The material lifecycle
The four stages of material movement on a job are:- Assign Material (planning)
- Pull Material (stock movement)
- Return Material (full unused units)
- Partials (handled separately)
Assign Material: plan before you pull
Use Assign Material to earmark materials to a job before they are pulled. Think of it as a planning list. Assigned materials appear in the Assigned Materials section and can be selected during Pull Material to pre-fill the lines.Pull Material: move stock and record cost
Use Pull Material to deduct the quantity from the selected location and put the cost on the job. This is the action that actually moves inventory. You can pull even when the system shows zero stock, which creates a negative balance as an audit flag.Return Material: send full units back
Use Return Material to send full, unused units back into stock. Returns are matched to the FIFO batch the material was originally pulled from. Both stock and job cost correct themselves automatically.Return Material is for full unused units only. Partial or leftover quantities follow the process in Partial Materials and are restocked as a new item, never returned against the original pull.
Partials: restock as a new item
When partial quantities come back from a job, for example half a roll or part of a box, they are not returned against the original pull. The job consumed them and the job is charged for them. The approved process is to create a new inventory item named for the partial, price it proportionally, and restock it into the correct location. See Partial Materials for the full steps.Bulk Pull and Bulk Return
Bulk Pull Material and Bulk Return Material sit at the top of the job page. They follow exactly the same logic as the single flows, including batch selection and all rules above, but handle a whole list of materials in one submission.- Use Bulk Pull when loading out at job start instead of entering lines one at a time.
- Use Bulk Return at job close instead of returning lines one at a time.