How do I add costs to items in my estimate?

This article covers adding costs to estimate items and using cost breakdowns for detailed pricing.

Overview

Once you have created a new estimate and have added items to the estimate, you can start adding costs to each item. This is done by simply adding values to the unit price and the quantity for each item. If needed, it's possible to break down an item into material, labour, machinery and subcontracts for more accurate estimating.

How to Estimate Costs

Click 'Sales' in the top right corner and click on the estimate you want to add costs to. To add costs to a line item, follow these steps:

Enter a unit price for each item
Enter the quantity for each item

Based on the unit price and quantity, the net estimated cost will be calculated automatically.

NB! Costs are only added to line items, not to categories. The totals always roll up from items to their respective subcategories and main categories.

Breaking Down Item Costs into Different Aspects

For more detailed cost estimation, you can break down an item’s unit cost into material, labor, machinery, and subcontractor expenses. This allows you to calculate a precise unit price, which then automatically adjusts when modifying the quantity.

Enabling Cost Breakdown

Before using this feature, it needs to be activated:

Go to Company in the top menu row.
Navigate to 'Settings' and open the 'Company-wide features' tab
Find and enable 'Estimate material breakdown'

Using Cost Breakdown

Once activated, a calculation icon will appear on each line-item.

Clicking this icon opens a detailed breakdown view where you can add the unit price and quantity for material, labor, machinery, and subcontractors that contribute to creating one unit of the line item. You can add several lines for each category.

Once done, the unit price for the line item will be calculated based on the breakdown. You can reopen the breakdown view at any time by clicking the icon to make adjustments.

Next step

Once you have calculated the net estimated cost for your items, you can start adding markup, sales tax, and then exporting the estimate as a quote.