Assemblies, kits & services

Not everything you track is a simple product on a shelf. Assemblies, kits, and services are special item types for things you build, bundle, or sell as labor. This page explains what makes each one different and how they fit into your day-to-day work. For a quick side-by-side, see Understanding item types.

Before you begin

• Assemblies, kits, and services are available on the Complete edition of Wasp Inventory. If you don’t see these types when creating an item, they aren’t part of your current plan.
• Create the component items first. An assembly or kit draws on other items, so those parts need to exist before you can add them to a bill of materials.

Assemblies

An assembly is a finished product you make from other items. Each assembly has a bill of materials: a recipe listing the component items and how many of each go into one finished unit. You set this up on the assembly’s Bill of Materials tab (see Item details & tabs).

Because an assembly is real, countable stock, you produce it with a Build Order or AutoBuild. Building consumes the components’ stock and adds finished assemblies to your on-hand quantity. If you need to reverse that, you can take an assembly apart again. See Building & disassembling products for the full process.

Tip

Use an assembly when you want to stock the finished product ahead of demand and always know how many you have ready to go.

Create an assembly

1. Create the component items first. Every part that goes into the assembly must already exist as an item before you can add it to the bill of materials. See Adding a new item.
2. In the left navigation, open Item → New Assembly.
3. On the General tab, fill in the assembly’s Item Number, Description, and the other details, just as you would for any new item.
4. Open the Bill of Materials tab. For each component, choose the item, enter the Quantity that goes into one finished unit, and click Add. Repeat until every component is listed. An assembly can’t be saved without at least one component.
5. Open the Locations tab. Choose the location where finished units are normally kept, check Primary Location, and click Add Location. You can set minimum and maximum quantities here too. See Set a primary location.
6. Click Save.

Your assembly is ready to build with Build Orders or AutoBuild. If you plan to use AutoBuild, also give each component a Primary Location; see Set up an assembly for AutoBuild.

Kits

A kit is a bundle of items sold together: think of a starter pack made up of several products. Unlike an assembly, a kit isn’t built and stored in advance. Instead, it’s gathered at the moment it’s picked or sold, drawing from the stock of the items inside it.

Like an assembly, a kit lists what goes into it on its Bill of Materials tab (see Item details & tabs). The difference is when that list is used: a kit’s components come out of stock at pick or sale, rather than being consumed ahead of time by a Build Order.

That means you don’t count kits as their own on-hand stock; what matters is having enough of the components on hand to gather the kit when it’s needed.

Services

A service is something non-physical you offer: labor, installation, a support plan, or similar. Because there’s nothing to put on a shelf, services aren’t counted as stock. They’re useful for listing and pricing work alongside the physical goods on an order.

Note

Services, along with assemblies and kits, are available on the Complete edition of Wasp Inventory. If you don’t see this type when creating an item, it may not be part of your current plan.

Common questions

• Why doesn’t my kit have an on-hand count? Kits aren’t stocked; they’re gathered at the point of sale or pick. What matters is having enough of the component items on hand. The item’s detail page shows a Total Shippable figure for a kit based on its components.
• What is the “scrap on disassembly” option on a bill of materials? For assemblies, marking a component as scrap means that when you disassemble a finished unit, that component is not returned to stock (it’s treated as consumed). Leave it off for parts you recover.
• How many can I build? An assembly’s detail page shows a Buildable figure: the most you could build from the components currently on hand.

Related

• Building & disassembling products — produce assemblies with Build Orders and take them apart with Disassemble.
• Adding a new item — create an assembly, kit, or service.
• Understanding item types — how these types compare to ordinary stock.
• Item details & tabs — set up the Bill of Materials tab.