A bill of materials (BOM) is the full parts list for a product: every ingredient and component, with the exact quantity of each, needed to make one unit (or one batch). It is the manufacturing answer to "what goes into this, and how much?"
In Ardent Seller the BOM lives inside a recipe. The recipe's ingredient list is the BOM, and because each ingredient carries its current purchase cost, the recipe can total up the material cost of a finished good automatically and keep it current as your supply prices change.
BOMs can be layered. When a component is itself something you produce — a subassembly — its own BOM rolls up into the parent product's cost, giving you accurate costing for multi-step builds rather than a flat list that ignores intermediate work.
Related terms
Recipe
A defined set of ingredients, quantities, steps, and equipment needed to produce a finished good. Recipes automatically calculate production costs based on current ingredient prices.
Subassembly
A component that is produced from raw materials and then used as an input in another recipe or assembly process. Allows multi-level bills of materials.
Ingredient
A raw material or component purchased from vendors and used in recipes to produce finished goods. Examples: flour, beads, essential oils, fabric.
COGS (Cost of Goods Sold)
The total cost of materials, labor, and overhead directly tied to producing the goods you sell. Tracked automatically through purchases, recipes, and production runs.