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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.

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A subassembly is something you make that then becomes an ingredient in something else you make. It is a finished good from one recipe's point of view and a raw input from another's — a halfway product that lives between raw materials and the final item.

Subassemblies are how Ardent Seller models multi-level bills of materials. A bakery might produce a batch of frosting (a subassembly) that is then used across several cake recipes; a soap maker might prepare a fragrance blend once and draw on it for multiple product lines. Producing the subassembly captures its cost, and that cost rolls up into every parent product that uses it.

The payoff is accurate costing without double-counting. Instead of re-entering the frosting's ingredients into every cake, you cost the frosting once and reference it — so when butter goes up, the change flows through the subassembly into every product that contains it.