The Price Book makes it easy for you to create a list of services, materials, labor, flat fees, and selections that can be added to an Estimate or Project Financials.
You can access your Price Book and Cost Codes from the main navigation in the More drop down menu. Cost Codes can be accessed from the Price Book as well by clicking on their Cost Codes tab:
If you have existing Cost Codes along with your own list of products/services, you can choose to import those instead of creating them. Read more on how to import your Cost Codes and Price Book.
What are Cost Codes?
Every item in your Price Book includes a Cost Code, which is made up of an individual cost that helps track and report against costs you incur in your business. Think of these as the account your item goes to. They consist of numeric characters with an account title and can be used to map costs into your accounting system to support bookkeeping as well as financial reporting.
Cost Codes are made up of 5 components:
Cost Category Number: All Cost Codes belong to a Cost Category, which is designated by a Cost Category Number that makes up the beginning numeric digits of a Cost Code. Think of the Cost Category as the "group" that a Cost Code belongs to. Cost Category Numbers can have up to 6 digits, no letters or special characters are allowed.
Cost Category Name: The Cost Category Name is the larger "group" that an individual set of Cost Codes belong to, such as "Masonry" or "Finishes".
Cost Code Number: The Cost Code Number makes up the last 6 digits of the full Cost Code and is usually based on what Cost Category Number it is grouped in. Think of these as like a sub-account for your item. For example, if a Cost Code Number is "2000 Excavation and Foundation" Cost Category, then it would make sense for the number to be a lower number such as "2100".
Cost Code Name: The Cost Code Name is what makes up the entire Cost Code and also is based on what Cost Category the code is a part of. For example, if the Cost Category is Excavation and Foundation, then the Cost Code Name may be an item that falls within that category, such as Footings and Foundation.
Cost Code Description - Details about the Cost Code
Cost Codes belong to a Cost Category. In BuildBook, Cost Codes are formatted with up to 12 numerical digits total, divided by a hyphen. The first 6 digits correlate to the Cost Category and the last 6 digits correlate to the Cost Code that is within that Category.
For example, to correctly classify a budget item in your estimate or project budget for Excavation, your cost code might be "300-0001 Excavation." In this example, '300' classifies the Cost Category, which is Site Work, and '0001' classifies Excavation, which is the Cost Code within the Site Work Category.
All line items on an Estimate or Project Budget Item will have a Cost Code, whether that item came from your Price Book or is a one-off item that you added.
Add Cost Codes
Import Cost Codes
We recommend using our pre-built import spreadsheet, which includes NAHB Cost Codes, CSI Cost Codes, blank Cost Codes to use with your existing codes, or your own spreadsheet to quickly import your Cost Codes. This spreadsheet includes the required fields and formatting necessary for your import. Here's how to import your Cost Codes.
Add Cost Codes and Cost Categories
To add individual Cost Codes, start by creating Cost Code Categories, which allow you to organize your Cost Codes to keep track of what you offer.
Click Settings → Manage Cost Codes → Select the Categories tab
Click + Add Category
Fill in the Category Name and Category Number
Select Save or Save and Add Another to continue adding more categories
Once your Categories are added, switch to the Codes tab to add the individual Cost Codes and group them into the relevant Categories. When you add a new Cost Code, you can choose which Cost Category it belongs to from the dropdown along with giving it a Code Number, Code Name, and Description.
Archive Cost Codes and Categories
To archive a Cost Code or Cost Category that is no longer in use click on the item you'd like to archive, select the ellipsis in the top right, and choose Archive.
To archive an entire Cost Category and Codes associated with the category, or more than one Cost Code, click the checkbox next to the items you wish to archive. Then click Archive XX Items in the bottom right corner.
In the Categories, there is a Code column that will show how many Codes exist within that Category.
The number of Codes that you see within a Category includes archived Cost Codes. To completely remove them from this list, you will want to delete them.
Unarchive items
You can view all archived items by clicking the Active dropdown and choosing Archived. From here, click on any item and use the same ellipses menu in the upper right to Unarchive an item.
To unarchive multiple items at once, select the checkboxes next to the items and click Unarchive in the bottom banner.
Delete Cost Codes or Categories
Delete a single item the same way you archive. Open the Cost Code or Category, click the ••• menu in the upper right, and click Delete.
