Kit-to-Order: Can it be done?
Our organization ships large keystone products. Each keystone item is composed of three components that are picked to order, packaged, & labeled/shipped. These keystone products are configured as Assembly Items in NetSuite with corresponding BOMs.
Our WMS can easily see that we have none of the finished keystone items available, so it assigns our operators pick-tasks to pick the 3 components so that we can ship the finished keystone product. The issue is that NetSuite reports on its financials that we shipped 3 components instead of the keystone product. So in our reporting in NetSuite, we do not see profitability and financial data at the keystone item level. We see it at the component level.
So this brings into view NetSuite workorders. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but the only way we can get NetSuite to report financials at the keystone product level is to “kit” the keystone product via a workorder.
That, in theory, is fine transactionally. The issue is that my Warehouse Operators would have to build a workorder in their WMS (to push to NetSuite) for every single keystone item they ship (which is the majority of our business—hence “keystone” item).
I’m in search of some brainstorming ideas on how we can continue kitting to order, but to relay keystone product information back to NetSuite vs component items. Ideally, we would pre-build these keystone products, but we do not have the labor or space to do that now (though we plan to begin prebuilding these keystone products by 2024).
Does anyone kit-to-order their Assembly Items in NetSuite? If so, how does this work for you?
Just following up on this from the information I’ve researched online to make some progress here…
- We’re looking into changing our item configuration from Assembly Items to Kit Items—the key difference is that Assembly Items require workorder builds. Whereas Kit Items do not require workorder builds. This article explains the differences very simply.
- If we remove workorders by converting our items to Kit Items vs Assembly Items, we are then poised with the issue of financial reporting. You cannot dictate a COGs account for Kit Items. Therefore, when we fulfill our Kit Item, COGs will be reported for the individual COGs account set for each component item.
So I am now researching to determine what workaround is possible so that NetSuite reports margin and profitability at the Kit Item level, versus at the Kit Item’s component level.
