Bill of Materials on Quotes

Attach component breakdowns to quote line items, control what your customer sees, and understand how the Bill of Materials section appears on proposals and PDFs.

Written By Mike Forte

Last updated About 7 hours ago

A Bill of Materials (BOM) is a component list for a product you sell — for example, the parts that make up a white-label workstation or a configured hardware package. In Salesbuildr, BOM data lives on the product in your catalog and can be surfaced on a quote as a separate breakdown section for your customer.

BOM is informational only. It does not change quote pricing, totals, or what syncs to your PSA. The parent line item remains the sellable product; the BOM shows what is inside it.

How it works on a quote

The workflow has two parts:

  1. Catalog setup — Define the component list on the product (today, via CSV import).

  2. Quote display — Choose which line items should show their BOM, and which individual components to include.

When you enable BOM for a line item, Salesbuildr adds that item to a Bill of Materials section at the bottom of the quote's product-table area (below the line items and any quote attachments). Each included product gets its own sub-table with Quantity and Description columns.

Customers and internal viewers can also jump from a line item to its BOM section using the View bill of materials link on that row.

Not the same as bundles: Product bundles group separate sellable products with their own pricing. A BOM is a breakdown behind a single line item and does not add child products to the quote total.

Step 1 — Add BOM data to your products

BOM data is stored on the product record. Component rows include:

FieldPurpose

MPN

Manufacturer part number of the component (used internally; not shown in the customer-facing BOM table)

Description

Component name or description shown on the quote

Quantity

How many units of that component are included per parent product

CSV import

The supported way to load BOM data into your catalog is a product CSV import:

  1. Open Products and start a CSV import (requires the Import tenant feature).

  2. On the column-mapping step, enable Bill of materials — will be added as description for the product row above.

  3. Map the three BOM columns:

    • Bill of materials MPN

    • Bill of materials description

    • Bill of materials quantity

  4. Structure your spreadsheet so each product row is immediately followed by one or more BOM rows (rows that contain BOM data but no product MPN or name). Rows with BOM data in the product position are rejected.

Example layout:

MPNProduct name…BOM MPNBOM descriptionBOM qty

PARENT-001

Managed workstation

…

…

RAM-32GB

32 GB DDR5 memory

2

…

SSD-1TB

1 TB NVMe SSD

1

Re-import with Overwrite enabled if you need to replace BOM data on existing products.

See Importing Products for the full CSV import workflow and template.

Catalog changes and existing quotes: BOM on a quote line is copied when the product is added. Updating BOM in the catalog does not automatically refresh line items already on open quotes. Use Refresh on a line item for pricing and descriptions, or remove and re-add the product if you need the latest BOM from the catalog.

Step 2 — Show the BOM on a quote

After you add a product that has BOM data to a quote:

  1. Open the line item's edit dialog — click the pencil icon on the row, or choose Bill of materials settings under the product name (both open the same dialog).

  2. Open the Bill of Materials tab.

  3. Turn on Show product bill of materials.

  4. Review the component list. Each row has a Show item toggle so you can include or hide individual components on this quote without changing the catalog.

  5. Click Update to save.

By default, BOM is hidden on new quote lines even when the product has component data. You must enable it per line item.

Repeat for every line item that should contribute to the BOM section. Only lines with Show product bill of materials enabled appear in the output.

What your customer sees

On the interactive proposal

  • Line items with BOM enabled show a View bill of materials link that scrolls to that product's section.

  • At the bottom of the product-table area, a Bill of Materials heading lists each enabled line item by product name.

  • Under each name, a table shows Quantity and Description for every component where Show item is on.

  • MPN values are not displayed in the customer-facing BOM table — only quantity and description.

On PDF and print

The Bill of Materials section is included when your customer downloads or prints the quote PDF, using the same content and layout. Interactive-only elements (such as scroll links) are omitted from PDF output.

What BOM does not do

TopicBehavior

Pricing

BOM components are not priced separately; only the parent line item affects totals.

PSA sync

Component rows are not pushed to your PSA as separate opportunity or sales-order lines.

Procurement

BOM does not create procurement or ordering tasks for individual components.

Optional items

Hiding a parent optional line item hides its BOM with it; BOM does not add optional toggles of its own.

Tips

  • Use BOM when customers need transparency into what is inside a package — hardware builds, white-label solutions, or kit descriptions — without cluttering the main product table.

  • Turn off Show item for components you do not want to disclose (for example, internal cabling or standard parts).

  • If no line items have BOM display enabled, the Bill of Materials section does not appear on the quote at all.

Related articles