BOM entry quantity zero

[mullocksj]

I work in a very small company that currently uses paper parts lists. It's a flexible system but tedious to back up and search, hence I am making a trial of Inventree (1.2.3). The hope is to convince colleagues to make a transition.

It is quite common here (and I believe elsewhere) to have BOM lines with the quantity set to "REF". These lines specify useful information that does not lead to a purchase. They may be build instructions, schematics etc. but also buildable parts that are useful to know about, but purchased elsewhere in the BOM tree. Note that the REF is a property of the BOM line, not the part itself.
I thought I could achieve the desired effect by specifying a quantity = 0, but that is not allowed. I was surprised. Why disallow zero? Is there a software switch I could change to allow zero? Would it cause a problem elsewhere e.g. code that divides by the quantity.
When I made a Google search for the REF issue, the Google AI suggested quantity = 0; obviously unhelpful! A further attempt suggested setting quantity to a very low number (0.0001 say), but that seems like an ugly solution. Also if zero does cause a problem then 0.00001 might have undesirable aide effects also.

If it was just circuit schematics, I guess I could make them virtual parts, but we often have REF lines a for a part that is called elsewhere with a normal integer quantity. I need a property of the BOM record not the part itself.

Surely someone else has run into this issue. I would be very grateful if someone could suggest a solution/work-around that plays nicely with the Inventree system.

[SchrodingersGat]

We recently merged this PR which adds support for zero quantity BOM - #11437

It will be available in the 1.3.0 release.

We also support consumable BOM items which sounds like it might be what you are looking for also?

[mullocksj]

Many thanks for taking the trouble to reply. It's good to hear a solution is on its way, in the mean time I'll experiment with the consumable idea. Generally, Inventree is looking quite powerful and I am really hoping we can use it. It is a matter of making it easy enough for colleagues to make the switch, so these details can make an important difference. Thanks again