Material Indents

The site asks for material, somebody authorises how much of it, the office buys it, and it is issued to the project's own store. An indent is the request - one or many lines, each item with a quantity, a needed-by date and optionally the BOQ line it is for; approving decides what is actually allowed; issuing moves stock into the site warehouse, and the destination is never asked because it is always that project's store.

Switch: Settings > Site Work > Material Indents. Permissions: Material Indents to raise one and issue stock, Approve Indents to authorise one.

Asking and approving are two people

A store keeper raises the indent; somebody else says how much of it is allowed - "you asked for twenty bags, take twelve" - line by line, which is the whole of an approver's job. The two are separate permissions on purpose. Granting both to one person is a business deciding it is small enough not to care, which is a choice it makes rather than one the app forces.

No seat starts with Approve Indents: approving commits the business's money, so it is always handed out by name.

Costing it to a BOQ line

Each indent line can name the BOQ line it is for. Where it does, the Material vs BOQ Line report can compare what was indented against what that line budgeted - which is the only way to know that the plastering went over and the brickwork did not. Left blank, the material is still costed to the site; it just cannot be costed to a line.

Where it appears

Construction shell: Indents in Site Operations (pick a project), with a badge counting indents raised and not yet authorised, and the Materials tab on the project page. A Store Keeper seat lands on this screen when they sign in. Items are the ordinary product master; each project owns a warehouse created with it.

Flow

flowchart TD
    A[Site raises indent
lines: item · qty · needed by · which BOQ line] --> M[(Requested · awaiting approval)]
    M --> AP[Approve line by line
approved quantity may be less than asked]
    AP --> M1[(Approved)]
    M1 --> P{Stock available?}
    P -->|no| B[Purchase Invoice for the project] --> W[(Stock in company store)]
    P -->|yes| W
    W --> I[Issue to Site: from which store · how much
offers only what is still to go]
    I --> S[(Out of the store · into the site store)]
    S --> M2[(Indent updated with what went out)]
    M2 -->|part issued| I
    M2 -->|fully issued| C[Issued]
    S --> V[Material vs BOQ Line · BOQ variance]

Issue is a stock transfer whose destination is fixed; that is what stops material landing on the wrong site.

Screens

Indents - requests per project with requested, approved, issued and pending quantities, needed-by dates and status.
Indent form - many lines at once, each with its item, quantity, needed-by date and BOQ line.
Approval - the asked quantity beside a figure you can type over, one row per line.
Issue to Site - which store it leaves and how much; the remaining quantity, not the requested one, is offered on a second issue.
Site stock - the project warehouse's stock via Warehouse Stock.

A part issue stays open. The indent only reads as issued once everything approved has gone out, so nothing is quietly closed with material still owed to the site.

Setting it up

flowchart LR
    A[Settings > Site Work
Material Indents on] --> B[Project already owns a site store]
    B --> C[Give Approve Indents to somebody
other than the store keeper]
    C --> D[Site raises the first indent]
    D --> E[Approve it line by line]
    E --> F[Buy it if it is not in stock]
    F --> G[Issue to site · destination is fixed]

Switch it on, put the master and the approver behind it in place, then indent — in that order, or the first one will sit waiting for somebody who can authorise it.

Switching off with indents still open warns at save.