Projects and BOM
A project groups items into a build with a bill of materials (BOM), reservations and a budget — a repair, a make, a job, a kit you're assembling. It answers "do I have everything I need, and can I afford it?"
Where to find it: the Projects screen (in the menu, when the module is enabled).
A project's BOM lists the items it needs and how many of each. From that list, Gubbins works out:
- What you already have versus what's short.
- An automatic shopping list of the missing pieces.
So starting a project immediately tells you whether you can proceed or need to buy first.
If a part on the list requires another item that isn't also on the list, Gubbins marks that line with a warning glyph naming what's missing. It catches the bill of materials that looks complete but would build into something unusable — the controller without its power supply, the printer without its build plate.
Add the missing item as its own line to clear the flag. As with everything on the BOM it's advisory: nothing stops you ordering or picking the list as it stands. Record the dependency on the Related tab of the item that needs it; see Related items.
Reserve stock for a project to earmark it — the reserved quantity is set aside so it isn't accidentally used elsewhere before you get to the build. Your available count reflects the reservation.
A project can total its cost, and toggle how it's costed (for example, what you'd pay to buy the missing parts versus the value of everything in the build). The missing-parts shopping list flows into your purchasing.
💡 Tip Projects are great even for one-off jobs: drop in the parts, see what's short, and let Gubbins build the shopping list — no need to work it out on paper.
ℹ️ Note A project is a one-off build with its own BOM and budget. A reusable assembly you make repeatedly is better modelled as a kit — that page has a fuller side-by-side comparison of the two.
When it's time to build, the Picking list turns the BOM into a walk-and-tick-off worksheet. For every line it shows where to find it — the exact locations its stock sits in, busiest first (for example "3 in Garage · Shelf B, 2 in Loft bin 4") — drawn straight from your per-location stock. Gather each part, tick it off, and a progress bar tracks how much of the build you've collected.
A line with no matching item, or a matched item you're out of, is still listed so nothing is forgotten — it just shows there's no shelf to walk to.
Once every line is ticked, the worksheet surfaces a Finalise step: the natural moment to consume the gathered parts into the finished build (a new container location, a single assembled item, or simply used up).
💡 Tip Picking is independent of reserving. Reserve to earmark stock ahead of time; pick to mark it physically collected when you're actually at the shelf. A part can be reserved but not yet picked, or picked without ever being reserved.
Use Export BOM (beside Import BOM) to save the bill of materials as a file — for sharing a parts list, ordering, or printing. Pick the form that suits:
- CSV or TSV — a spreadsheet of every line, ready for Excel, Sheets or a supplier upload.
- Excel workbook (.xlsx) — opens straight into Excel or Sheets with numbers kept as numbers.
- JSON — the lines as structured data, for a script or another tool to read.
- Markdown table — drops straight into notes, a README or a wiki.
- HTML — a tidy, standalone page that opens in your browser and prints cleanly.
- Plain text — a simple aligned table to paste anywhere.
Each line carries its part details (designator, MPN, manufacturer), the required / reserved / received quantities, its reservation and procurement status, and the unit and line cost — so the exported file is a complete snapshot of the build's parts.
The same menu also offers an EDA BOM (grouped CSV) — the layout electronics tools such as
KiCad or Altium expect. Parts that share a value, MPN and manufacturer are merged into one row,
their reference designators listed together (R1, R2, R3) and their quantities summed, so the file
imports cleanly into a schematic or PCB tool's BOM.
💡 Tip Choose HTML when you want a printout to take to the bench or the shop — it's laid out for paper, CSV/TSV or Excel when a supplier or spreadsheet needs to read the numbers back, and EDA BOM when you're feeding the parts list into an electronics design tool.
- Budgets — setting and tracking a project's budget.
- Kits & bundles — reusable assemblies.
- Reorder & shopping list — buying what a project needs.
- Export & import — projects get their own export sub-folders.