We have the same situation. The BOM is not complete or assigned to the job until about 3-5 days before the start date. What we did as a work around was use a temporary part. Our company refers to this part as a long lead part. The long lead part has a method with any parts that need to be generated as purchasing suggestions. It's not perfect, because the end users don't tend to be detailed enough. Our users sometimes copy the same part and leave off important parts.
This process works for us in some cases however.
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We have used Vantage and prior versions for many years and are finally getting some of our processes streamlined enabling us to use more of the system and less workarounds. Our biggest problem in the past was that the BOM was not complete until it was too late to use for purchasing suggestions. Our workaround was an Excel based purchase requisition. Consequently we have no way of doing live inventory.
The changes we are making allow us to break the job down into pieces (separate jobs under a project) and then bring the BOM in as soon as that part of the design process is complete.
I have been messing with several possible methods from purchasing everything to inventory and the more standard purchasing direct to job except for items we commonly stock.
What is everyone else using to drive the purchasing process for both direct purchases and inventory purchases? What I am really struggling with is for items purchased to the job, I don't see them in the PO suggestion or the time phased if run as exception only.
Any ideas on this process as a whole would be greatly appreciated.