Use Assemblies to fulfill your recipes or bill of materials and ensure the proper quantities are deducted and credited. Assemblies take a group of products and turn them into a different final product.
The components/ingredients/materials you start off with are your input products. The final product will be your output and is usually the end sellable product for your customer. Instead of deducting and crediting quantities at the time of sale like a bundle, the products are deducted and credited when you choose.
Assemblies are also used to break down a case or pallet into smaller, sellable units. Keep reading for more use-case examples of how Assemblies can be used for your business!
Assemblies are only available for users on current Professional plans and above. Learn more about upgrading your plan here.
Creating an Assembly
Assemblies are only available on the enhanced navigation by clicking Inventory > Assemblies.
From there, you'll land on the Templates page. Templates are where you'll input your recipe or bill of materials. The Run section (in the upper-right corner) is where you'll fulfill the recipe and deduct quantities from inputs while adding to the output, but more about that later.
Before you move onto the templates page, make sure you already have all your inputs and your final output product created on your Inventory page. If you don't have your inputs already in Thrive, here's a quick guide on bringing those products over!
Templates
The Templates page is where you'll enter your 'recipe' or 'bill of materials.' Click the "Create Assembly Template" button and start adding your information, including:
Template name
Template description
Tags (for easier searching)
Output expiration (this is optional and can be enabled on the Assemblies Setting page)
Notes
Next, you can enter your inputs and output (or final product). Remember, you'll want both the input and output products to already exist on your Products page before starting this process.
Your inputs work a lot like Bundles. These products will be consumed in the process. Another way to think about it is that these are the products that will go into the final product (or output).
The output (final product) is what we want those inputs to be used to create. As we've seen in the examples below, whether it's a muffin, skateboard, or 24-pack, we've got you covered on correctly crediting those products.
NOTE: If you are looking to create more than one output, be sure to check out this article.
The Assembly cost will be added to the unit lot cost of inputs consumed in the Assembly. This is very straightforward for most Assemblies (like a standard recipe or bill of materials). If you are case-breaking though, you will want to divide the Assembly cost by the number of outcomes and use that as your Assembly cost. This is because the Assembly cost will be applied to each output unit.
When inputs are deducted (on the Run page) cost is pulled according to the inventory behavior indicated on your Inventory Settings (on the Company Info page). The default behavior will be the pull by "first in, first out."
For example, if the total lot cost of the inputs is $4.79 and you have an assembly cost of $1, the total lot cost for the product would be $5.79.
Once you're done, hit "Save." When the load bar completes, you can hit the "Back" button and move on to the next section.
Assembly Runs
The Assembly Run or "product runs" tab is where you'll carry out the previously created template (recipe or bill of materials). This is where quantities will be deducted from inputs and turned into an output.
Click the "Start Assembly" button to get started.
You'll have the option to fill in some optional fields including:
Run Name
Batch Number
Run by
PO Number
Notes
Then add a template to the run. The "Number of runs" field tells our Thrive Inventory how many times you want the template to be run. For example, maybe you made 10 pans of muffins for a catering event, so you'd want to "run" that template 10 times.
PRO TIP: Click the "Add Template" button to add multiple templates to a Run. Just be sure you want the Origin and Destination Locations to be the same for each template, otherwise, you should split those up into separate Runs.
The Starting inventory location is where the inputs pull from. The Ending inventory location is where the output will be credited with those quantities.
The optional Fees section will not be applied to the total cost, but instead, serve as a 'transfer fee' for the Run.
When you're ready, hit the "Run" button in the top right corner of the page.
On the next page, we'll double-check and make sure everything looks right.
If you do not have a product enabled for a location, you will need to enable it for the correct location before continuing.
If you do not have sufficient quantities to complete the run, you will see a pop-up to confirm the action. Once a quantity goes below zero and the current lot is depleted, we will use the Default Cost associated with the input product to calculate the output cost.
NOTE: Additional information about the two different types of costs in Thrive can be found here.
Click "Continue run" when everything looks correct.
You'll see a green progress bar in the top right corner as the Run completes. Once it is done, the progress bar will disappear and your quantities will be updated.
Use Case Examples
Assemblies are used in many different ways. In the upcoming examples, we'll dig deeper into common examples and highlight the main takeaways.
Recipes
Cafe/Bakery
We make our own Blueberry Muffins in-house. Measuring out ingredients, mixing, baking, and allowing them to cool is a time-consuming process. We're not going to wait for a customer to order a muffin before we start making them, so we aren't going to wait on making the appropriate ingredient deductions either!
Instead, we measure, mix, and bake the muffins ahead of time. We create a recipe/template (to be used now and saved for later) and pick how many times we want to execute the recipe (i.e. how many muffins we want on hand for the day).
To learn more about this specific user case, click the link below:
Bill of Materials
Manufacturing
We're a skateboard retail shop and while skateboard tricks can be complex, the assembly of a skateboard is pretty simple.
There's a good chance you're not selling skateboards, but imagine you are selling a product that consists of other products (materials) in your inventory. We take those individual components/materials and combine them together for a complete sellable product for our customers.
I control how many outcomes (complete skateboards) will be added to my inventory. By correctly setting up my template, Thrive Inventory ensures that all the correct quantities are deducted from inventory, while we're putting together the skateboards.
To learn more about this specific user case, click the link below:
Case-breaking
Liquor Store
We order cases of beer from our vendor, who exclusively ships them to us on large pallets. Each pallet contains 78 cases (24-packs) of beer. We are not going to turn around and sell that pallet to a customer, but instead, we break it down into smaller sellable units.
Today, we received 2 pallets from our distributor. To turn the pallets into sellable cases, we use Assemblies. The pallets are the components and the outcome is the 156 24-packs that come from them.
To learn more about this specific user case, click the link below:
Wholesale Production
Coffee Roaster
We are a coffee roaster that takes large bags of green coffee beans and roasts them (in-house) into a consumable product. From there, we use the beans for coffee and espresso drinks in our shop, 1 lb bags to sell in our retail location, and 5 lb bags to sell to our wholesale accounts.
We have used Assemblies to accurately convert our green coffee beans into usable coffee beans. From there, we use additional templates to convert them for the retail location and wholesale.
To learn more about this specific user case, click the link below:
Inventory History
For a closer look at those additions (to the output) or deductions (from inputs), take a closer look at the Inventory History for that specific product.
When an Assembly is run, the products will show "Deducted as Assembly component." The outcome will show "Added as assembly outcome."
Settings
Access Assembly-specific settings by clicking Settings > Assemblies as shown here:
Here you'll be able to add the option for an expiration date on your templates. The number of days you indicate on the template will override any default expiration date you have previously set on the product. The expiration date applies exclusively to the lots generated from the Assembly.
You'll also be able to reverse or undo Assembly Runs. To read more about this process, click here:
Assemblies & Bundles
Bundles deduct products at the time of sale. Assemblies deduct products (inputs) when you choose. You are in control and can run Assemblies at your leisure. This is especially helpful for products (outputs) that you will not want to be broken back down into their components (inputs).
For example, once you use the ingredients to make a muffin, there's no turning back and turning the muffins back into flour, sugar, etc.
Things to Note:
You cannot add Bundles to Assemblies (as an input or output), but you can draw from an outcome for a Bundle.
The Assembly cost field will be added to the lot cost of products consumed in the Assembly.
To access Assemblies, you'll need the Assemblies permission enabled for your account. This can be done by someone with the "Manage users & permissions" enabled or the Account Owner. More information on permission can be found here.