Versions

A version is a saved copy of what a bill’s BOM looked like at one moment. Save one before a seasonal change, before a supplier swap, or simply at the end of a quarter, and you can always see what the bill used to say, what changed since, and put an earlier BOM back.

Versions work the same way for a BOMBill of materialsA bill of materials tells Assemblified how to build one unit of a finished good. When a customer orders the finished-good variant, Assemblified deducts the right component quantities from inventory automatically. Read more → and for an assembly BOMSubassemblyA reusable assembly block that composes into bigger bills: define it once, include it in any bill of materials, and Assemblified expands it into its own components at execution time. Its definition is an assembly BOM. Read more → (defines a subassembly): both have a Versions tab on their detail page, and both lists can save versions for many bills at once.

On this page

• What a version contains
• Saving a version
• Comparing versions
• Restoring a version
• Saving a version every night
• Plan requirements

What a version contains

A version holds the BOM, and only the BOM:

• the bill’s name, description and notes, and for a finished good its status and tags,
• its settings toggles,
• every component: materials, assembly BOMs and additional costs, with their quantities, waste, setup time, notes and per-component location,
• every location rule on the bill, with the material changes under it,
• the product, variant, SKU, price and image the bill was attached to, kept so an old version still says which product it described,
• the names of everything it references, frozen as they read that day, so a version stays readable after a material is renamed or deleted.

It does not hold stock or money: pre-assembled quantities, inventory levels and the calculated costs are not part of a version. Those are what your store has right now, not what the BOM says.

An assembly BOM's contents are its own history

A version of a finished good lists the assembly BOMs it uses, but not what was inside them. Each assembly BOM keeps its own versions, so open it to see how it changed.

Saving a version

One bill: open the bill, go to the Versions tab and choose Save version. You can add a note, which is shown with the version in the list.

Many bills: on the finished goods list or the assembly BOMs list, select the bills you want (or select them all), then choose Maintenance → Save version. The dialog works through the selection and reports what happened for each bill by name. Large selections are processed in batches, so leave the dialog open until it finishes.

A bill that has not changed since its last version is not saved again. Assemblified compares the BOM with the newest saved version and, if they are identical, tells you so and keeps the history clean instead of storing a duplicate. The note is not stored in that case either.

Each version in the list shows:

• its number, newest first,
• who saved it and when,
• whether it was saved by hand, saved by the nightly snapshot, or written by a restore,
• a short summary of what changed against the version before it, for example “2 fields, 3 materials changed, 1 rule removed”.

Comparing versions

From a version’s row menu you can compare it with:

• the previous version in the list,
• the current BOM, which answers “what has changed since I saved this?”,
• another version you pick.

The comparison lists what was added, removed and changed: BOM fields and settings, components with their quantities and waste, location rules and the material changes under them. Items that have since been deleted from your store still appear under the name they had when the version was saved.

If the bill has been edited since its newest version, the tab says so, so you can save a fresh version before changing anything else.

Restoring a version

Restore version in a version’s row menu puts that BOM back. Assemblified first shows you what the restore would do: what it would add back, what it would remove, and how many rows it would replace. Nothing is changed until you confirm.

What a restore puts back: the bill’s name, description and notes, its settings toggles, its whole component list and its location rules and material changes.

What a restore never touches:

• the Shopify product or variant the bill is attached to, its SKU, price or image,
• your stock: pre-assembled quantities and inventory levels are untouched,
• calculated costs, which are worked out again from the restored BOM.

Missing items. A version can name a material, assembly BOM or additional cost you have deleted since. Assemblified refuses the restore and lists them, so you can decide: either put the missing item back first, or tick Skip the missing items and restore the rest, which restores everything else and tells you exactly what was left out.

Components a recipe may not contain. A component that would put the bill’s own product into its recipe — or, for an assembly BOM, the product of a bill that uses it — is listed the same way and blocks the restore. Skipping restores the rest without it. See A recipe cannot contain its own product.

Only sell pre-assembled quantities is not restored

That setting moves stock and re-anchors what Shopify shows, which a saved BOM cannot describe. A restore leaves it exactly as it is today and says so; change it from the bill’s settings if you need to. The same applies when a restored setting cannot be turned on because another setting rules it out: the restore tells you which one stayed off.

A restore is itself saved as a version, marked as a restore and pointing at the version it came from, so the step back is part of the history too, and you can undo it the same way.

Restoring is available while the bill exists. Deleting a bill does not delete its versions, but a deleted bill cannot be restored from one.

Saving a version every night

Under Settings → Bill versions you can switch on a nightly snapshot. Once a night, in your store’s own time zone, Assemblified goes through every bill of materials and every assembly BOM and saves a version of each one that changed that day. Bills that did not change are skipped, so the history stays readable.

The setting is off until you turn it on: saving a version is a deliberate act by default. The page also shows the last nightly run, when it ran and how many versions it saved.

There is no “run now” button here. If you want a version of a bill immediately, save it from the bill itself.

Plan requirements

• Reading is open on every plan. The Versions tab, the version list and every comparison work whatever plan you are on, so you can always see the history you have recorded.
• Saving, restoring and the nightly snapshot require the Enhanced plan. On other plans those controls are shown but inactive, with the required plan named and a single upgrade action.