BOM Import in PartsBox

PartsBox offers a powerful BOM (Bill of Materials) import feature, allowing you to bring in BOMs from various CAD/eCAD packages in CSV or TSV format. This functionality lets you quickly transfer your design data into PartsBox for efficient inventory management, purchasing, and production.

Supported CAD/eCAD Packages

Any CAD program that can export a BOM in CSV or TSV format can be used with PartsBox. Customer have successfully imported data from KiCad, OrCad, Cadence Allegro, Mentor PADS, Proteus, EAGLE (now part of Autodesk Fusion), Diptrace, EasyEDA, gEDA.

Importing a BOM

To create a new project by importing an existing BOM, use the 'Import' button in the 'Projects' section. This will prompt for the file to be uploaded. Upload a CSV/TSV file exported from your CAD program.

PartsBox will try to parse your BOM and display the preliminary results. Please adjust the 'Field separator' and 'Character encoding' options first until the BOM is correctly parsed and the first few example rows are shown. Please make sure that the 'First line contains column names' checkbox is correctly set for your BOM.

Afterwards, adjust the mapping from BOM columns to PartsBox BOM fields. There is a 'Guess' button which will use heuristics to make a best-effort guess at column mappings, but please always review the results carefully.

The imported BOM is shown below the column mapping table, once you map the required columns.

The available BOM field choices are:

  • Quantity: quantity for the given line
  • Part: this is either the MPN or a name that describes the part (like 330R)
  • Designators: one or more designators ('C1') of this BOM entry on the PCB, the number of designators should correspond to quantity
  • Comments: any comments useful for understanding the BOM (informative only)
  • Footprint/Package: the part footprint as understood by the CAD program (informative only)
  • Part ID Anything™ code: used for automatically matching BOM entries to parts using ID Anything™
  • Part CAD Key: used for automatically matching BOM entries to parts using CAD keys
  • Do Not Populate (DNP): if not empty, will set the DNP flag for this BOM line
  • Ignore: do not process this column in any way

You can import BOM entries either when creating a new project, or into any existing project.

To save time on future imports, you can save your column mapping settings as a preset for quick access later.

Matching BOM Entries to Parts

After importing a BOM into PartsBox, each line that represents a part has to be matched to a specific part that has already been created. There is no way to automatically create parts while importing a BOM because of ambiguity and potential costly mistakes: there are many parts with the same name. The matching can be done automatically if the parts have already been created in several ways that are tried in order:

  1. ID Anything™ match: if the Part ID Anything™ column was imported with the ID Anything™ codes of the parts, and the ID Anything™ code points a part in the database, the entry will be matched.
  2. CAD key match: if the 'Part CAD key' column was imported and there is a match between the CAD key in the BOM and a CAD key in one of the parts in the database, the entry will be matched.
  3. Part name match: if the 'Part' column matches either the local name or the MPN of exactly one part in the database, the entry will be matched.

It is highly recommended to store either ID Anything™ codes or CAD keys in the CAD part database and export those in the BOMs to get quick, effortless and precise matching.

Entries which have not been matched to parts will be highlighted. For those entries, you can either create additional parts and retry the matching (see below), or open each of the entries and do the matching manually, possibly also creating a new part in the process. It is also possible to un-match the entry if you made a mistake.

To retry the matching, you can select some or all entries in the BOM and use the 'Selected | Match entries' menu option. This will retry the matching for all selected entries. You can also un-match multiple entries if needed.

Beyond Parts: Services and Labor

PartsBox takes BOM management a step further by allowing you to include services or labor entries in your BOMs. This feature enables you to account for costs associated with PCB assembly, testing, packaging, or any other relevant services. These service/labor BOM entries can have offers attached, just like parts, enabling accurate pricing of the entire production process, not just the components.

Offers for service/labor BOM entries share similar characteristics with part offers:

  • Support for multiple price breaks
  • Minimum Order Quantities (MOQs)
  • Expiration dates
  • Compatibility with all supported currencies

By leveraging PartsBox's comprehensive BOM import capabilities and the ability to include services and labor, you can efficiently manage your inventory, purchasing, and production processes, ensuring accurate costing and streamlined operations.

BOM Error Checking

BOM entries are checked for correctness, to help avoid mistakes and to allow structural BOM editing. The quantity for a given line item must match the number of designators. For example, a BOM entry with a quantity of 2 and designators C1, C2 is correct, but a quantity of 2 and a single designator C1 is likely a mistake. PartsBox displays warnings when this happens, and this will also make merging BOM entries with these mistakes impossible.

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