Colour palettes

A palette is a named set of product choices for a job’s schedule, such as Coastal or Modern Dark. A job can have as many as you like. Compare what each would cost, offer them to the client, then put the chosen one onto the schedule.

A palette changes nothing until it is applied. The schedule stays the one live selection: orders, tenders and the estimate only ever read the schedule.

Making palettes

Open Colour palettes… in the Actions menu. New palette starts from what is on the schedule now. The window lists every item, with one column for the schedule and one for each palette.

Click a palette’s cell to choose another product for that item. The list holds the products already on the item, plus Add another product…, which opens the product picker. While it is opened from a palette, choosing a product changes that palette and leaves the schedule alone. Same as the schedule means the palette has no opinion on that item.

A blue edge marks a cell that differs from the schedule, with the difference in price beside it.

The price difference

The top of each palette’s column shows:

• what the schedule would total with this palette applied
• how much that is above or below the schedule now
• how much that is above or below the allowance

These totals are the client’s price: cost plus markup plus GST, because that’s what the choice does to the estimate. An item with its own markup takes that, and the rest take the estimate’s markup percentages. A fixed markup amount is left out, because it’s the same whichever palette is chosen.

Item prices in this window stay at cost, before GST, as on the schedule, so the items don’t add up to the total. An allowance typed on a category is what the client was promised, including GST, so it counts as typed against these totals. Quantities belong to the item, not the palette, so palettes always compare like with like.

Approved and ordered items stay put

An approved or ordered item keeps its product when a palette is applied, so its price is not counted as changing. The cell says so. Un-approve the item first if it should change.

Someone without the See prices and allowances permission sees the palettes without any figures. Someone who can see prices but not the markup sees the totals at cost, and the window says so.

Copying

Each palette’s column has its own buttons:

• Duplicate makes a new palette with the same products. It’s the quick way to make a variation.
• Copy products makes this palette take another palette’s products, for every category or just one. Use it when two palettes should share, say, the same tiling.

Copy from another job brings a palette across as a new palette. Items are matched to this schedule, never added to the estimate, and it lists any item with no single match. A product this item doesn’t have yet is added as an option at the other job’s price, so check it’s still current.

The company library

Your company’s standard palettes live in the Company library, ready for any job.

To add one, set up a palette on a job and press the bookmark button at the top of its column. It keeps its own copy of the products and pictures, so it stays even if that job is deleted. Saving under a name the library already has replaces that palette, after asking. Jobs already using it stay as they are.

To use one, press Company library and then Add to this job. It arrives as a new palette, matched to the schedule by item name, and it lists any item with no single match. Nothing changes on the schedule until you apply it, and you can adjust it for this job without changing the library.

Each product’s price comes from the most current place it can:

1. a product already on that item keeps this job’s price
2. a product still on your price list comes in at today’s price
3. anything else comes in at the price saved in the library, and the message tells you how many, so you can check they’re still current

The library belongs to your whole company, so changing it is restricted. Anyone who can make selections can add a library palette to a job. Only administrators, and people given the Change the company palette library permission, can save to it, replace, rename or delete. Everyone else doesn’t see those buttons. An administrator gives that permission under Users in the Admin panel; giving someone Colour Selection doesn’t include it. Deleting from the library leaves palettes already on jobs as they are.

Duplicating a job brings its palettes too, hidden from the new client.

Applying a palette

Apply to schedule puts the palette’s products onto the schedule. It tells you how many items change first. A changed item goes back to waiting for the client to confirm it, because they confirmed the old product. The estimate doesn’t change until you update the estimate as usual.

Letting the client choose

Tick Client sees on the palettes you are happy to offer. They stay hidden until you do.

If the job’s link lets the client change products, those palettes appear at the top of their selections page, each with what it would cost compared with their selections now and with their allowances. On a link that hides prices, they appear without figures. Everything a client sees on their page is their price, with markup and GST. They never see your cost.

When the client presses Choose this palette, the items they are allowed to change take its products. You get a notification and the palette’s column says they chose it. Those items are then ready for you to review like any other choice. Nothing is ordered, and the estimate doesn’t change.

In the Client tender and contract annexures

The Colour palette options section lists each palette with Client sees ticked, and its upgrade price including GST. That’s what it adds to the price compared with what the estimate has for those items. Once a palette has been pushed to the estimate, its upgrade price falls to nothing, so it never counts twice.

The palette the client chose goes into the price, and shows in the price breakdown as an upgrade. To use a different one or none, open the section’s settings and change Palette in the price. Once the client has signed online, the contract price is settled, and no palette is added to it.