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Production

The module about turning some goods into others. Stock can receive, issue and move what already exists; purchasing can get hold of it. Production is the only place where an item nobody delivered appears in stock: plywood, bolts and two hours of work become "Product 1" with a cost of its own.

Hence the border with the neighbours: a finished product that is bought arrives as a goods receipt; one that is assembled in-house is production — and the difference is not paperwork but where the cost comes from. Here it does not arrive with the supplier, it is assembled line by line from the recipe.

Video walkthrough: Production in ERPJS step by step — from technological map to finished goods.

The route: from recipe to finished goods

Recipe (for 1 unit)
        ↓
Production order (the plan: how many and when)
        ↓
Production (the fact) ── "Started": no stages — materials issued, Dr 231 / Cr 281
        ↓                           with stages — operations cut out, they issue
Production operations (the shop closes them stage by stage)
        ↓
        "Finished" → finished goods in stock, Dr 281 / Cr 231
  1. Recipes — the technological map: how much material and how many hours of work one unit takes. Work sits in the recipe next to materials — those are items of the "Work/Service" type with an hourly price.
  2. Production orders — the plan. It expands the map to the required quantity and shows what it will cost. It touches neither stock nor the books.
  3. Production — the fact. Without stages, at the "Started" status it issues materials to the shop, at "Finished" it takes the finished goods into stock; with stages, the operations move the stock.
  4. Production operations — the stages. The system creates them itself, one per "Stage + Queue" pair in the production's rows, and the shop closes them separately: cutting, joinery, packing.
  5. Reports look at all this from different angles: the journals show what has been made, the deficit reports what is missing, capabilities what can be made from what is on hand, and plan vs actual what a product cost against the map's norm.

What is worth understanding

Stages in the recipe switch operations on. If the lines of the recipe carry a Stage and a Queue, production cuts operations out when it starts, and you can no longer close it by hand: it finishes itself once the shop closes the last operation. No stages means no operations, and "Finished" is set manually. Machines do not change the mode: the machine is only carried into the operation — its description and the "Used Machine" and "Machine Group" fields; it is set either on every row or on none. Two columns in the recipe, two different modes for the whole module.

The cost is assembled twice. First the value of materials moves from stock to the production cost account (231), then from cost back to stock, but now as finished goods. Materials are taken at FIFO, as in any issue; work is valued at the price from the map. Where stages exist, it is not production but each operation that reaches the books — so the cost accumulates in portions:

Dr Cr What it is
231 281 material issued to the shop
231 911 work (the hours from the map)
281 231 finished goods returned to stock

One order, several productions. Five units ordered, one made first and four later: that is two production documents with the same order number. The order's status moves along on its own.

A shortage does not stop planning. The order will be created even when there are no materials — it is a plan, after all. Deficit reports show what is missing; you will only hit the wall when posting the production itself.

Machine groups answer "where", not "on which machine". A group is a kind of work (cutting) and may hold one machine or three identical ones; the individual piece of equipment is a machine.

Where to start in a new database

  1. Items — both materials and the work itself: cutting, joinery, packing with an hourly price (see Raw materials: from a card to a finished product).
  2. Machines and machine groups — if operations should show which machine or work area does the job. The system does not calculate equipment load, and stages do not need machines.
  3. Recipes — one per product; the longest step and the foundation of everything else.
  4. The production cost account in Account Usage, the "Stock" tab — so the postings know where to put the value.
  5. The first order — and production against it.

Common tasks

You need Where to go
describe a new product Recipes
plan an output Production orders
make the goods Production
break a product back into components Production — disassembly, the reverse move
give the shop work in portions Production operations
see what was made in a period Productions journal · Production statistics
compare a product's cost with the map's norm, find the deviation Production plan vs actual
review the plans Production orders list
find out what is missing Deficit in production · deficit in production orders
order the shortage from vendors Purchase Orders from Deficit
plan production for a customer's order Sales Orders — "Create Production Orders"
answer "how many can we make right now" Production capabilities

Everything in the module

Documents: production orders · production · production operations

References: recipes · items · machines · machine groups

Reports: productions journal · production orders list · deficit in production · deficit in production orders · production statistics · production capabilities · production plan vs actual

Maintenance: purchase orders from deficit · Xlsx Import · Xlsx Export

Where to look next

  • Stock — the balances materials come from and finished goods go to.
  • Nominal Ledger — account 231 and the cost of output.
  • Sales orders — the demand production is planned for.