Your sales raise builds, and builds raise purchase orders
Mark a product as something you build rather than buy, and the same loop that drafts purchase orders from your sales drafts builds instead. The components those builds will run short of join the buy plan with the build numbers beside them. A customer order can raise a build on its own.
Restock by building
Stockroom already suggests what to reorder from your sales and your reorder points. Tell it which products you make, and the suggestion becomes a build.
- Buying or building, per variant. Once a product has a bill of materials, its replenishment row offers Restock by building. It is a stock setting like a reorder point, and it rides the stock-settings CSV as restock_by.
- A To build group on the Reorder page. Items you build gather under their own heading, since there is no supplier to order from, with a Create builds button that drafts one build per checked line and takes you to it.
- Build instead. A buildable item you still buy shows Build instead on its supplier row, which hands the quantity and location to a new build with the recipe preselected. The Products list gets the same one-click Build action.
- Readiness on the list, before you commit. Components: Available, Partial or Missing on the Reorder row and under the title on the Products list. It tells you whether the reviewed quantity could be built at that location now, after open builds have claimed their parts.
- An open build covers the suggestion. Raise a build and the row shrinks or disappears on the next read, the same as a draft purchase order would.
- Open, blocked, overdue on Home. Once you have any build, Home shows the open count, how many are blocked and how many are overdue, with a jump straight to the late ones.
An order can raise a build
When a customer buys something you make, the build can start without anyone copying quantities across. One way is automatic, the other is a click.
- The out-of-stock rule raises a draft build. If an order line is short and the variant is restocked by building, the same automation that drafts a purchase order drafts a build instead: at the order's location, one build per recipe, with the order's lines summed and a note reading "Raised from order #1001". A line with no active recipe is bought as before.
- Create build from the Shopify order page. A Create build entry in the order's More actions menu lists the order's lines that have a bill of materials, with readiness, quantity, location and due date. Each becomes a draft build linked to the order, and builds already raised from it show first.
- The order stays on the build. "From order #1042" in the build header, an Order column on the list that links back, and the order name in every Flow payload.
- Shopify Flow, both directions. Build created, finished, blocked, overdue, stage changed and assigned fire as triggers with the product, quantities, location and due date on the payload. A Create build action lets Flow raise one from any trigger you like.
The parts your builds will run short of, in the buy plan
A build needs its components on hand, so the buy plan has to know what open builds need, even for materials that never sell.
- Needed for builds, as a buy-plan line. A component that open builds will run short of - after what is available, incoming and already drafted - joins its supplier's group as a line reading "Needed for builds: 2,400 g" with the build numbers, even if it has no reorder point and no sales history.
- Order the shortfall from the build. On the build itself, Order shortfall drafts one purchase order per supplier for the short quantities, with pack sizes and minimums applied, and notes the PO numbers on the build's activity.
- Incoming, with the PO beside it. The components table shows what Shopify expects incoming, which of your open purchase orders carry the part to that location, and when.
- Materials count as stock everywhere. Raw materials sit in the buy plan, the shortfall projection, the alerts and the stock reports like any product. They never sell, so they stay out of the sales reports.
- Blocked when it matters. Mark a build blocked while a part is on order, filter the queue to blocked builds, and get a Build blocked trigger in Flow. Unblocking returns the build to whatever its records say.
- Told when automation had to buy instead. If the out-of-stock rule wanted to build but had to buy, because the product is gone, it is a Shopify bundle or the location is unknown, the Attention feed tells you.
What planning does not do yet
Stockroom plans from today's shortfall. It does not run MRP over a planning horizon.
- No planning horizon, no multi-level explosion. Stockroom raises the build the current shortfall calls for and adds that build's component needs to the buy plan. It does not run demand through every level of every recipe over a forward horizon. A nested sub-assembly is consumed from stock and does not automatically raise its own build. You raise that one, or the shortfall does.
- Auto-raised builds are always drafts. A build the out-of-stock rule or the order page raises waits for you to start it. The "created as ordered" choice is a purchase-order setting and does not apply to builds.
- Materials with no build and no sales still want a reorder point. The buy plan knows what open builds need. A material nothing is currently building, and that never sells, is suggested only once it has a reorder point like any other item.
Common questions
We make some things and buy the same things from a supplier when we are busy. Which is it?
Per variant, and changeable any time. Restock by building puts it in the To build group; restock by buying keeps it under its supplier with a Build instead link on the row. A product can switch between the two as your capacity changes.
Will the automation start building without asking me?
No. Auto-raised builds are drafts. The automation decides that a build is needed and how big, and you decide when it starts. Issuing components or recording a run is always done by a person.
How does this relate to reorder points and forecasting?
It is the same engine: reorder points from your sales, a buy plan grouped by supplier and one-click draft documents. The difference is that an item you build becomes a draft build instead of a draft purchase order, and its components go into the buy plan as lines of their own.
What does it cost?
Nothing. Manufacturing is in early access and it is free, like the rest of Stockroom, with no trials and no credit card at install. Early access means we are still building it out and want to hear what your floor needs next.
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