> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.garmentflow.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What changed in v5

> The big improvements in GarmentFlow v5 — and what each one means for how you work.

GarmentFlow v5 reorganizes the platform around the **style**, builds a faster commercial
flow, brings production into one hub, splits the shipment record from the carrier document,
schedules backward from the customer's ship date, and lets your administrator tune which
optional capabilities are on. This page frames each change as a benefit, so you can see
what's in it for you whether you're already running GarmentFlow or evaluating it.

If you read one concept first, make it the [style-centric model](/concepts/style-centric-model) —
it's the idea the rest of v5 builds on.

## GarmentFlow records what your team writes

Before the sections below, hold one frame in mind: GarmentFlow is the record of what
your team types. The platform does not observe physical movement, does not know where
goods physically are, and does not control who picks them up or where they go. Every
balance, every status, every shipment "leg" is a book entry the team writes — and the
numbers you see are always consistent with what was actually received, issued, and
shipped on those records. See
[Purchasing, receipts, and inventory](/concepts/purchase-receipts-inventory) for the
inventory ledger and [Shipments](/modules/shipments) for the same frame on the outbound side.

## Build a style once, reuse it across every order

In v5, the <Tooltip tip="The reusable product record that owns the BOM, cost sheet, and manufacturing orders.">[style](/reference/glossary#style)</Tooltip>
is the system of record for its <Tooltip tip="The bill of materials — the list of fabrics and trims a style is made from.">[BOM](/reference/glossary#bom-bill-of-materials)</Tooltip>,
its <Tooltip tip="The costing breakdown for a style, used for quoting and margin analysis.">[cost sheet](/reference/glossary#cost-sheet)</Tooltip>,
its fitting history, and its <Tooltip tip="A manufacturing order — the production document issued for a specific order's version of a style.">[manufacturing orders](/reference/glossary#mo-manufacturing-order)</Tooltip>.

**What this means for you:** you create a style's documents once. When the same style
comes back next season, you reuse it instead of rebuilding it. Each order that runs
the style works against its own approved version of the BOM and cost sheet, and that
version is **pinned to the order** — so two orders on the same style can evolve and be
approved separately without stepping on each other. Every change is captured as an
<Tooltip tip="A saved, numbered revision of a style document such as a BOM or cost sheet.">[artifact version](/reference/glossary#artifact-version)</Tooltip>,
so you always know which version a given order is running. Fitting is now per-style too:
one validation record takes a style from first proto through to a sample approved for
bulk, and the same approval serves every order that reuses the style.

This replaces the older order-centric approach, where the same product had to be
re-entered for every order and there was no shared product record to reuse.

## Quote, convert, and order on one connected chain

v5 rebuilds the commercial front of the system on a single
[documents and conversion chain](/concepts/documents-and-conversion-chain). A
<Tooltip tip="A price offer sent to a customer before an order is placed.">[quotation](/reference/glossary#quotation)</Tooltip>
becomes a <Tooltip tip="A preliminary invoice sent to confirm price, quantity, and terms before shipment.">[proforma invoice](/reference/glossary#pi-proforma-invoice)</Tooltip>
becomes an order — each step carries the line items forward instead of asking you
to retype them.

**What this means for you:** quoting is faster and more consistent, the numbers you
quoted flow into the documents that follow, and customer-facing PDFs are generated for
you with your company's branding and terms. Customer-facing documents — the quotation
and the proforma invoice — only ever carry the prices the customer is party to, while
the cost sheet behind them can be exported separately for factory, customer, or internal
audiences. And AI can produce a starting draft of a quotation, proforma invoice, or
cost sheet for you to review and approve, so you begin from a worked draft instead of a
blank page. See [Readiness engine and AI](/concepts/readiness-engine-and-ai) for where
AI fits.

