The Cost Library

Every business quotes for the same handful of things over and over. Instead of typing out a day's labour, a double socket or a skip hire charge from scratch each time, save it once in the Cost Library. Each saved cost remembers your buy price, your markup and the resulting customer price, so it's ready to drop onto a quote whenever you need it. You can also save bundles - named groups of several costs, such as a standard kitchen install - that go onto a quote as one line.

How to save a cost or a bundle

1. Add a single saved cost. Open the Cost Library, make sure you're on the Items tab, and select New item. Give it a name and, if you like, a code, a type (Labour, Material or Subcontractor), a category and a unit (Each, Day, Metre and so on).
2. Enter the cost and markup. Type in what you pay and your markup percentage. The customer price is worked out for you automatically, so you never type the price directly. Save the item.
3. Add a bundle. Switch to the Bundles tab and select New bundle. Give it a name - this is what your customer will see on the quote - then add sub-items underneath it, each with its own type, quantity, unit, buy price and sell price.
4. Check the running totals. As you add sub-items, the bundle's total selling price, total buy cost, profit and margin update live, so you can see exactly what you're offering before you save.
5. Organise with categories. Give each item a category, such as Electrical or Decoration. The category list down the side shows a count next to each one, and you can select a category to filter the list, or use the search box to find items by name, code or category.

How to use the library on a quote

1. While building a quote, select Add from library.
2. Search or filter by category to find what you need.
3. Tick everything you want to add, then select Add to quote.
4. Each item you picked becomes its own quote line. Each bundle is added as a single named line, with its parts kept underneath it.

Good to know

• Your customer price is always cost plus markup - you set the cost and the markup percentage, and BuilderDash does the maths.
• Each item's margin is shown as a percentage of the selling price, and it's colour-flagged in the list so strong and thin margins stand out at a glance.
• A bundle's price comes from its sub-items, but on a quote your customer only ever sees the single bundle name - the breakdown behind it stays internal to you.
• Once an item or bundle is added to a quote, that quote keeps its own copy. Later changes to the library version won't update quotes you've already built, and changes you make on a quote don't feed back into the library.
• Adding, editing and deleting library items is done by an office user - field users and external users can't make changes.