Adding items
Four ways in, and when each one is the right one
Why this one matters
Every estimator has a private library in their head: the rates they know, the suppliers they trust, the items that go on every job. The trouble is that it stays in their head, so the same lines get typed again on the next job, at whatever rate they can remember.
This is the three minutes that decides whether your software saves you a day a week or costs you one. Watch what happens when an item you have priced before is one you have actually kept.
What you will see
- Typing a name and having it search your own price lists as you go
- An item arriving with its rate, and being asked where it belongs if its cost code differs
- Duplicating a line that is nearly right instead of building it again
- An assembly bringing in a whole bathroom fit-out, each line measured by one take-off
- Browsing price lists by cost code when you would rather look than type
- Picking the supplier product, so the line is ready for a purchase order
What was said
The narration, word for word, for anyone who would rather read it than watch it — or who is on a train.
There are a few ways to get an item into the bill. Which one depends on whether you’ve priced this kind of work before.
The quickest is plus Item. Start typing, and it searches your price lists as you go. Each match shows its unit and its rate.
Pick a match, and the item arrives with its price list rate. If it normally lives under a different cost code, you’re asked where it should go. And if nothing matches, type a name and you get a blank item to fill in yourself.
If you find yourself typing the same one-off item on every job, that work belongs in your price list.
When another item on this job is nearly the same, tick it and duplicate it, then change what’s different.
And for items that always go together — a bathroom fit-out, a slab — save them as an assembly. Next time, they come in together, each one measured by the same take-off.
Notice it leaves out items typed onto this job. Only price list items can go into an assembly, so add those to a price list first.
Plus Item is quickest when you know the name. When you would rather browse, press Import in the ribbon. It opens your price lists, filed under the same cost codes you use on every job. Choose a price list at the top, and its cost codes are down the left.
Click a cost code, and its items are listed with their code, unit and rate. The number beside a name is how many supplier products that item has. Switch to Products to see those products themselves, with each supplier and price, when you already know the one you want.
Tick Keep this window open when you have several to add. Then press Add. Just like plus Item, if the item normally lives under a different cost code, you are asked where it should go, and it arrives with its price list rate.
Because this item has supplier products, the product picker opens straight away. From the price list shows each product, with its supplier, its price, and what it would do to this line. A superseded one is marked, so an old range is not picked by mistake. Press Use this on the one you want.
Close the window, and the line carries that product, its supplier and its price, ready to go onto a purchase order. You can change the product any time from the Product column.
Doing it, rather than watching it
This page is the tour. When you are in SmarteBuild with a job open and need the detail — every option, every exception, the things the video had no time for — the help centre has the full article.
Adding items — the full reference
Read about it instead: Bill of Quantities · Price Lists & Products · Take-Off
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