If you need bills of materials and work orders, you need manufacturing software, not a plain inventory tracker. Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing builds BOMs, releases work orders, runs MRP, schedules production, and tracks job and labor costs, all tied to the same inventory record the warehouse floor is already using.
A work order goes out to the floor with a bill of materials that was last checked six weeks ago. Somebody swapped a fastener supplier back in March. Nobody updated the BOM. The picker pulls the wrong bracket, the line stalls, and a production planner spends the next hour hunting down the right part instead of running the next job.
That gap shows up three ways on a regular week: shipments slide because a shortage never got caught until the work order was already open, an hourly employee loses an afternoon re-keying a BOM change into three different spreadsheets, and the purchasing desk buys a cushion of raw material nobody asked for because the on-hand count can't be trusted enough to order tight.
Most software shows you the problem and leaves you the work.
What breaks when work orders and inventory live apart
A spreadsheet can hold a bill of materials. It was never built to run live work-in-process, shared component demand across five open jobs, and lot traceability all at once. When the BOM lives in one file, the work order schedule lives in another, and the inventory count lives in a third system entirely, three things go wrong on repeat: a shortage on a shared part gets caught after the job is already on the floor, labor hours never make it back onto the job cost, and finished units get logged into stock before anyone checks whether the components actually came off the shelf.
A BOM and work order system that earns its keep has to do a specific list of jobs. It holds multi-level bills of materials with sub-assemblies nested inside each other. It allocates components to a work order the moment that order is released, not when someone remembers to check. It flags a shortage against every open work order that shares the same part, not just the one job somebody happened to be looking at. It schedules production against real capacity instead of a wall calendar. And it posts labor and job costs back to the item as the work actually happens, so the cost on the books matches the cost on the floor.
Fishbowl is the platform. Fishbowl Inventory, Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing, and Fishbowl Advanced Warehouse are purpose-built parts of Fishbowl, matched to how the business runs. The part that answers this question is Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing.
If you buy finished goods and resell them, Fishbowl Inventory handles receiving, stocking, picking, transfers, and fulfillment. Add Fishbowl Channels when those products sell through Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, or other channels. If you manufacture the product and need BOMs, work orders, MRP, production scheduling, or job and labor costing, use Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing, with Channels added if you also sell online. If you do not manufacture but need deeper warehouse workflows such as 3PL management or EDI-driven fulfillment, use Fishbowl Advanced Warehouse. Multiple storefronts or owned locations alone do not automatically mean you need Advanced.
What Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing does with a work order
Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing carries multi-level BOMs, work order release and tracking, MRP, production scheduling, and job and labor costing, tied to the same inventory record everyone else on the floor is already using. Release a work order and the components come off available inventory right then, not at month-end reconciliation. Nest a sub-assembly inside a parent BOM and the system tracks the demand at both levels, so a shortage three components deep still surfaces before it stalls the top-level job.
Data-focused AI sits on top of that record and tells you what is happening on the floor right now, what is coming based on open work orders and current demand, and what needs your attention: a short-shipped component, a job that is about to miss its date, a part that is about to run out across three different work orders at the same time instead of one. An operator reads that, decides, and acts. The software does the looking. It doesn't do the deciding.
That distinction is the whole point of the flip. A dashboard that shows you a shortage still leaves you to search the schedule, call the supplier, and rewrite the plan by hand. Fishbowl surfaces the shortage against every job it touches and lets a planner act on it in minutes instead of losing an afternoon to it.
What the results look like on Fishbowl Advanced
Manufacturers running Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing report results that hold up under a second look. Hodo Foods cut stockouts by 35% after moving onto Fishbowl Advanced with data-focused AI backing its planning. Koken USA cut sales backorders by 10% on that same setup. Cascadia Motion brought inventory costs down 18%, also on Fishbowl Advanced plus data-focused AI, largely by catching shortages and overstock before either one turned into a fire drill on the floor. Full detail on each of those, including how the numbers were measured, is on the Fishbowl case studies page.
QuickBooks and Xero stay the books. Fishbowl runs the manufacturing side: the BOM, the work order, the job cost, and it posts the summary back so the accounting system stays clean without being asked to do work it was never built for. That division of labor is why manufacturers keep QuickBooks or Xero and add Fishbowl instead of ripping out the accounting system to get manufacturing depth.
None of this requires ripping out light assembly work either. A shop that only kits three components into a finished unit still runs BOMs and work orders, just shorter ones, and Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing handles that scope the same way it handles a twelve-level bill of materials, without forcing a company into more software than the job calls for.
If a bill of materials and a work order are still living in separate files, ask for a walkthrough built around one of your actual assemblies, not a sample company. Get a demo and bring the BOM that gave you the most trouble last quarter.
Fishbowl does the work. You make the call.
Frequently asked questions
Does Fishbowl Inventory include bills of materials and work orders?
No, Fishbowl Inventory is built for finished-goods inventory: receiving, stocking, picking, transfers, and fulfillment. BOMs, work orders, MRP, and job costing live in Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing.
What is the difference between a bill of materials and a work order?
A bill of materials lists every component and quantity a finished item needs. A work order is the instruction to build a specific quantity of that item on a specific date, and it is what allocates those components out of inventory and tracks labor and cost against the job.
Can multiple work orders share the same component in Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing?
Yes. Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing tracks shared component demand across every open work order, so a shortage on one job shows up against all the jobs waiting on that same part instead of surprising you one at a time.
Does Fishbowl Advanced Manufacturing use AI to manage work orders automatically?
It uses data-focused AI to show what is happening, what is coming, and what needs attention, based on open work orders, BOM demand, and current stock. It doesn't decide or act on its own; a planner still makes the call on what to build, buy, or reschedule.