What is the best add on?

Rainwater

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice on the best way to handle a manufacturing-style workflow in my system.
I receive a raw product into stock first. Before selling it, I powder-coat it in one of 20 available colours.
To manage this, I’ve set up:
Raw product = a standalone SKU (uncoated)
Finished product = a separate product with 20 colour variations
When a customer places an order for a specific colour, the system correctly reduces the stock for that colour variation — but I also need it to reduce the raw product stock and increase the chosen colour as being produced from that raw item.
What is the best add-on or method to:
deduct raw stock automatically
link it to the selected colour variant
and apply the “consumed” raw stock to the finished coloured item?
Would that be Product Levels or Multi Inventory?

Forum_Admin

Hi There, apologies for the late reply.

Thanks for the detailed explanation of your workflow.
From what you’ve described — receiving a raw product, transforming it into one of 20 coloured variations, and needing stock to move automatically between the raw item and the finished variation — the correct add-on for this is ATUM Product Levels, not Multi-Inventory.

Here’s why:

Product Levels = Manufacturing & BOM logic

Product Levels is designed for exactly this situation:

You create a Manufactured Product (your coloured item or its variations).

You assign the raw product SKU as a BOM component.

When the coloured variation is ordered or produced, Product Levels can automatically deduct the raw material stock.

Depending on how you prefer to operate, you can use:

Option A: Manual / batch production (“Produce” function)

You use the “Produce” action to convert raw stock into finished stock when you prepare the coloured versions.
This:

Deducts the raw product quantity

Increases stock of the specific coloured variation

Maintains full traceability

Option B: Auto-deduct on sale

You can enable automatic raw material consumption when the finished product is sold.
This means:

Customer orders “Blue”

Stock of “Blue” variation reduces

Stock of the raw product also reduces automatically via BOM rules

This is the closest match to what you described.