For Inventor users

From an Inventor BOM to purchase orders

Your assembly is modeled in Autodesk Inventor. Now somebody has to buy every bought-in part, chase the late ones and know what has arrived. AssembleFlow takes the BOM you export from Inventor as a spreadsheet and turns it into one shared project per machine: parts list, RFQs, purchase orders, deliveries and job cost.

Step 1: Export a Parts Only BOM from Inventor

  1. Open the top-level assembly and go to Manage > Bill of Materials.
  2. Switch to the Parts Only tab. If it is not shown, enable the Parts Only view first.
  3. Check the columns you need: part number, description, quantity, and, if you keep them in iProperties, vendor and cost.
  4. Click Export Bill of Materials, choose Parts Only and save the file as Microsoft Excel.

Why Parts Only? It lists each part once with its total quantity for the whole assembly. That is the number purchasing needs. AssembleFlow does not roll up quantities of repeated subassemblies, and it does not merge identical part numbers into one purchase order line, so a Parts Only export is the right input.

Step 2: Import the file into AssembleFlow

The Import BOM wizard reads CSV, XLSX, XLSM and XLS files. It proposes a column mapping (Part No, Description, Qty per machine, Supplier, price and so on), and you can change it. Part numbers are kept exactly as they are in your file. A "Check this column" notice appears when a column does not look like the field it is mapped to. If you import a revised file into the same project, parts whose part number is already there are skipped (the option is on by default).

AssembleFlow does not open Inventor files directly: the BOM comes in as an exported spreadsheet.

Step 3: Buy, receive and track

  • Send RFQs and purchase orders straight from the parts list, after checking stock. One purchase order per supplier, with PDF export.
  • Record partial deliveries against each PO line, with received and outstanding quantities. Example: 40 ordered, 28 arrived, 12 outstanding.
  • Log shortages, wrong, damaged or rejected parts, and attach delivery notes and material certificates to the order line.
  • Follow actual spend by purchase type against the project figures.

Quantities: a quick example

If one subassembly uses 5 screws and the machine has 8 of those subassemblies, purchasing needs 40 screws. A Parts Only export from Inventor already gives you 40 on one row. That is why we recommend it.

Try it on one of your own machines

Start a 14-day free trial, no card needed. Or, if you build custom machines, request the free 3-month pilot on one real machine build: send us the BOM and we set up the project for you.

Start free trial Request the 3-month pilot

Autodesk and Inventor are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc. AssembleFlow is not affiliated with or endorsed by Autodesk, Inc.