Suppliers and products

An item can name the supplier you intend to buy it from, and the specific product you priced.

Neither is required to build an estimate. Both matter enormously once the job is won, because they are what let a purchase order write itself.

The fields

Field	What it holds
Supplier	Who you are buying from
Supplier SKU	Their part number
Manufacturer	Who makes it
Manufacturer Code	The manufacturer’s code
Link to Pricelist	The price list entry the rate came from
Related bid	The tender bid this rate came from, if any

Why the supplier matters

Purchase Orders groups by supplier. Items with a supplier attached collect into an order for that supplier automatically — the right items, the right quantities, the right descriptions, without you assembling anything.

Items with no supplier have to be assigned by hand at order time, one at a time, on every job.

Attach suppliers while you estimate, not when you order

You know who you priced it with at the moment you price it. Three weeks later, when you are raising twenty orders in an afternoon, you do not. Filling the field takes a second during estimating and saves minutes each at ordering.

Why the SKU matters

Supplier SKU prints on the order. A supplier receiving a part number does not have to interpret your description, which is where substitutions and wrong deliveries come from.

It matters most on anything with variants — tapware, tiles, hardware, appliances, anything with a finish or a colour. “Chrome mixer” is not an order; a SKU is.

Manufacturer details

Manufacturer and Manufacturer Code matter where the client has specified a product, or where a warranty depends on what was installed. They also feed the job specification, so the handover documents say what actually went in.

Choosing a product for an item

The Products button on a BOQ row opens the product picker for that item. It is where you decide which product the item is priced from.

Choosing a product changes the price

Once a product is selected, the item is priced from that product’s price, not its own rate. The top of the picker shows the rate, the quantity and the line total, and they change the moment you pick something. Use the item’s own rate instead puts it back.

The picker has two tabs.

On this item lists the products the item already has - its own copies, each with its supplier, price and picture. Use this selects one. The pencil opens it to edit: supplier, SKU, manufacturer, finish, colour, size, a note, a picture. Editing a copy never changes the price list.

From the price list lists the supplier products offered by the price list item this item was imported from, at the price that applies to your company - your own price where you have set one. Add and use copies one onto the item and selects it; Add copies it without selecting. Products already on the item are marked. Price list products are changed in Price lists, not here - Edit in Price lists opens the item there.

Search and the supplier dropdown work across whichever tab is open, and the supplier dropdown only lists suppliers that actually have a product there. Cards or a list - the switch beside the search box - is remembered for you.

When the price list has moved

A product copied from the price list keeps the price it had when it was copied. When the price list changes, the product shows a badge - price list $640 with an arrow - and Update from price list appears in the toolbar with a count.

It opens a preview: each product that has moved, its price now and its price list price, all ticked. If the estimate is priced from one of them, it shows what the line total becomes. Nothing changes until you confirm, so an estimate never moves because somebody edited the price list.

Not on a submitted tender

The same rule as renewing prices: updating a product on a costing you have already quoted changes what the job says it costs.

Tidying up

Remove unused lists the products on the item that nothing uses - not selected, not on an order, invoice, quote or bid, and not a client’s colour choice - and removes them when you confirm. A product that is in use cannot be deleted; the picker says where it is used.

New product types one in, for something that is not in the price list.

Adding products to the price list

A product typed on the item can go into the price list, so the next job that uses the same price list item can pick it instead of typing it again. Add to price list in the toolbar - its count is how many products on the item are not in the price list - or the cloud button on one product opens a preview, with each product showing what will happen:

• New in price list - it is added under the price list item this estimate item was imported from, with its supplier, SKU, details, price (ex GST) and picture.
• Links to existing - that price list item already has the same product (same supplier and SKU, or the same name when there is no SKU), so this copy is linked to it rather than added twice.
• A product with no supplier cannot go in until you give it one.

Nothing changes until you confirm. Afterwards the product shows as From the price list on this item, and Update from price list keeps it in step from then on. Adding needs access to Price lists, and only works for an item that was imported from a price list.

In Colour Selection the same picker records the client’s choice instead, and shows the estimate’s product next to it for comparison. It does not change the estimate.

If you have view-only access to a job, the picker opens read-only.

Managing products on a costing

The Items menu carries product-level commands:

Command	What it does
Add new product	Creates a product against the item
Renew prices	Updates rates from the linked source
Renew all the products of this costing	Refreshes everything at once
Remove all unused products	Clears products no item refers to
Export all products	Exports the product list

Remove all unused products is worth running after heavy editing. Products orphaned by deleted items clutter the pickers and slow things down without affecting any price.

Export all products produces the buying list for the whole job — useful for a supplier who wants to quote the package rather than line by line.

Related bid

Where a rate came from a tender, Related bid links the item back to the bid.

That link is what answers “who quoted this, and when?” six months later. It is filled in automatically when you bring a bid into the bill from Tenders, so it costs you nothing.

Worked example: ordering the slab

The slab items were priced with suppliers attached:

Item	Supplier	SKU
Concrete N32	Barwon Concrete	N32-20-80
SL72 mesh	Surf Coast Steel	SL72-6X2.4
Vapour barrier	Surf Coast Steel	VB200-4X25
Concrete pump	Barwon Concrete	PUMP-CALLOUT

When the job is won, Purchase Orders produces two orders — one to Barwon Concrete, one to Surf Coast Steel — each carrying the right items with part numbers and the site address already on them.

Had the supplier fields been blank, that would have been four items to assign by hand before anything could be sent.