## Run production from one hub

v5 brings subcontracting, purchasing, inventory, and quality claims together in a
single **Production** hub, organized into four tabs:

* **Subcontracting** — a single <Tooltip tip="The outsourcing document covering work sent to a factory; it can span several orders and styles.">[factory order](/reference/glossary#factory-order)</Tooltip>
  can cover several customer orders and styles at once, each with its own factory
  price, and can be converted into a signed contract.
* **Purchasing** — when you raise <Tooltip tip="A purchase order sent to a supplier for fabric or trims.">[purchase orders](/reference/glossary#po-purchase-order)</Tooltip>
  for the materials a style needs, the platform reads the order's approved BOM and seeds
  one draft purchase order per vendor with the order's quantity for that line and the
  unit price captured from the approved cost sheet. Buying is against real demand, not a
  blank form.
* **Inventory** — your administrator may enable balance views for materials and
  finished goods. When they're on, every balance is calculated from a running record of
  receipts, issues, and returns — always consistent with what was actually received and
  issued, with no hand-typed counts to keep in sync.
* **Claims** — your administrator may enable claims tracking. When it's on, you track
  material and garment quality claims with photos, start to close.

**What this means for you:** the operational heart of an OEM business is in one place,
with the order, the factory work, the materials, and the stock balances all reading from
the same records.

## Ship and book the carrier as two separate things

v5 splits the shipment side into two records that work together. The **outbound shipment**
is the per-leg operational record on the order — auto-seeded when the factory order is
issued, and the record whose shipped status draws the finished-goods record down. The
**commercial shipment** is the customer-facing document for the batch — vessel or flight,
bill of lading or air waybill, carrier, and the link to the commercial invoice — created
by hand when the team is ready to book the carrier.

**What this means for you:** the team's operational record of the leg and the
customer-facing document for the batch each get their own record, so the per-leg work
doesn't have to wait on the carrier booking and the customer-facing document doesn't
have to carry per-leg internals. See [Shipments](/modules/shipments).

## Schedule backward from the ship date

v5 schedules production and material targets **backward from the customer's ship date**,
using your own lead-time offsets, so each milestone has a target date that lands the
shipment on time. The
<Tooltip tip="The capability that tracks an order's production readiness and surfaces risks early.">[readiness engine](/reference/glossary#readiness-engine)</Tooltip>
then watches what's missing inside each stage, not just what's done, and flags anything
slipping before it derails the ship date.

Your administrator may enable a material-arrival check on the cutting milestone of a
factory order: when the BOM materials for that order haven't been received, the milestone
shows a red gate with the per-line shortfall — with the option to override and record a
reason when you need to proceed anyway.

**What this means for you:** you see what has to happen by when to hit the ship date,
and — if the material gate is on — the system helps prevent starting production before
the materials it depends on are in.

## Tune the workspace to how your team works

The platform ships with a single **Feature settings** panel where an administrator turns
optional capabilities on and off and edits shared presets that apply across your whole
workspace. The inventory views, the claims module, receipts tracking, the
material-arrival check, and the proforma-invoice step in the conversion chain are all
workspace-tunable from there.

**What this means for you:** the workspace fits how your team actually works, without
turning every capability on by default. See [Feature settings](/admin/feature-settings)
for the panel and the capabilities it controls.

## Onboard in hours, not weeks

v5 adds a guided **Data Import** tool that bulk-imports your master data —
customers, vendors, fabrics, trims, colors, and units — from spreadsheet files.
It validates every row before saving, so a file either imports cleanly or tells you
exactly which rows to fix, and it never overwrites data you've already entered.

**What this means for you:** getting a new workspace ready is a matter of importing
your existing lists, not entering everything by hand.

## Related pages

* [The style-centric model](/concepts/style-centric-model)
* [Purchasing, receipts, and inventory](/concepts/purchase-receipts-inventory)
* [Production](/modules/production)
* [Shipments](/modules/shipments)
* [Feature settings](/admin/feature-settings)
* [Importing master data](/admin/importing-master-data)