance (over standard) and △ is a favorable one (within standard). Standard is the item's standard cost rolled up through the BOM and routing; actual is the aggregation of cost details.

Clicking a row opens a breakdown dialog that splits material cost per item into price variance = (actual unit cost − standard unit cost) × actual quantity and quantity variance = (actual quantity − standard quantity) × standard unit cost. If you entered actual hours when recording production, labor is also split into rate variance and efficiency variance; if you did not, only the total variance is shown.

The Profitability tab compares completed quantity, standard cost, actual cost, variance, standard unit cost, and actual unit cost by product (output item).

Where accounting and inventory take over

• Accounting: finalized manufacturing cost flows into cost of sales on the income statement. The period-end transfers for WIP, finished goods, and raw materials are handled in year-end closing. For the bookkeeping side, see the Accounting (Journal & Ledger) Guide
• Inventory: the item master is shared with the Inventory menu. Stock quantities moved by receipts and issues, physical stocktakes, and valuation settings are covered in Assets (fixed assets, inventory, depreciable asset tax)
• Accounts payable: clearing the payables posted by a receipt is handled by accounting