Bid Item Form

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Bid Item Form

The Bid Item Form is a work area to use when you want to see or change a lot of item information. Use this form when you want to change many item fields. You may always press the page up and down arrows to bring the previous or next Item into List. Any changes you make here will be made to the item in the Bid, not the Price Book. (Notice the Bid Item List and its form are one color and the Price Book Item List and its form are another color.)

Please read The only way to become familiar and COMFORTABLE with how an item works is to stay in this form for an hour and just EXPLORE. There is nothing you can do to hurt the system. Enter ten or fifteen familiar items that you have been using over the last couple of months and just play around.

Be sure: To use Help (Right Mouse Button) and the List key F7 on many of the fields to see examples and suggestions of selections you can choose.

The Bid Item Form shows you all the details of a Bid Item that has been transferred from the Price Book, including its Quantities, Markups and Cost Type Markup Amounts.

You may build your Items in this form or build them in the Bid Items Listing, and then use Ctrl+D to save the Bid Items to the Price Book.

Be sure to use Help (F1) and the List key F7 on many of the fields to see examples and suggestions of selections you can choose.

The following columns describe general information about the Item as a whole:

Item Code This is the Code for each item so their costs can be summarized by Divisions and Subdivisions.

Part Number A 20 character part number which you may use to sort or find.

CAD ID If your CAD/drawing program uses the new extended interface format, it will send over the block/symbol/object name and other information about each object in the drawing. If this Bid Item was imported from a drawing, and the CAD ID was sent over, it will be shown here for reference. This field cannot be changed. (However, you may change the CAD ID in the Price Book Item to change which CAD ID is mapped to which Item.) See CAD/Drawing Interface Overview for more information.

Drawing Shows the file name (without a extension) of the CAD/drawing file this Item was imported from. If blank, this Item was not imported from a drawing. This field cannot be changed.

Item Description Enter any name you wish to identify your item (up to 70 characters.) If you used an item "Pulled" or selected in your Price Book, then the description will be placed here. Press the Help key and select "Checklist" if you want to see your Price Book.

(Bid) Quantity The amount of this Item you will need, in units based on the Bid Unit (described below).

Bid Unit The Unit of quantities needed; i.e., LF, Square Feet,

Cost Modified in Bid Indicates that one or more of the costs for this Item were changed since the Item was copied from the Price Book; that is, you have put in a new cost for this Item that is specific to this Bid. If you wish you re-price the Item will today’s Price Book costs, use Update Item to/from Price Book..., located on the Bid menu.

Question Which question is to be asked for this Item.

Misc. This column allows you to enter abbreviations for finding, sorting and "on-the-fly costing", which is useful in selecting the Item and grouping the Item using Find and Show. This column will now hold up to 30-characters, and can be used as a Bid-specific Location. A list of other values used in this Bid is available by pressing the list toolbar button or key (F7).

Page # If your Price Book Item came from a printed database book, you can store the page number in the book this Item can be found on. You can also use this alphanumeric field to store whatever other information about an Item you want.

Location If you have the optional, Locations feature, you can assign a Location to this Bid Item, to indicate where the Item is used, or otherwise group similar Items together.

Crew The Crews lets you can derive your labor cost from the Crew Cost, and total all the hours each Crew will spend on a given job. When you change the Crew Code in the Item Form, the Crew’s Cost will automatically be entered in the Labor column. If you later change the Crew’s Cost in the Crew List, the new Cost will be automatically entered in all your Price Book Items. To update the Crew cost in your Bid Items, use Update Items to/from Price Book from the Bid Menu.

Because of screen space considerations, the following information fields are shown only in the Level 4 version of the Bid Item form (which requires at least a 800x600 resolution monitor) and on some Reports:

Seq The Bid Sequence indicates the order which you added this Item to your Bid. Can also be changed by you. The Seq values

Date The Bid Date indicates the date this Item was added to the current Bid. The Date can also be changed by you at any time.

Merged Bid If this field contains a value other than 0, it indicates that the Item was merged in from a Bid/Work Package. The Bid Code for that Bid/Work Package is shown in the field.

Super Assembly If this field contains a value other than 0, it indicates that the Item was added to the Bid using an Super Assembly.

Assembly Indicates the Assembly that was used to select this Item for the Bid. A zero (0) value indicates that the Item was not selected with a Assembly.

The following fields apply to each of the five Cost Columns (Material, Labor, Equipment, Subcontract, Other):

Cost Type Code Use the List Icon when on these columns to go to the Cost Type List. If you "blank" the code, then the cost will be changed to zero. If you enter a cost in without a Cost Type Code attached, it will assign the first Code under that Class. You can change it.

Conversion This will allow you to change the Bid Quantity to an order quantity by converting it.

Rounding Rounding allows you to order in real-world quantities. For instance, you may be charged for labor by the quarter hour, or buy 2x4’s in even two-foot lengths. Rounding allows you to adjust your Order Quantities to reflect these real-world considerations. There are two fields in the Rounding cell for each class:Rounding Direction which controls whether to round Up, Down, to the Closest number, or Not at all. There is also a Rounding Factor, which determines what number you want to round by, e.g., .25, 2, 10, etc.

