The detailed catalogue

Two engines, two sets of rates.

The rungs on the Ballpark estimate card turn three measurements into a price range, which is the first-call estimate. The catalogue prices a finished take-off room by room, which is the proposal.

A shop can send estimates all day with no catalogue at all. Its proposals then go out on a contract price you set yourself rather than one built up from parts.

The catalogue is imported, not typed from scratch. It arrives through the Catalogue sheet of the rates workbook. See The rates workbook.

Each row is one priced part, and the columns say where it sits. Category is the section, such as cabinets. Block is the item inside it, such as a base cabinet. Unit is linear_foot, square_foot or each, and is the same on every row of a block. Labour per unit is your labour on every unit of the block. Part group is the kind of row it is, in your own words, such as material or finish. Part is the option a take-off switches on, and Rate per unit is what that option adds.

Detail is one optional line printed under the option on a take-off.

Press Import a workbook, read the preview, press Apply these rates. The preview's third count names how many categories, blocks and rates came out of the sheet. See Import a workbook.

The Detailed catalogue card sits at the foot of the Pricing tab, under the line Used to price proposals from a finished take-off, followed by how many rates across how many categories.

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1. 1How many rates, across how many categories
2. 2One chip per category. Pressing one opens it on its rates

Each category is a chip carrying its block and rate counts. Pressing one opens that category alone, with a form per block: what the block is Called, its Labour, each, and under it each option with its own rate and a Remove. Only one category is sent to the browser at a time, which is what keeps a five-hundred-rate catalogue usable.

The workspace pictured above carries a single placeholder category, because no rate was invented to make a better picture. A shop that imported its own workbook has one chip per category in that workbook.

On a job, Build the take-off opens a sheet per room. You add a room, pick the blocks that go in it, and set a Quantity for each block and an Opt per row so a row can be on, off or scaled.

The take-off can only switch on what the catalogue holds. A part that is not in it is added as a spare row on that job, priced by hand, and your catalogue is left unchanged. Adding a category or a block is a change to the workbook, not something the take-off does for you.