AutoCAD Electrical Reports: How to Generate Bill of Materials and Component Lists

AutoCAD Electrical Reports: How to Generate Bill of Materials and Component Lists (Updated July 2026)

Here's what most people don't realise about AutoCAD Electrical: the drawings are only half the deliverable. What turns an electrical schematic from a picture into a manufacturable product is the reports package — the Bill of Materials that procurement uses to order parts, the wire list that the wiring harness team uses to cut and label cables, the terminal report that the panel builder uses to build the terminal strip, and the component report that QA uses to verify every device is tagged correctly. AutoCAD Electrical generates all of these automatically from your drawings — but only if your drawings are correctly annotated and your electrical audit is clean. This guide walks through how to generate each report type, what it contains, and how to get it right the first time.

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What Reports AutoCAD Electrical Can Generate — The Complete List

AutoCAD Electrical's report engine can produce: Bill of Materials (BOM) — every component in the project with part number, description, quantity, and manufacturer; Wire List — every wire in the project with wire number, from-terminal, to-terminal, wire colour, and gauge; Terminal Report — all terminal strips with their wire connections, used by panel builders to wire the terminal block; Component Report — all components with their tags, locations, description, and catalogue numbers; Missing Bill of Material report — components that lack part numbers or catalogue entries; Panel Bill of Materials — components from the panel layout drawing specifically; Signal Error List — wires with signal errors (duplicate signals, floating signals). Each report can be generated for the full project or for selected drawings only.

The Correct Sequence: Audit First, Then Generate Reports

The most important rule before generating any report: run the electrical audit first. Reports pull data from component attributes in your drawings — if a motor has a duplicate tag, or a wire is numbered incorrectly, or a component is missing a manufacturer code, those errors appear in your BOM and wire list as incomplete or wrong data. Clean your audit to zero critical errors (warnings are acceptable for some categories) before generating your final reports. In the last session described in the ABC Trainings tutorial, the audit-first-then-report sequence is the professional standard — and it's what any quality-conscious client or certifier expects to see in a project deliverable.

How to Generate a Bill of Materials (BOM) in AutoCAD Electrical

To generate a BOM in AutoCAD Electrical: in the Project Manager, right-click your project and select Reports. In the Reports dialog, select Bill of Material from the report type list. Click Setup to configure which columns appear in the BOM — typically you include Tag, Description, Manufacturer, Catalogue Number, and Quantity. Select the drawings to include (usually all drawings in the project). Click OK to generate. The BOM appears in the AutoCAD Electrical report viewer. You can sort by Tag, by Manufacturer, or by catalogue number. Click Export to Excel to save as .xlsx. The BOM you generate here is the procurement document — your purchasing team orders parts from exactly this list, so completeness and accuracy are critical.

How to Generate a Wire List and Terminal Report

Wire List generation: in the Reports dialog, select Wire List. Configure columns (Wire Number, From, To, Wire Colour, Cross Section). Select all drawings. Click OK. The wire list shows every wire in the project by number, with the source terminal (the component and pin the wire starts at) and destination terminal. This document goes to the wiring harness team or the panel wiring technician. Terminal Report: select Terminal Report from the report type list. This report groups wires by terminal strip — showing each terminal number, the wire connected on the left, and the wire on the right. Panel builders use this to verify their terminal block wiring against the design before power-on.

How to Generate a Component Report and Signal Error Report

Component Report: select Component Report. This generates a list of every component in the project with its tag, drawing number, installation code, location code, description, manufacturer, and catalogue number. This is the document quality assurance uses to verify that every component on the physical panel matches the design documentation. Signal Error List: select Signal Error List. This shows every source/destination signal pair and flags missing destinations, duplicate signal names, or signals with no source. A clean signal error list means every signal in your schematic has exactly one source and at least one destination — which is the correct electrical design requirement.

Exporting AutoCAD Electrical Reports to Excel

To export any report to Excel: after generating the report in the report viewer, click the Export button (or right-click in the report view and select Export to Excel). Save as .xlsx. The exported file preserves column headers. You can then format the Excel sheet with your company logo and apply custom formatting before sending to clients. Some clients require the BOM in a specific Excel template — ask for the template early in the project, map your AutoCAD Electrical attributes to match those columns, and the export process becomes repeatable and consistent.

Common Report Errors and How to Fix Them

Common report errors: 'Component count differs between drawings' — this usually means a component was placed but not properly tagged, or a drawing was not included in the project. Fix by checking the component report for untagged components. 'Duplicate tag found' — two components have the same tag number (the electrical audit would have caught this first — which is why we audit before generating reports). 'Missing catalogue number' — a component has a tag and description but no manufacturer part number in its attribute. Fix by selecting the component in the drawing, right-clicking, and editing its properties to add the catalogue number from the AutoCAD Electrical manufacturer database.

FAQs

Can I generate a partial BOM for only selected drawings in AutoCAD Electrical?

Yes. In the Reports dialog, before clicking OK to generate, you can select which drawings to include in the report. Uncheck the drawings you want to exclude. This is useful when you want a BOM for Phase 1 of a project (which covers the first 20 sheets) separately from Phase 2. You can also generate the report for the active drawing only by choosing 'Active Drawing' in the report scope dropdown, which generates a BOM just for the sheet you're currently working on.

How do I add a custom column to the AutoCAD Electrical BOM?

Custom columns in the BOM come from component attribute data in your symbol blocks. If you want a column like 'Supplier Lead Time' or 'Unit Cost', you need to add those as attributes to your component symbols first using the Symbol Builder or the Attribute Editor. Once the attribute exists on the component symbols, you can add it as a column in the BOM Setup dialog. This is a more advanced customisation that requires access to your symbol library files — typically done at the company template level so all engineers use consistent symbol attributes.

Why does my BOM show the same component listed multiple times?

Duplicate entries in the BOM usually mean the same component appears on multiple drawings and AutoCAD Electrical is listing each instance. If your project has a motor (M1) on Sheet 1 and the same motor M1 appears as a cross-reference on Sheet 5, the BOM setting may be counting both instances. Fix this in BOM Setup — set the report to 'Combine components from all drawings' and enable the 'Summarise components with same catalogue number' option. This merges duplicates and shows the correct total quantity.

Do reports in AutoCAD Electrical update automatically when I change the drawings?

No. AutoCAD Electrical reports do not update in real time. You must re-generate the report each time you make changes to drawings that affect the report data. This is by design — the report represents a snapshot of the project at the moment of generation, which is what clients and manufacturers need for procurement and build documentation. Best practice: generate reports at project milestones (draft submission, final submission, as-built) and clearly label each export with the date and revision number.