Factory Classes

The 'Factory/Purchase', 'Only Factory' and 'Buy Auto Factory' classes are used for products that are manufactured by your business. They effect the behaviour of the Customer Order and the Supply button. If you reveal the 'Make' column of the Customer Order Lines you will see that for some Factory class items this column will be ticked. In the case of 'Only factory' class items this column will always be ticked.

For 'Factory/Purchase' and 'Buy Auto Factory' items this column is ticked automatically for branches that have the 'Factory' checkbox selected on their Branches screen. The user can control the behaviour of these items as follows. If the 'Make' column is ticked the Supply button will generate Factory orders for this item where stock is required. If the column is not ticked then a Purchase order is generated by the Supply button if necessary.

If you are entering Factory Orders manually you will note that only items of a Factory class can be placed on these documents. Normally you would need to use the Supply button on the Factory Order to generate a purchase order or other Factory Orders to supply the materials required to complete a Factory Order. Using the 'Auto Factory' class causes this step to occur automatically whenever the Customer Order Supply button is used. Thus by using 'Auto Factory' class items in the entire construction of an item allows you to automatically purchase all required sub components to complete an item.