Item Catalog Screen

Updated on 19 Dec 2024
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When you create or modify items from the Item Catalog Search List screen, an Item screen is displayed, allowing you to provide information associated with the item. The Item screens for labor, material, equipment, subcontractors, and others are generally the same, but the title identifies the item type. The item screen for kits has a greater variance.

Item Screen for Labor, Material, Equipment, Sub, and Other

The following shows the item screen for materials representing the non-kit screens (screens for labor, material, equipment, sub, and other – which are almost the same).

Screen capture of the Material item catalog screen, with the Allocation Unit Price Item Override field highlighted.

The screen elements on the Item screens are described in the following table.

Screen Element	Description
Item Name	Specify the common name for the item – the name of the item as presented to the customer on the proposal.
Alternate Name	Provide a more technical or specific name for the item. For plants, for example, this might be a genus and species. This item name is presented in the following places in Aspire: Item combo-box when estimating Item Catalog Search List Purchasing Assistant Search List Available to be included in the Purchase Receipt layouts Available to be included in Estimate Sheet layouts available from the Estimate screen
Category	Select an item category as established on the Catalog Item Category screen.
Purchase Units	Specify the unit of measure that provides the basis for ordering the item from a vendor. For example, if you order Roundup in two-gallon containers, the purchase unit might be “2 Gal.” They define valid units that populate this drop-down on the Unit Type screen.
Conversion Factor	Provides the multiplier to convert purchase units to allocation units. In the example from the screenshot above, there are 256 ounces in a two-gallon container. If the purchase unit is the same as the allocation unit, the conversion factor is set to one and is read-only.
Allocation Units	Specify the unit of measure that provides the basis for allocating the item to the job. For example, if you allocate Roundup concentrate on the jobs in ounces, the purchase unit might be “oz.” They define valid units that populate this drop-down on the Unit Type screen.
Allocation Unit Item Price Override	Set the unit item override price directly at the catalog level, ensuring that the correct override price is always populated in the estimate. When an item with an override price is added to an estimate, Aspire overrides the price on the estimate to the catalog price.
Item Code	Vendor code or manufacturer code.
EPA Number	The number assigned by the Environmental Protection Agency to identify specific chemicals.
EPA Name	Name assigned by the Environmental Protection Agency to identify specific chemicals.
Assigned Branch	This field is only available if the Enhance Branch Admin Security option is checked. Allows the branch admin to specify the branches for which the item can be used. If no value is provided, the default is “All Branches.” Branch Administrators are only allowed to select branches to which they have access. Once items have been defined and their branches properly set, only items accessible to the logged-in user will be available for adding to estimates.
Active	The Active column indicates whether the item will be available for estimating or for defining kits in Aspire. Marking an item as inactive provides a method of effectively deleting it for future use without impacting historical references to the item.
Available to Bid	This checkbox determines whether an item can be directly included in an opportunity estimate. For example, you might want to make items available for creatingkits but restrict their direct inclusion in estimates. If selected, the item will appear in the item list and can be included when bidding. If cleared, the item will not be available in the item list for bidding.
Inventory Item	Determines whether Aspire will allow items to be placed into inventory. To protect historical information, once a catalog item has had items placed into inventory, this checkbox becomes disabled preventing you from converting it to a “non-inventory” item in the future.
Takeoff Item	This value is the takeoff item on the property for the estimate on which the calculation of item quantity will be based. When using property takeoffs to allow Aspire to automatically calculate item quantities, you should always include items in kits rather than placing them directly onto the services in the opportunity estimate.
Allocation Item Cost	Read-only. Aspire calculates the value by dividing the purchase unit cost by the allocation unit conversion factor. When you enter the purchase unit cost, the allocation unit item cost is not updated until you save the item. If they pull the item up again, they will see the recalculated value.
Add Inventory Cost Icon	This icon is only available for items marked as inventory items. When new costs go into effect for catalog items that are marked as inventory items, users can add a new inventory cost entry that includes the effective start date of the cost. Clicking this icon displays the Inventory Cost screen.
Manage Price List Icon	Aspire allows you to set up alternate price lists that are used by selected branches as described in the section, Setting up Branch Pricing. Clicking the Manage Price List icon displays the Price List screen allowing you to provide alternate pricing for each applicable price list.
Purchase Unit Cost	Specifies the standard expected cost to purchase the item from the vendor. This cost is used to calculate the allocation item cost.
Allocate from Mobile	This is a checkbox only available for equipment or material catalog items. Checking this checkbox: Makes equipment items available for time allocation in Crew Mobile Makes equipment and material items available for setting up auto expenses in the Auto Expense Wizard Makes equipment and material items available in the Subcontractor Portal provided that automatic expenses have been established for them It is important that the purchase and allocation units for any equipment item flagged in this manner are specified as hours^b. This requirement is not enforced by Aspire but is very important when setting up the equipment.
Item Description	Provide a more complete description of the item. This note becomes available when the item is placed onto a service in the estimate. Additionally, you can choose to include it in the layout for a proposal as extra information for the customer.
Material Item ID 1 &Material ID 2	Enter or customize the unique identifier of any item type (material, equipment, etc..) except kits to utilize as tags. These tags can then be selected when creating an estimate and then used to generate Reports.
Clone	From the three-dot menu, the Clone button creates a new item or kit that duplicates all the field values of the original except the Item Name and Alternate Name. Aspire prefixes these fields with the string, Copy of, allowing you to change them to other unique values.
Delete	From the three-dot menu, select the Delete button to delete the item or kit from the item catalog. This option is greyed out if the current item or kit is referenced elsewhere within Aspire.
Save Icon	The Save icon saves any changes made to the item and leaves the Material Item screen.