To bulk-delete items, click on the Select buttons to the left of the Cost Code names and choose them individually or click on the Select button at the very top before the codes to select them all:
After selecting your Codes, click on Archive in the bottom right hand corner to Archive them:
If you are wanting to delete your Categories as well, you'll need to do these same steps in the Categories:
Once you've archived your Codes and/or Categories, you'll want to go to your Archive to delete them. Click on the Active drop down button in the top of the Cost Codes:
Then in the drop down click on Archived:
From the archive, you can click on the bulk select button to select all Cost Codes or simply use the buttons to the very left of the Cost Codes to select them individually:
Once your Cost Codes are selected, at the very bottom you'll see a delete button, click that and it will remove the Cost Codes from your account completely.
If you're deleting the Categories, you'll want to do the same process by clicking on Categories. You'll need to delete every Code first in order to delete the Category.
Only Cost Codes that have not been used can be deleted. If you're not able to delete a Cost Code from the Cost Codes tab, then you'll want to visit any Budgets or Estimates you've created to remove the Code. You can do that a few ways! First by using the drop down on the item in Spreadsheet View on your Estimate or your Budget to move the Cost Code for the item to 99-000 Uncategorized:
Or by clicking on the item in Category View on your Budget or Estimate and changing it here:
Switching this to the Code 99-000 will allow you to delete your Cost Codes fully from the system without having to delete items off of your Estimates or Project Financials.
What is the Price Book?
The Price Book is a standard set of products and services that are included in your estimate and Project financials. It allows you to manage this list of items and easily add them so that you don’t have to recreate the wheel each time.
Further, the Price Book allows you to set your standard costs (labor rates, tax rates, markup rates, etc.) so that everyone in your company who is building estimates and project financials will be using the same rates.
Typically, financials will be made up of line items from your Price Book that are used frequently across all of your Projects, but there may be one-off items that can be added.
The Price Book is made up of the following components:
Name: The name of the product or service (ie: Drywall)
Cost Code: The Cost Code associated with the Price Book item (ie: 5000-5100 Drywall)
Type: What type of item it is (Labor, Materials, Flat Fee, or Selection)
Unit: Units that the type should be calculated/measured by, depending on the item Type.
Tax: Tax can be added into the Price Book item or can be left at 0% and added in later
Qty.: Number of items to be calculated
Unit Cost: Individual unit cost (to be multiplied by the quantity)
Markup: Markup percentage
Description
Price Book items must have a Cost Code. If you don't add a Cost Code to a Price Book item, a default "99-Uncategorized" Cost Code will be associated with the Price Book item.
Create the Price Book
Import a Price Book
We recommend using our pre-built import spreadsheet or your own spreadsheet to quickly import your Price Book. This spreadsheet includes the required fields and formatting necessary for your import. Here's how to import your Price Book.
Add a Price Book item
To add individual Price Book items:
Click Price Book in the left sidebar
Click “+ Add Price Book
Choose the Name
Associate the applicable Cost Code or leave it as Uncategorized
The Type chosen will automatically associate the correct Unit options beneath the Description Item” in the Price Book
Add any Tax, Quantity, Unit Cost, and/or Markup, which are used to calculate the final Price
Type | Labor | Materials | Flat Fee | Selection |
Unit | Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, Each, Cubic Feet, Cubic Yard, Gallons, Linear Feet, Linear Yard, Pounds, Square Feet, Square Yard, Squares, Tons, Cubic Centimeters, | Each, Cubic Feet, Cubic Yard, Gallons, Linear Feet, Linear Yard, Pounds, Square Feet, Square Yard, Squares, Tons, Cubic Centimeters, | No Unit | No Unit |
Tagging
Tags are a great way to associate specific categories or project types with your Price Book items, such as "kitchen" or "bathroom."
When you build an estimate or project budget from your Price Book, you can populate everything using the tag associated with those items.
Delete Price Book items
You can delete single items by opening them, clicking the ellipses menu in the upper right, and clicking Delete.
To delete multiple items, click the checkboxes next to the items (or click the checkbox next to Name to select all) and then click Delete in the bottom right corner.
Search and Filter
The Price Book is currently listed in order of when the item was added. It includes each of the columns noted above, along with a total that shows the calculation for that item based on the unit, quantity, price, markup, and tax.
Once you've added your Price Book Items and created Tags associated with each item, you can filter by Tag in order to get a view of specific Items or see which Items still need to be tagged.
You also have the ability to search the Price Book, which is especially helpful for larger libraries with many items.
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