Materials in Katana represent the raw inputs essential for your manufacturing processes. Properly setting up materials ensures accurate inventory tracking and efficient production planning.

In Katana, there are three main ways to create a new material.

Note: If the option to create/edit material is unavailable, take a look at this article about user permissions.

Methods to create a material

You can add new materials to Katana using the following methods:

1. Global create button

Click on the global + Create button.
Select + Material to open a new material card.

2. From purchase orders or product recipes

Adding a new material from a purchase order

On a purchase order (PO) card or product recipe, type the name of a new material into an item field.
Select Create new "material name" from the dropdown list.
A pop-up window will appear where you can enter basic details:
- Name
- Unit of Measure
- Variant Code/SKU
- Purchase Price
Click Done to create the material, which will be automatically added to the PO or recipe.
To add more details, navigate to the Items screen and select the material from the Materials tab.

3. Bulk import via spreadsheet

Use Katana's import template to add multiple materials at once.
This method supports creating variants and setting initial stock levels.
For detailed instructions, refer to the article on How to import materials and variants.

Material card tabs

Each material has a dedicated card comprising three tabs:

General info

Material name: A unique identifier. Avoid including attributes like color or size; use variants instead.
- Recommended: "Table Leg"
- Not Recommended: "White Table Leg with Black Lines"
Category: Group materials into categories (e.g., "Tables", "Chairs") for better organization. Read more about categories, creating categories, editing, and deleting categories.
Unit of measure: Define how the material is quantified (e.g., pieces, kilograms, meters). You can manage the list of units (add, edit and delete) from Settings.
Usability: Enable the Sell option if you intend to sell the material directly.
Material tracking: Choose to track batch information for the material. The Full Traceability add-on is required to use this feature. Read more about batch tracking in Katana.
Variants: If the material has different versions (e.g., sizes, colors), use the variants feature to manage them efficiently.
- Activating the variants check box opens a 'Variants setup', where you can enter variant options (e.g., color, size) and option values (e.g., red and blue for 'color' option). Variant options will appear as new columns in the table at the bottom of the material card, and option values can be chosen from the drop-down menu in the text fields of those columns. If you have not enabled multiple variants, then the material is considered to have a single variant.

General info table:

Variant code/SKU: Unique identifier for each variant. Read more about variant codes
Registered barcode: Barcode used on physical labels.
Internal barcode: System-generated unique code for each variant.
In stock: Current stock level of the material or variant.
Bin: Default storage location in the warehouse. Shown on put-away and picking list PDF printouts. This is a Standard or higher plan feature. Read more about storage bins.

Note: Safety stock levels for materials can be set on the Stock screen. It is used to ensure that you always have sufficient stock to protect the business against spikes in demand.

Read more about safety stock levels and determining the appropriate level.

Used in BOMs

Shows in what BOMs a material is being used (if it's being used in any)

This tab displays all product recipes (Bills of Materials) where the material is utilized (it won't show if the material hasn't been added to a product recipe / BOM).

You can also replace a specific material in multiple product recipes by selecting 1 or more BOMs and clicking on Swap-out material.

Button for swapping out material on the Used in BOMs tab of a Material card

Supply details

This tab is for managing purchase information:

Default Supplier: Preferred vendor for the material. Added to a PO automatically if the related material is added to the order.
Supplier currency: (available on Standard or higher subscription plans)
The currency your supplier does their business in and the currency your purchase prices are set in (Read more about setting supplier currency).
Default purchase unit of measure: if the supplier uses a different unit of measure for purchasing, you can define that in this field.
Unit conversion rate: if a different unit of measure was added, use this field to add the conversion rate to the material's default UoM.

Supply details table:

Variant: this column includes the names of the variants for this material
Supplier item code: codes used to identify raw materials and purchasable materials. Each variant can have multiple supplier item codes. Learn more about barcodes.
Default lead time: lead times reflect the time it takes for an item to be delivered or produced. This time could vary based on supplier or production process.
MOQ: The supplier's specified minimum order quantity. This helps ensure that orders meet the minimum requirements. Learn more about lead time and MOQ.
Default purchase price: purchase price of your materials from suppliers. This will be the default purchase price added to purchase orders, but can be edited per purchase order. Different purchase prices can be assigned to each material variant.

Selling a material

Although materials are often used as ingredients in recipes/BOMs and are not offered for sale, there are times when you may also want to sell them. If so, just check Sell under the Usability section of the material card.