Inventory Cost Screen (Inventory Cost Entries)

When new costs go into effect for catalog items that are marked as inventory items, users can add an inventory cost entry that includes the effective start date of the cost. Inventory Costs can only be adjusted or removed on the same day of its creation. Once that day of creation expires, all fields will be read-only. These entries are used by Aspire to determine the inventory value (i.e. unit cost and total cost) on the Allocations tab of the Inventory Location screen based on the Allocation Date specified on that tab. They are also used to improve accuracy on the Inventory tab of the End of Month Report by considering the date on which specific item costs went into effect. When you update an inventory cost, there will be a record of the change reflected on the EOM report. However, if you delete an inventory cist, the inventory variance record will also be removed and this action will not be reflected on the EOM Report.

The addition of inventory cost entries is performed from the Inventory Cost screen available by clicking the new Add Inventory Cost icon^a next to the Allocation Item Cost field on the Item screen. The icon is only available for inventory items. The first time this screen is displayed for any given inventory item, it will have no entries. It will not have any entries until they are added by a user. New entries^b are added by clicking the New Inventory Cost icon^c. Inventory cost entries can specify a location-specific price list^d to which the entry applies.

When you save the inventory cost entries on the Inventory Cost screen, Aspire updates the values in the Allocation Item Cost and Purchase Unit Cost fields of the Item screen as appropriate.

Price List Section

The Price List screen enables you to provide alternate pricing for each applicable price list as described in the section, Setting up Branch Pricing. They add additional price list entries by clicking Add icon, selecting a price list previously defined on the Catalog Price List screen, and then specifying a code and a Purchase Unit Cost. The code represents a specific vendor item number and should only be specified when purchasing from a single vendor. The Allocation Unit Cost is automatically calculated based on the Purchase Unit Cost that you enter. The Allocation Unit Cost is read-only.

Kit Item Screen

The Kit Item screen collects additional information compared to the item screens for other item types. The purpose of a kit is to group items and other kits into a unit that can be simultaneously added to an estimate.

The top fields – Item Name, Alternate Name, Category, Active, Available to Bid, and Takeoff Item – as well as the Description field at the bottom, are documented in the table above in Item Screen for Labor, Material, Equipment, Sub and Other. Screen elements specific to the Kit Item screen are described in the following table:

Screen Element	Description
Unit Type	Enables you to select the unit type associated with the kit. When they add individual items to the kit in the list item area of the screen, they will specify any necessary unit conversions between the unit type for the kit, and the units for each item. If the kit is being designed to auto-calculate quantities for estimates based on takeoffs, the kit unit type must match the unit type for the property take-off on which the calculations will be based.
Force Single Unit Pricing Checkbox	Allows you to enable single unit pricing.
Item List Area^a	This area of the screen displays the list of items that comprise the kit. The individual columns in the grid are described below.
Add New Item or Kit Drop-down	New lines for additional items to be included in the kit are added by selecting an existing item or kit from the item catalog represented by the drop-down. When you select an item by typing part of its name to narrow down the drop-down list and then clicking the desired item, a new row is added allowing you to enter additional information for that item.
Item Name	Read-only. Displays the name of items added to the kit. If the item is itself another kit (also called a sub-kit), then the name is shown as a hyperlink that you can click to show the Kit Item screen for that sub-kit.
Type	Read-only. Displays the item type as defined in the item catalog. Item type may be one of the following: Material, Labor, Equipment, Sub, Other, or Kit.
Allocation Unit Kit Price Override	Set the unit kit override price directly at the catalog level, ensuring that the correct override price is always populated in the estimate. When a unit kit with an override price is added to an estimate, Aspire overrides the price on the estimate to the catalog price.
Factor	Enables you to enter a conversion factor between the unit type on the kit and the unit type for the item. If both the kit and the item have the same unit type, the factor will be one (1). By default, you enter the number of item units per kit units. This relationship can be flip-flopped by checking the Invert checkbox so that the number they enter represents the number of kit units per item-unit.
Units	Read-only. Shows the kit units and the item units and the relationship between the two relative to the conversion factor. The relationship is defined by the state of the Invert checkbox (checked or unchecked). If the Invert checkbox is unchecked, the item-unit type is displayed first.
Invert Checkbox	Clicking this checkbox changes the relationship between the kit units and the item units for the number typed into the Factor field.
Waste %	Allows you to enter a standard waste factor for the item. For example, if the item is edging material, they may know that there is typically 20% of purchased material that goes unused so that the job will look professionally done meaning that they need to order 20% more product than the actual linear measure they are edging. To specify 20%, enter 20 – not .2. Specifying this value causes Aspire to increase the required quantity by the specified percentage when estimating material cost or specifying quantity for a purchase receipt. For line items representing labor, this field is disabled.
Unit Cost	Read-only. Shows the unit cost defined in the item catalog for the displayed item.
Extended Cost	Read-only. Calculated by Aspire. Shows the cost for a single unit of the item based on the kit unit type. Calculated using the conversion factor and the unit cost. Note that values small than $.01 are displayed as zero, but their underlying value is still properly maintained in Aspire.
Save Icon	The Save icon saves any changes made to the item and leaves the Kit Item screen.

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