Create Guide
Recipes, production runs, equipment, and everything involved in making your products
How to make products in Ardent Seller
Build recipes that list ingredient quantities and steps, then run a production batch to consume the raw materials and add the produced item to inventory at rolled-up cost. A recipe can produce a product you sell directly from ingredients, or — for multi-stage work — a finished good or subassembly (intermediate components) you stock and build into products later. Equipment with depreciation and maintenance logs is also managed in this section.
Subassemblies
Navigate to Create → Subassemblies to manage intermediate components.
Subassemblies are intermediate items that you produce and then use as components in other recipes or products. For example, a cake decorator might have a "Buttercream" subassembly that goes into multiple cake recipes.
Subassemblies use the same fields as other inventory items (Name, SKU, Description, State, Tracking Unit, Photos, Bin Location, etc.) and can be selected as the Target Inventory of a recipe. When you complete a production run for a recipe, the resulting quantity is added to the subassembly's inventory. Subassemblies (and finished goods) are producible and purchasable but not sold directly — you assemble them into a sellable product. See sellable vs. purchasable for how the categories fit together.
Equipment
Navigate to Create → Equipment to manage tools and machinery used in production.
Equipment items track the tools and machines you use in your business. Beyond standard inventory fields, equipment has specialized features for depreciation tracking, maintenance scheduling, and usage logging.
Depreciation Fields
Purchase Date
The date the equipment was purchased.
Placed in Service Date
The date the equipment was first put to use. Depreciation calculations start from this date.
Acquisition Cost
Total purchase price including delivery and installation costs.
Depreciation Method
Choose "None" for no depreciation tracking, or "Straight-Line" for equal annual depreciation over the useful life.
Useful Life (Years)
The expected number of years before the equipment needs replacement (e.g., 5.00 years).
Residual / Salvage Value
The estimated value of the equipment at the end of its useful life.
When depreciation is configured, the system automatically calculates and displays: Current Book Value, Accumulated Depreciation, Annual Depreciation Amount, and Remaining Useful Life.
Maintenance Tracking
Calendar Interval (Days)
How often maintenance should be performed by calendar time (e.g., every 90 days).
Usage Interval (Hours)
How often maintenance should be performed based on usage hours (e.g., every 100 hours).
Last Maintenance Date
The date of the most recent maintenance. The system uses this to calculate when maintenance is next due.
The Maintenance History panel shows all logged maintenance events with date, type (routine, repair, inspection, replacement), performer, cost, and notes. You can export the log as CSV.
Usage Tracking
Equipment usage hours are automatically logged when equipment is assigned to production runs. The Usage History panel shows all usage records with date, procedure name, duration, and notes. You can filter by date range and export as CSV. The system also calculates Lifespan Used as a percentage based on total hours versus expected useful life (assuming 2,000 work hours per year).
Finished Goods
Navigate to Create → Finished Goods to manage items you produce via recipes.
Finished goods are the end result of your production process. They are created by selecting the finished good as a recipe's Target Inventory. When you complete a production run, the produced quantity is added to the finished good's inventory.
Finished goods support variants (different sizes, flavors, or configurations), each with its own SKU and optional price override. They can also have custom attributes defined in Settings, and support barcode/QR code generation for labeling.
Recipes
Navigate to Create → Recipes to create and manage production recipes.
Recipe Fields
Name
The name of the recipe (e.g., "Chocolate Chip Cookies", "Soy Candle - 8oz").
Description
Detailed description or notes about this recipe.
State
Draft (work in progress), Active (ready for production), or Archived.
Target Inventory
The item this recipe produces — a finished good, subassembly, product, or service. When a production run is completed, the output quantity is added to this item. Locked after the recipe is saved.
The target is locked once a recipe is saved — you cannot change an existing recipe's Target Inventory (or its variant or batch unit). This is intentional: it keeps the costed history of past production runs consistent. To produce a different item, create a new recipe (duplicating the existing one is the fastest way).
Ingredients Section
Add ingredients by searching your inventory. For each ingredient, specify the quantity and unit. The system automatically calculates the cost per ingredient based on current inventory costs, and shows a running total. Ingredients can be reordered by dragging. If an ingredient's current stock is insufficient, an "Insufficient quantity" warning appears.
Equipment Section
Add equipment from your inventory to track which tools are needed. Optionally specify usage hours per piece of equipment. These hours are automatically logged to the equipment's usage history when a production run is completed.
Steps / Instructions
Add numbered steps with instruction text, optional duration (minutes, hours, or days), and optional labor assignment (select a labor inventory item to include its cost). Steps can be reordered by dragging. The total recipe duration is the sum of all step durations.
Recipe Costing
The recipe detail view shows the total cost of all ingredients, equipment usage, and labor. As your ingredient purchase prices change, recipe costs update automatically. Use this to set selling prices with your desired profit margin. Ingredient costs use your weighted-average cost per unit — see how costing works for the full chain from purchase to sale.
Production Runs
Navigate to Create → Production Runs to execute production batches from your recipes.
Production Run Fields
Source Recipe
The recipe being produced. Ingredients, equipment, and steps are copied from the recipe.
Batch Number
Auto-generated in the format PRD-YYMMDD-XXXX. Used for traceability and batch tracking.
Batch Quantity
How many times to run the recipe in this batch (a whole number greater than 0). Ingredient consumption and output scale accordingly.
Recipe Scale
Multiplier that resizes a single batch (e.g., 2x doubles all ingredient amounts and the yield per batch). Defaults to 1x.
Status
Initiated, In Progress, Completed, or Canceled. Only completed runs affect inventory.
Initiation Date
When production started.
Completion Date
When production was finished.
Scheduled Date
When production is planned to start, for scheduling purposes.
Batch Tracking
Each production run is assigned a batch number (auto-generated as PRD-YYMMDD-XXXX). Individual ingredients can also carry their own batch/lot numbers for traceability. This chain of batch numbers enables full forward and backward traceability in the Traceability Report.
Ingredient Verification & Scaling
A production run copies its ingredients, equipment, and steps from the source recipe and checks current stock against the scaled quantities — ingredients you don't have enough of are flagged with an Insufficient quantity warning, and a new run can't be saved until stock covers the batch. Use Batch Quantity to run the recipe multiple times and Recipe Scale to resize a single batch; ingredient consumption scales by both.
Status Workflow
Production runs progress through: Initiated (planned), In Progress (actively producing), Completed (finished — inventory is updated), or Canceled. Only completed runs deduct ingredient quantities and add the produced item to inventory.
Production Transactions
Navigate to Create → Production Transactions to view the financial records of production.
Production transactions are automatically created when production runs are completed. They record the cost of materials consumed, the quantity produced, and link back to the source recipe and batch number. These transactions feed into your Cost of Goods Sold calculations in financial reports.
The transaction detail shows all consumed ingredients with their quantities and costs, the total production cost, and the resulting cost per unit of the finished product. The output's cost is the rolled-up ingredient and labor cost at your current weighted averages — see how costing works.