nextbom

nextbom is a desktop application for creating Bills of Materials (BOMs) for electronic projects.

Core Concept

nextbom separates two concerns that are often tangled together: design and procurement.

In a typical workflow, a schematic assigns a generic identifier to each component — something like CAP00100 or RES00001. nextbom takes these generic IDs and resolves them to actual manufacturer part numbers from a separate database at BOM generation time.

This means:

• Changing a manufacturer does not require touching the schematic or redesigning the board.
• Project-specific alternatives can be maintained alongside the main parts database.
• Multiple design variants (e.g. a full and a lite assembly) are tracked as first-class concepts.

What You Can Do Today

• Create and manage projects with title, engineer, and project-specifics metadata
• Import a semicolon-delimited CSV from your EDA tool to load component designators and part IDs
• Generate a .nextbom BOM file from the imported CSV
• Save and reopen projects (.nbp files), with recent projects tracked automatically

How It Fits Together

graph LR
    EDA["Your EDA Tool<br/>(Schematic)"]
    CSV@{ shape: doc, label: "CSV Export<br/>(designator → generic ID)" }
    Import["Import CSV"]
    NextBom@{ shape: doc, label: ".nextbom BOM File<br/>(working file)" }
    Output@{ shape: doc, label: "Excel Output<br/>(complete BOM)" }

    Project@{ shape: doc, label: ".nbp Project File" }
    NextDb[(".nextdb Parts Database")]

    EDA -->|export| CSV
    CSV -->|import| Import
    Import -->|creates| NextBom
    NextBom -->|parse| Output

    NextDb -->|linked to| Project
    NextDb <-->|lookup| Output

    Project -->|inserts metadata| NextBom

When you generate BOM output, nextbom reads the .nextbom working file (designators and their generic part IDs) and resolves each generic ID through the linked .nextdb parts database to get the manufacturer part number.

Getting Started

1. Launch nextbom.
2. Create a project — give it a title, and optionally an engineer name.
3. Link your project to a .nextdb parts database.
4. Import your BOM CSV from your schematic tool.
5. Create a nextbom BOM file from the imported data.