Purchased components
- What are purchased components?
- What is the purchased component library?
- Where does the information in my library come from?
- How do I use information from my purchased component library while quoting?
- How do I cost purchased parts with multiple components (such as hinges)?
- How do I access data from the purchased component library in P3L?
What are purchased components?
In Paperless Parts, any ingredient that you will cost at a piece price while manufacturing a part is considered a purchased component. Fasteners, inserts, and most types of hardware fall under this umbrella. These components, as well as their cost information, are stored in your account’s purchased component library for you to access while quoting.
Whether you’re quoting a simple part with hardware or a complex assembly, understanding what purchased components are and how to quote them in Paperless Parts will help you work faster and more effectively.
What is the purchased component library?
The purchased component library is a database of previously quoted hardware you can draw from while quoting.
By default, the following information is stored for each purchased component in the library:
- OEM part number
- Internal part number
- Piece price
- Description
Like other custom tables in Paperless Parts, these column names and types are flexible and can be customized.
How can I access it?
To access the purchase component library, navigate to the Configure tab.
Select the Purchased Components tab to access your library.
How can I customize it?
Each purchased component is required to have an OEM Part Number, Internal Part No, Piece Price, and Description. If there's additional information you want to store in your library, you can create and edit additional custom columns.
To edit or create custom columns for your table, select Edit columns.
To create a new column, select Add column and fill out relevant information about the part. Click Save to confirm.
To download the data in your purchased component library locally, select Actions and pick Download CSV.
Where does the information in my library come from?
The purchased component library should reflect your shop’s inventory and quoting history, so ultimately, from you!
If your shop has an ERP integration, your purchased component library may be pulling its information from your ERP. To learn more about how your integration handles purchased components, reach out to your contact at Paperless Parts or our Support team today.
If you don’t have an integration, there are two ways to populate your library:
How do I add a purchased component to my library?
Individual purchased components can either be added to your library from the Configure tab or directly from a quote.
To add an entry from the Configure tab, navigate to the purchased component library and select New purchased component.
To add a purchased component from the Build-a-Quote page, open the purchased component drawer by converting an existing child part to a purchased component.
You can also access this drawer by adding a new purchased component to the assembly BOM.
Once in the purchased component drawer, select Create new component.
Fill in relevant information about the purchased part, all of which will be stored in your library going forward.
Once you're done, click Save and then Convert to confirm.
If the purchased component is a PEM component, relevant product specifications will automatically be filled in before you add any price information.
How do I add multiple purchased components to my library in bulk?
To add purchased components to your library in bulk, upload a CSV from your local system.
Note: Uploading a CSV will clear all existing data in the library.
For a successful upload, include all standard and custom columns from the library in your CSV. Note that OEM Part Number and Piece Price are required for each entry in the library.
How do I use information from my purchased component library while quoting?
When you upload a CAD file of a part with hardware to the Build-A-Quote page, Paperless Parts will automatically extract the structure of the part to create a tree (as drawn/created by the design engineer). Initially, each part in the assembly structure will likely be a manufactured component because there is no way to differentiate purchased from manufactured parts in a CAD file.
Note: If a child component’s file name is an exact match for an entry in your purchased component library, it will automatically be converted to a purchased component and assigned to that entry.
To convert a part to a purchased component, click the three dots next to the part and select Convert to purchased component.
Link the part to an entry in your Purchased Component library, either by:
- Selecting a Smart Match (if you have previously quoted this purchased component or it is a PEM component).
- Searching your purchased component library by part number and selecting an entry.
Click Convert to confirm.
If you’re building an assembly part from scratch, you can add purchased components to the quote from your library by clicking Add components to top level and selecting Add Purchased Component.
Once a child part is converted to a purchased component and has a piece price, you’re all set!
How do I cost purchased parts with multiple components (such as hinges)?
If you’re building an assembly part’s BOM from a PDF or manual part (from scratch), the process is no different from costing single component purchased components.
If you’re quoting an assembly part from a CAD file, the multi-component part likely came in as a subassembly. To convert a subassembly to a purchased component, click the three dots next to the purchased subassembly and select Convert to purchased component.
Note: This will convert the entire subassembly to a single purchased part, deleting all child parts of the subassembly from the part’s tree structure.
Here's a brief video tutorial on converting subassemblies to purchased components:
How do I access data from the purchased component library in P3L?
If you need to reference data about a purchased component in a cost calculation, use the code name to call data from the purchased component library in P3L.
For example, here is how you might cost purchased components based on the piece price value:
Tip: Not sure what the code name is for the data you want to reference? Click Edit columns in the purchased component library to view all existing code names.
To learn more about writing cost calculations, check out our P3L documentation.