Getting Started

SikaBooks keeps production, costing, quality and recall records that support IAS 2, FDA Ghana and GRA workflows. It does not guarantee regulatory, tax or accounting compliance. Confirm statutory rules, excise rates and professional judgements with qualified advisers.

1.1 What Manufacturing Does

Manufacturing covers the whole life of a batch:

• Recipes — the bill of materials plus the work needed to make a stated quantity, with a version history
• Production orders — plan a batch, hold its materials, issue material lots, log work and record good and rejected output
• Batch cost — the final unit cost under IAS 2, with normal and abnormal loss, fixed overhead and by-products
• Planning — what to make next and what materials to buy
• Customer jobs — make-to-order work with deposits, deliveries and the balance invoice
• Quality, trace and recalls — checks, cure time, independent release, forward and backward trace, and FDA Ghana recalls
• Factory finance — month end, piece rates for Payroll, outsourced steps, and excise and tax stamps
• Shop floor on the phone — timers, material lots and output from the SikaBooks app

A recipe says what goes into one batch. A production order is one run of that recipe. A batch is the good output of a run, with its own batch number, made-on date and best-before date.

1.2 Navigating the Sidebar

The Manufacturing sidebar has these entries. You only see the ones your role allows.

• Home — your production day: work that needs you, open orders and what was made this week
• Production
  • Production orders — plan, make and finish each batch. The badge counts orders Waiting for materials
  • Work-centre capacity — day, week and list schedules for explicitly required operations
  • What to make — suggestions from accepted proformas, open jobs and reorder points, plus the buy list
  • Jobs — customer make-to-order jobs
• Products
  • Recipes — what goes into each product you make
  • Batches and trace — what went into a batch and where its output went
  • Quality and recalls — batches waiting for a quality decision, and recall records. The badge counts batches waiting for a quality decision
• Insight
  • Reports — finished batches and their cost, plus Month end, Piece counts for Payroll and Excise and tax stamps
• Settings
  • Settings — how batches are made, costed, numbered and posted
  • Work centres — simultaneous capacity, working calendars and downtime
• Compliance
  • Audit Trail — the shared audit history, when Accounting and your audit permission allow it
• Help
  • User manual — this interactive guide

Each page has a Manufacturing breadcrumb above its heading. Use it to return to Manufacturing Home. Month end and Excise also include Reports when your role can open it.

This manual follows the sidebar, with one exception: Settings and Recipes come first, because you need them before you plan a batch.

1.3 Using Global Search

Inside Manufacturing, the search bar at the top searches Manufacturing records. Type at least two characters. Results are grouped as:

• Recipes — by recipe name; results show the product, current version and status
• Production orders — by order number, such as PRD-2026-00012; results show the product, quantity and status
• Customer jobs — by job number or customer name; results show the customer, product, quantity and status
• Batches and trace — by batch number

Results never show costs. Use Search SikaBooks or Ctrl/Command+K to jump to any Manufacturing page you can open, including New production order and the User manual.

1.4 Quick Create

The Quick Create button opens these shortcuts, each shown only when your role can use it:

• New production order — plan a batch to make
• New recipe — define a product and its materials
• New customer job — plan work for a customer

The shared gold button opens the same Quick Create on Business Home and Manufacturing pages.

1.5 Home

Where to find it: Sidebar > Home

Home greets you by name and shows the date, the business and the default workshop. The header has New recipe and New production order when your role allows them.

Needs you lists production work that needs attention:

• An order is waiting for materials, with each shortage and, where another order is making that material, the order it is planned in
• An order has its planned materials issued and looks ready to finish
• A batch needs a quality decision: Ready to release, Curing or Checks needed (shown to people who check or release quality)
• An open recall with its start or recovery deadline, or how long it has been overdue (shown to people who manage recalls)
• Failed production postings that need review (shown to people who can view costs)
• A customer job due within 7 days
• Piece counts that need approval (shown to people who approve piece counts)
• Production materials below their Inventory reorder point

The ready-to-finish hint requires output covering the plan, issued materials, no running timer and no outstanding outsourced work. It requires a time log only if the recipe version has an in-house hourly labour or power step. Recipes without those steps, including piece-only recipes recorded from the phone, do not need a time log for this hint.

Below it are the figures:

• Open orders — with a count by status
• Made this week — good units in batches finished this week
• Work in progress — recorded production costs still in progress (cost permission only)
• Cost against recipe — how the last runs of one product compare with their recipe estimate (cost permission only)

Home also lists the latest Production orders, a Cost per unit chart of the last five finished runs of a product you choose (cost permission only), and Materials running low.

1.6 Business Home

When you can open Manufacturing, Business Home shows a Manufacturing card in Operations, under Right now, with In progress, Waiting for materials, Partly done · waiting to finish and Quality decisions. People with cost permission also see Work in progress costs. Open Manufacturing Home takes you to Manufacturing. Needs attention uses the same waiting orders, quality and cure decisions, recall start or recovery deadlines, and failed postings as Manufacturing Home, with each item shown only to people allowed to review it.

1.7 Choose Your Learning Path

Choosing a path does not grant permissions. Your role decides what you can see and do.

1.8 How Numbers Are Shown

Money uses the business currency, for example GH₵1.59. A negative amount carries a true minus sign before the currency, for example −GH₵75.20. A difference against the recipe shows a plus or minus sign. Count products use whole units. Products measured by weight, volume or length use up to four decimal places. CSV downloads keep plain numbers so spreadsheets can read them.