Setting Up the Order
Three tabs and one configuration block carry the whole spec: Data, Model, Items & Operations, and Warehouse Configuration. By the time you're done with them, the order has everything it needs for batch planning and the simulator to work.
Data tab
The Data tab is the order's header. The fields worth thinking about:
- Company — the legal entity producing the order. Matters for accounting and stock account postings.
- End Date — the planned completion date. The dashboards key off this to flag overdue orders.
- Season — links to an ERPNext Project. If you run your portfolio by season (SS26, FW26), set it here so reports can slice by season.
- Source — the upstream document this order satisfies: Sales Order, Quotation, or Material Request. Optional but valuable; once linked, the Sales Order can show production status to the customer.
Model tab
The Model tab is where you pin the order to a style:
- Tech Pack — required, and one per order. You can pick a Tech Pack in Commercial, Design, Approval, or Production Ready — earlier states are allowed so commercial can open an order while design is still firming up, giving logistics a head start on sourcing. The catch: you can only submit and release the order once the Tech Pack reaches Production Ready.
- Model Name and Code — populated from the Tech Pack but editable for the order.
- IQ Template — the inspection quality template that decides which inline and final inspections the resulting batches will be measured against. Commercial and design agree on this together.
The moment you set the Tech Pack, the form inherits the spec: sizes, variants, raw materials, services. You can override the sizes and variants on this order if production needs a different run than the Tech Pack's planning defaults — common when the order comes from a Sales Order with a specific size curve, or from a commercial decision to replenish a single colorway.
Items & Operations
The Items & Operations section is where the order quantities live:
- Items child table (Production Order Line) — one row per size × variant combination, with the quantity you're producing for each. Most factories enter the total quantity by size at this stage; the variants get fanned out either here or during batch planning.
- Operation Plan child table (Production Order Operation) — the operations this order will run through, with their expected SMV and sequence. Inherited from the Tech Pack's Services tab; override only if this specific order skips or adds an operation.
The totals here feed the dashboards and the simulator. Round-trip them carefully — a wrong quantity on a Production Order quietly becomes a wrong plan for the floor.
Warehouse Configuration
Two fields, both important:
- Raw Material Warehouse — where fabric and trims for this order will be issued from. Defaults from Garment Manufacturing Settings; override if this order is sourced from a non-default warehouse.
- WIP Warehouse — where stock sits while batches are in flight. Also defaults from settings.
The Materials Summary child table inside this section is the rolled-up view of every material the order will consume, based on the Tech Pack BOM × order quantity. Use it as a sanity check before you start cutting — if a number looks wrong, the fix is usually upstream on the Tech Pack BOM.
Image: The Production Order Items tab showing a multi-size, multi-variant order with quantities populated per row.
Resolve Materials
Some rows in the Materials Summary arrive without an Item. That's deliberate: the Tech Pack marked them Item TBD — To Be Determined — because the item couldn't honestly be chosen at design time. The requirement is real and it's costed; only the specific item is open. This is where it gets closed.
The dashboard tells you where you stand: "3 material(s) awaiting item" in orange, or "All materials resolved" in green.
Resolve Materials (draft orders only) opens the working list. Every material, one row each:
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Reference | The Tech Pack BOM row this came from. |
| Operation | Where it's consumed — CUT, STITCH, PACK. |
| Item | The item, or Not decided in orange. After a swap, the previously planned item is shown underneath. |
| Required / In Stock | Quantity needed against what you hold. A shortage is highlighted. |
| Status | Item TBD, Substituted, or Resolved. |
Undecided rows sort to the top, so the list is its own to-do list — work down until nothing is orange.
Each row has one button:
- Choose — on a row with no item. Pick the Item and confirm. That's it; no reason is asked for, because nothing was overridden.
- Swap — on a row that already has an item. Pick the replacement and give a Reason for substitution. Available on every resolved row, not only the short ones — the fabric you planned may be fine on paper and wrong in the roll.
Either way, the order saves and the Materials Summary recalculates on the spot, so stock, shortage and to-purchase figures for that line are right immediately. Your choice survives later regenerations of the summary — it won't be wiped by the next recalculation.
A swap is recorded. It writes a Material Item Substitution capturing the original item, the replacement, the quantity, who did it and why — the same audit trail used when a substitution happens later at batch level. A first-time choice on a TBD row isn't a substitution and isn't recorded as one; nothing was replaced.
Until an item is chosen, that line's stock, reservable, ordered, received and to-purchase figures all read zero. There's nothing to reserve or buy until you know what it is.
Every material needs an Item before the order can be submitted. Submit is blocked while any row is undecided, and the error names the rows so you know exactly what's outstanding. Deferring at the Tech Pack buys time, not an exemption.
Image: The Resolve Materials dialog with two rows still showing Not decided and Item TBD status, and a resolved row below them.
What to do next
Once the spec is firm, move to Batch planning to split the order into runnable batches.