A price list is only worth what its rates are worth
Keeping rates current is what separates a useful list from a stale one that makes your estimates confidently wrong. SmarteBuild links items back to their source, so a refresh reaches them — and tells you what moved rather than changing it underneath you.
Available on the Estimator plan and above
Four ways to refresh, and one to prefer
Alert Price Changes is the setting to have on. It tells you a rate has moved rather than changing it underneath you, so you decide whether to take the new price.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| Renew prices | Updates the selected items from their linked source |
| Renew all below prices | Updates everything below the current point |
| Renew all the products of this costing | Refreshes the whole costing |
| Alert Price Changes | Flags items whose source price has moved, without changing them |
Never renew prices on a submitted tender
Refreshing rates on a costing you have already quoted changes what the job says it costs, and your submitted price no longer matches your bill.
If you want to see what current rates would do, duplicate the costing and update the copy.
A typed rate is invisible to every refresh, forever
Only items carrying a Link to Pricelist can be reached by a refresh. Rates typed by hand stay exactly as typed, however many times you renew.
That is the practical argument for building estimates from the price list rather than typing over the top of it — not tidiness, but whether next year's refresh can reach the number at all.
Use the SmarteBuild catalogue, at the price you actually pay
The shared library saves you building a catalogue from nothing, but its rates are not your rates — you have an account with your supplier and someone else does not. Set your own price against any SmarteBuild item or product and yours is what estimates from then on, with the change kept in the item's price history like any other.
One of three ways to price an item
Your own price list, your history from previous jobs, ora quote a trade has just given you. A good estimate uses all three and knows which is which.
A closer look at price lists
The list, its structure, and what happens when a rate moves.
What it connects to
Nothing in SmarteBuild is an island — that is the point of it. Price Lists & Products reads from and feeds into these.
Bill of Quantities
The costed spine of the job — items, rates, markups and margin
Suppliers
One supplier list across every job, with their products and rates
Cost Centres & WBS
Structure a job once and reuse it on every job after it
Quotes Received
Record what trades quoted and push the winner into the BOQ
Want the detail?
The help centre documents Price Lists & Products step by step, with worked examples — written for people using it, not for a brochure.
Start with one job and see
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