Order Quantity Amount of this material (or labor, etc.) you will need to order for this Item, in units based on the Order Unit (such as Each, Hours, SqFt, etc.) The Order Quantity is computed by multiplying (or dividing, if specified) the Bid Quantity by the Conversion Factor, and then applying the Rounding. See How Quantities and Costs are Computed for specifics.

Order Unit Enter a unit based on how you will order it. For instance, Labor is usually ordered in hours, man-hours, or days.

Cost Code Cost Table Entry Code. The Cost Table provides a central repository of Raw Costs for use in Items. If the Cost Code is 0, the Raw Cost was entered directly in the Item, not pulled from the Cost Table.

Raw Cost How much the Material, Labor, etc. (depending on which Cost Column the Raw Cost is for) for the Item will cost per Order Unit, excluding taxes, burden, overhead, etc. For instance, Labor might cost $15/hour. The Order Unit would be "Hour", and the Raw Cost $15. Cost Markups would take care of taxes, Workman’s Comp., etc. If you enter a cost in without a Cost Type Code attached, it will assign the first Cost Type Code associated with that Class, but you can change the Cost Type Code at any time.

Adj. Code Adjustment Code (optional feature) to apply to this Raw Cost to form the Adjusted Cost (below). The Adjustment List contains commonly-used inflation factors, regional modifiers, and other percentage additions/deductions for groups of related Items. If the Adjustment Code is 0, there is no Adjustment being applied to this Item Cost Column’s Raw Cost, so the Adjusted Cost will be the same as the Raw Cost.

Adj. % The Adjustment Percentage (shown if the optional Adjustment feature is available) is pulled from the Adjustment List, based on which Adjustment is indicated in the Adjustment Code field. This percentage is stored with the Bid Item at the time the Item is added to the Bid. It can be updated to reflect the current Adjustment Percentages in the Price Book using the Update Item to/from Price Book... feature, available from the Bid menu.

Adj. Cost Adjusted Cost (shown if the optional Adjustment feature is available) is the Raw Cost with the Adj % added. For instance, a $20.00 Raw Cost with a 10% Adj. % would result in an Adj. Cost of $22.00.

Cost Markup Amount of Cost Markup (such as taxes) applied to the Raw Cost (or Adjusted Cost, if Adjustments are used) to give you the Cost you will pay for each Order Unit. Note that this figure does not include profit, overhead or bond amounts, which are usually Price Markups. See the Markup List for details. For instance, in the Material column, if there were a 10% tax on Material, and the Raw Cost (or Adjusted Cost, if Adjustments are available) is $200 per square foot, the resulting Cost would be $216 per square foot.

Cost The Cost is the Adjusted Cost (or Raw Cost, if Adjustments are not available) plus the Cost Markup. (See Cost Markup above for more details.) This is the cost for each Order Unit.

Ext. Cost The Extended Cost is the amount you will need to pay for the full quantity of this Item’s Material (or Labor, Equipment, etc.) that will be needed. The Extended Cost is equal to the Cost multiplied by the Order Quantity.

XP Markup The Extended Price Markup is the amount of Price Markup which will be added to the Extended Cost (for this Item Cost Column) to get the Extended Price. Because the costs have already been extended (that is, multiplied by the Order Quantity), if you double the Bid Quantity

Ext. Price The Extended Price is equal to the Extended Cost for this Item Cost Column, plus its XP Markup. The Extended Price is how much your customer is paying you for this Item’s Material, Labor, etc.

Budget Use the List Icon when on these columns to go to the Budget List.

Vendor Vendor who will supply the Item, do the work, provide the equipment, etc.

The following fields summarize the Item Costs for all five Cost Columns:

(Item) Total Cost The Total (sum) of all Extended Costs (Material, Labor, Equipment, Sub, and Other). This amount is how you are going to pay, including taxes, for the specified Quantity of this Item.

(Item) Price Markup The Item Price Markup gives you the total amount of all Price Markups (such as profit, bond, insurance, and overhead) added for this Item. See the Markup List for more information about Price Markups.

(Item) Total Price The Item Total Price is the sum of the five Cost Columns’ Extended Prices, which include your profit and overhead (assuming you have entered them in the Markup List). It is also equal to the Item Total Cost plus the Item Price Markup. This is the amount you are charging your customer for provide the specified Quantity of this Item.

(Item) Unit Cost The Item Unit Cost is the Total Cost divided by the Bid Quantity, which is how much you will pay for each Bid Unit of this Item. For instance, you may Bid concrete by the square foot, buy it by the bag or cubic yard, and pay to pour it by the hour. The Item Unit Cost tells you how much you pay by the square foot for concrete. Compare the Unit Price, which is how much your customer pays you for concrete by the square foot.

(Item) Unit Price The Item Unit Price is the Total Price for the Item divided by its Bid Quantity. (See Item Unit Cost above for more information.)