Materials | Adding and Editing

Material items are used widely in the system. For example, materials and their details are shown on job cards and used in quote calculations.

The Material List

The material list is in the settings area, materials tab. You can add a new material by pressing the Add New (4) button or copying and modifying an existing item using the adjacent button. 

You can edit a material by searching for it in the list and pressing the I.D. field or the pencil button on its row.

If you have an extensive list of materials, M-Power staff can import them for you providing you have added them to a custom spreadsheet. The details on how to configure the spreadsheet are outlined here [article]

The Material Form

The add new material form is shown below, along with the description of the information needed for each field. The fields highlighted in green are the only required fields; all the other fields are optional. 

Description (1) is shown internally on lists and job cards. It is best to include size and other attributes so it is easy to distinguish between other materials in a list.

Public Description (2) is a customer-friendly description. If you are using recipes, this field will be used instead of the material's Description in any automatic description creation.

Supplier (3) field holds the primary supplier for the material. Entering a value here does not limit where the material can be purchased but makes it easier to group materials for updating.

Our Code (4) field is used for your internal part code. Internal part codes are handy for finding and grouping materials. 

Pack Size (5)  field is a number field that lists how many units are in the box that you purchase from the supplier. For instance, a pack of 10 sheets might be bought.
Please note: If you enter a quantity greater than 1, the buy price (12) must be the price you pay for the whole pack, NOT the per unit price. It is often simpler to disregard pack sizes and enter the unit price in (12)

Unit (6) field allows you to enter some text to represent the unit of measure.

Stock code (7) field is where the supplier's stock code is optionally entered. A stock code makes it easier for the supplier to determine which part you require if your description does not match theirs.

Dimensions (8)  are entered in the width, height and thickness fields. The width and height fields are used in calculations and must be entered consistently between materials. Therefore, any dimensions entered need to be in millimetres across all materials. Where the width is not relevant to the calculation (rope or tape, for example), then enter the length only and 1 in width. For items where neither the width nor height is used in the calculation (components), enter the physical size or 1 in the width and height.

inActive (9) checkbox can be unchecked to hide the material in the material list.

Part sheet (10) fields allow you to specify whether you want to round the result of a sheet calculation up to a full sheet for costing purposes. You would typically want to do this for materials you order specifically on a job-by-job basis. If you hold material in stock, it is not so important.

Notes (11) field is where you can optionally record any notes or instructions related to the material. 

Buy Price (12) field is whether you enter the price you pay to the supplier for a pack. Please look at the pack pricing note under Part Size (5). This field can be in a foreign currency, providing a landed price (13) is also entered. The Buy Price is the amount that will show on the purchase order. This field is only required for pricing purposes - it is optional if you have specified a Sell Price (15) or landed price.

Landed Cost (13) field is where you enter the total cost of landing the material to your business, including freight costs, i.e. "Free in Store". Of course, the freight cost per item will depend on the quantity ordered, so add the freight cost based on your regular order quantity. For example, a $100 material with a $25 freight cost would be entered as $125 in the landed cost field. The landed cost is used in quote calculations if it is entered and nothing is entered in the Sell Price (14) field.

Sell Price (14) field is an optional field where you can enter the selling price for a material used in quote calculations. It is helpful if you do not use a cost-plus pricing method or your sell price is based on a different measure to the buy price (i.e. if the material is purchased as sheets and sold as square metres). If you do not enter a value in the field, the quote calculations will use the greater of the landed cost or buy price + the markup (15)

Markup (15) is a value added to the sell price or landed cost in quote calculations. If you have entered a sell price, it makes sense to have 0 in this column. If you use cost-plus pricing, then enter a value in this field. The formula is calculated using the landed cost + markup. For Example. if the sell price were blank, and the markup was 50%, then the quote formula would use $65.00 (landed cost)  + 50% (x 1.5) = $97.50

Minimum charge field (16)  is used in quoting calculations. For example, if the cost of the material were $12.50, then the $20.00 would be used as the total cost because it is greater than the calculated price.

Quote Formula (17) field is whether you specify the calculation used to determine the quantity used in quoting. The formulas used are explained here. 

Price Method (18) is an optional field that extends the flexibility of the pricing and quantity display for an item used in a quote. The most common are:

• Empty  - the system uses the formula specified in (17)
• Lineal Metres - an outcome of a formula specified as a Roll is displayed as lineal metres, which makes it easier for staff to process
• Price List - if you want the system to use different prices in quotations for the material based on a clients customer class (Retail, Trade etc.), then you can create a pricelist using the [+] button (20)  

Price List (19) that is linked to the item can be edited using the pencil edit button below (20)

Inventory Field (21) allows you to specify this item as an inventory item. Inventory is covered in other sections.