Keep-assembled cascade

When an order is cancelled or refunded, Assemblified walks the bill tree to decide what to restore where. The walk respects a Keep assembled on return setting at every layer: both the parent finished good’s bill and each assembly bill carry their own.

The rule that ties them together: the walk halts at any node that is set to keep its units assembled. This page explains the halt rule with examples.

On this page

• The switch, and where to find it
• The halt rule, and its three sources
• The three-branch table
• A worked example
• Logistified asymmetry

The switch

Every assembly bill has its own Keep assembled on returnKeep Assembled on ReturnA toggle on BOMs and sub-assemblies that controls cancel/refund behavior. When on, returned units restore the entity's pre-assembled shelf instead of breaking back into raws. Cascades through nested sub-assemblies — traversal halts at any node with the flag set. Read more → switch, independent of the parent bill’s. You find it on the assembly bill page under Settings → Preferences, next to Only consume pre-assembled stock. The two are saved together with the page’s save bar.

• On. When the assembly is being restored on cancel or refund, the units stay assembled: they go onto the assembly’s pre-assembled shelf rather than breaking back into raw materials.
• Off. The assembly’s components are restored to stock, and nested assemblies inside it are evaluated by the same rule.
• Default: off.

You can flip it for many bills at once from the Assembly Bills list: tick rows, then Assembly settings → Keep assembled on return → Enable / Disable.

The same setting exists for a finished good’s bill. See Refunds & cancellations for that side.

The halt rule

When the parent bill’s switch is off (so the walk is traversing), the cascade descends through nested assembly bills. At each assembly bill, the rule is:

• If the assembly keeps its units assembled: restore to that assembly’s pre-assembled shelf, and do not recurse further into its components. The components stay inside the assembled units.
• Otherwise: recurse deeper. The assembly’s components are restored normally.

Three different things make an assembly keep its units assembled, and they produce exactly the same halt:

1. Keep assembled on return is on for that bill.
2. Only consume pre-assembled stock is on for that bill. On the sale it consumed only its shelf, so there is nothing below to restore. The full quantity goes back to its shelf and the walk stops. See Only consume pre-assembled.
3. A per-location rule in Disabled or Pre-assembled only mode covers the location the return is happening at. At that location the assembly behaved as a shelf on the way out, so it behaves as one on the way back. Every other location is untouched. See Location rules.

The two sides always match

Whatever made the sale stop at an assembly makes the return stop at the same assembly. That is what keeps the arithmetic honest: components that were never consumed are never restored.

The three-branch table

For a finished good B containing assembly bill S:

Parent’s switch	Assembly’s switch	What restores on cancel or refund of N units
On	(any)	Nothing decomposes. The finished good’s pre-assembled +N.
Off	On	S’s pre-assembled +N × its reference quantity. S’s components stay inside. B’s direct raw materials return.
Off	Off	All raw materials return, both B’s direct ones and S’s nested ones. Recursion continues into deeper nested assemblies.

A worked example

Finished good B contains 3 × Raw R1 + 1 × Assembly bill S.

S contains 5 × Raw R2 + 2 × Raw R3.

A customer orders 4 units of B, then cancels.

Configuration A: B’s switch on

• B’s pre-assembled gets +4.
• R1, R2, R3 all unchanged.
• S’s pre-assembled unchanged.

Configuration B: B off, S on

• R1 +12 (4 units × 3 per unit).
• S’s pre-assembled +4 (4 units × 1 per unit).
• R2, R3 unchanged.

Configuration C: B off, S off

• R1 +12.
• R2 +20 (4 × 1 × 5).
• R3 +8 (4 × 1 × 2).
• Pre-assembled unchanged at every level.

Logistified asymmetry

If you have the Logistified integration, demand tracking always sees the full raw-material requirement on cancel or refund, regardless of the cascade. The reasoning: demand is in absolute terms. The order is not being fulfilled, so the demand drops. Whether the physical components actually return is a separate question, and that is what the cascade rule answers.

This is usually what you want. The asymmetry only matters when you reconcile reports across the two systems. See Refunds & cancellations for the finished-good side.

Common gotchas

• A deeper assembly’s setting is only consulted if the walk can reach it. A parent bill that keeps its units assembled stops everything; the settings below it are never read.
• Changing the setting is not retroactive. Cancellations already processed applied whichever branch was in force then. Flipping it now affects future cancellations only.
• A restore can leave a shelf negative, and that is correct. Nothing clamps at zero. If a cut-off sale had driven a shelf to −5, a +3 restore lands at −2. The negative is an honest record of a deficit; see Pre-assembled stock → Negative shelves.

Where to next

• Refunds & cancellations — the parent side, with partial versus full refund netting.
• Pre-assembled stock — where restored units land.
• The assembly bill page — where the switch lives.