Whenever a product is made up of other products that you hold in stock, it is said to have a Bill of Materials or BOM. This is a list of the other products or components that are needed to make up the product or product assembly.

For example, a toolkit is a product assembly which consists of the following components – a tool box, a spanner set and a screwdriver

Toolkit (Product Assembly)
Tool box (Component) Spanner
Spanner Set (Component)
Screwdriver (Component)

In this toolkit example, the spanner set could itself consist of two different spanners. It would be called a sub-assembly of the main assembly.

Toolkit (Product Assembly)
Spanner Set (Sub-Assembly)
Spanner A (Component)
Spanner B (Component)
Screwdriver (Component)

In SAM each product assembly, sub-assembly and component should be set up as a separate product record.

Before creating a Bill of Materials you should:
• Create the individual component product records.
• Plan the bill of materials on paper first, working from the lowest level of the assembly.

To set up a bill of materials for a product, click on the products tab to open the Bill of Materials window, the bill of materials information appears.

You can use the Trial Build facility to check if you have enough stock to make up the required bill of materials items. If you have enough stock, you can use the Build Part to allocate all the sub-assemblies to the build.
Notes
The Notes tab enables you to enter a long description for the product, you can also add additional notes about each of your suppliers for this product. To enter new notes just start typing then hit the save button.