About Auto Manufacturing
Learn how you can use the auto-manufacture feature to speed up your maker workflow
Note: This feature is only available in our Indie plan.
The Auto Manufacture feature allows you to automate the creation of your manufactures, based on the orders you receive. It is useful for situations where products:
1. Are not created in advance as a batch and
2. Contain materials that do not change between manufactures.
A simple example of a good candidate for auto-manufacture would be a charm bracelet where the customer can select their desired charm from a list of available options. Since the finished product is only created when the order is received, and only involves a small amount of configuration then this would be ideal for auto manufacturing.
Auto Manufactures can be switched on for specific products or for all products in your account. Automanufacturing can also be used for the creation of components.
You need to add a recipe before you can turn on Auto Manufacture for a product. If there aren't any recipes, Auto Manufacture is disabled when creating a manufacture.
If Auto Manufacture is turned on and a recipe exists for the product, all new orders will automatically have a linked manufacture created for the exact sales amount of the order for the product / variation.
If you have Auto Manufactures switched on for a product without a recipe, but your variations have recipes, then all new orders for the variations will automatically have a linked manufacture created for the exact sales amount of the order for the variation.
If the order is cancelled, the Auto Manufacture that was generated will need to be manually deleted as it will not be removed automatically.
Auto Manufactures will manufacture regardless of the stock level of the product or variation sold.
Note: A recipe needs to exist for the product or variation to auto manufacture. If the recipe is not present, you will see "No" next to the Auto Manufacture heading and the Auto Manufacture will be skipped. Updating the product or variation with a recipe at a later point will not re-trigger the manufacture: in this case the manufacture needs to be added manually.
Components can also be set to be automanufactured as part of a product manufacture. This can be handy when utilising components for bundles/sets.
Automanufacturing components
Components can be configured to automanufacture themselves when included in a product manufacture. This is particularly useful for bundling and kitting situations.
This can be done either on any recipe that includes the component or alternatively on each manufacture that consumes the component.
Directly underneath the material on the recipe form, a small wizard wand icon will appear with a checkbox. Check the box if you would like each manufacture to automatically set the component to auto-manufacture.
Switch on automanufacture for all products
Automanufacturing can be switched on with a single setting if you wish to use this across all of your products:
1. Navigate to your Account Settings page ( How do I find my Account Settings page?)
2. On the form that appears, check the Auto Manufacture from Orders checkbox.
3. Click the Save Details button to save the changes to your account.
Only products and variations with a recipe will have a manufacture created. If a recipe does not exist, the auto creation will be skipped.
Switch on automanufacture for one product
If you only want to use the automanufacture feature for an individual product, it is possible to switch on this feature per product.
To switch on automanufacture for a single product:
1. Navigate to your product edit page ( How do I edit a Product?)
2. On the form that appears under the Sale Information heading, ensure that the Auto Manufacture checkbox is ticked. Note: The checkbox will be disabled and already ticked if you have already turned on Auto Manufactures for your account.
3. Click the Save Product button to save the changes.