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A Work Order is a document that helps you to put together raw parts and materials to create a finished product.

To create a new Work Order, from the inFlow Menu button, under Inventory, select Work Order.

Entering Header Information

The header of a Work Order contains general information about the order. It has the following fields:

Assembled By - The name of a person responsible for putting together the products in this Work Order.

Location - The location where this Work Order takes place. If a location is specified here, then by default raw materials will only be picked from that location and finished products will be put away into that location. All auto-stock transactions (pick, put-away etc) will default to this location. It is automatically filled in with the user's default location in user preferences.

Other Costs - You can specify the total costs (other than the raw materials) of putting together this Work Order, e.g. total labor costs, by typing in a currency amount. This will be divided up among the finished products when updating the Moving Average Cost.

Order # - A unique number by which you can refer to your Work Orders. This will be automatically filled in the first time you save your order. You can also edit the order number directly or set the pattern of how order numbers will be created under Company Settings. If Order # is set before saving order, no number is generated.

Order Date - The date of this Work Order, usually the date that the Work Order was placed or when the work started.

Completed Date - The date on which the Work Order was completed. It is Auto-filled upon clicking Complete.

Status - A short description of the status of this Work Order: Open, In Progress, Completed or Cancelled.

Entering the Main Work Order Parts

The main order tab of the Work Order allows you to set up the raw materials you’re using up and how they fit together to create finished products. The tree on the left shows graphically how the materials combine and the panel on the right makes it easier to set up the Work Order. Finished Products, intermediate products, and Raw Materials will be shown with different icons on the Work Order tree. The Finished Products are shown at the first level of the tree.

A green light is shown on the Order tab when the order is completed. A yellow light will be shown when there is anything entered there, and a red light if empty.

You can enter in items into your Work Order in a few different ways. Clicking the Add button at the bottom of the tree will add a new item to your Work Order as a raw material of the currently selected product. You can also click the triangle to the right of add and choose “suggest low-stock items” to have inFlow supply suggestions based on the reorder points you’ve set.  To add a finished product, first click on the Finished Products listing.  Drag and drop items in the Work Order tree to rearrange them. To adjust an item to become a finished product, drag it onto the Finished Products node at the top.  You can also use the table in the right panel to set up your Work Order. If you click on Finished Products in the tree on the left, then you can enter all the finished products into the tree at the right. Alternatively, if you have an item selected, the table on the right will allow you to enter all the raw materials that make up that product.

When you have an item selected, boxes for the Item and Quantity will appear in the right panel to let you change them. For items that have their own Bill of Materials set up, you can also click the Reset to standard components link to quickly set up the Work Order so that this product is made up of the parts as set up in its Bill of Materials.  You can use the Remarks box to add in any extra remarks about the order you would like. These remarks will be shown on the printed Work Order document.

If the items you’ve added have a Bill of Materials defined, it will include that into the tree structure. The components will be picked out from inventory where possible or if they are sub-assemblies that aren't in stock, it will hierarchically create them from sub-components. It uses standard UoM by default. Clicking the Remove button will remove the selected line from the Work Order.

You can use the Complete button to complete the Work Order, deduct inventory for the raw materials and add inventory for the finished products. This button will be enabled when both the pick and put-away tabs are either empty or fully filled-in. If they are empty, the Work Order will automatically suggest places to pick stock from and put stock away into. The status of the order will also be set to Completed. Completing will also update the moving average costs of the finished products.

When just the order tab is filled in and the Work Order is saved, you can Cancel Order by closing the window. This sets the status as cancelled. When other tabs are also filled in, cancellation wipes out everything except the order tab. Cancelling will reverse all inventory transactions for that Work Order and clear out the Pick and Put Away information You can Reopen Order by clicking the Reopen button which shows up only after the Order has been cancelled.