Price Quotes

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When you receive a price quote on one or more items, it is useful to record this information for future reference. Note that recording this information does not change the actual value that MainBoss assigns to the items; it simply notes that the vendor quoted a particular price on a particular day. (Later, when you order that item you can tell MainBoss to use a quoted price from a particular vendor.)

Note: If you are using MainBoss for the first time, you can use price quotes to set up prices for the same item from one or more vendors. This is a way of establishing an instant "price history" on the item when MainBoss doesn't have actual purchase prices in its records.

To record a price quote, you click the New Price Quote button in the Status section of an item record. (For more information, see Describing Items.) If you are not in the middle of creating an inventory item record, you can also record a price quote by selecting Inventory —> Adjustments —> Price Quote from the menu. Either way, MainBoss opens a window that contains the following:

Vendor: The vendor who gave you the quote. The drop-down list for this field shows your Vendor table. If the vendor who gave you the quote isn't currently in your Vendor table, click New Vendor to add the vendor to the table. For more about the Vendor table, see Vendors.
New Vendor: Lets you add a new vendor to the Vendor table. MainBoss opens a window where you can record information about the vendor.
Show items only if: Options in this area can restrict what items are shown in the "Selected Items" drop-down list.
- Vendor was last supplier: Restricts "Selected Items" to items that were most recently purchased from the given "Vendor".
- Vendor has previously supplied: Restricts "Selected Items" to items that have ever been purchased from the given "Vendor" (even if the most recent purchase was from some other supplier).
- regardless of vendor: Does not restrict "Selected Items" based on vendor.
Inv. Cat.: Lets you specify a category of inventory items. If you select a category, the drop-down list for the "Selected Items" field (below) will only show items belonging to that category. For more on inventory categories, see Inventory Categories.
Inventoried Items: Specifies that you want the "Selected Items" drop-down list to show inventory items. This is the default.
Non-inventoried Items: Specifies that you want the "Selected Items" drop-down list to show non-inventory items.
Selected Items: A drop-down list showing inventory items. The contents of this list are controlled by "Inv. Cat.", Inventoried Items, and Non-inventoried Items.
Pick This Item: Clicking this copies the current selection from "Selected Items" into "Inv. Item".
Pick New Item: Clicking this button lets you enter a description of a new inventory item. This is useful if you are recording a price quote on an item that isn't currently tracked as part of your inventory; you can add the item to your inventory and then continue recording the quote.
Clicking Pick New Item opens the Inventory Item editor window. For more information on using this window, see Describing Items.
Inv. Item: The item chosen from "Selected Items" or specified when you clicked Pick New Item.
Date: The date on which you received the quote.
On Hand: The quantity of the selected item that is currently on hand in your storerooms.
Unit Cost: The per-unit cost of the selected item.
Total Cost: The total cost of your entire stock of the selected item.
On Order: The quantity of the selected item that is currently on order. (Items are put on order when an appropriate purchase order is issued; for more information, see Purchase Orders.)
On Reserve: The quantity of the selected item that is currently on reserve for use in various work orders. (Items are put on reserve when an appropriate work order is created containing that item in its materials list; for more information, see Creating and Editing Work Orders.)
Stock Available: The quantity of the selected item that is freely available for use. This is equal to "On Hand" minus "On Reserve".
Price History List: Shows previous price quotes and actual prices paid for this item.
Use vendor: Sets the "Vendor" field in this window to the vendor of the price quote currently selected in the price history list.
Use Catalog Number: Sets the "Cat. No." field in this window to the catalog number in the price quote currently selected in the price history list.
Use Price: Sets the "Unit Cost" field in this window to the unit cost of the price quote currently selected in the price history list.
Use Block Price: Sets the "Total Cost" field in this window to the total cost of the price quote currently selected in the price history list. Note that MainBoss will automatically adjust "Quantity" so that "Quantity" multiplied by "Unit Cost" equals "Total Cost".
Quantity: The quantity of items included in the quote.
Unit Cost: The cost per unit specified in the quote.
Total Cost: The total cost specified in the quote.

Note: If you change "Quantity" MainBoss automatically recalculates "Total Cost" by multiplying "Unit Cost" by "Quantity". Similarly, if you change "Unit Cost" MainBoss automatically recalculates "Total Cost" in the same way. If you change "Total Cost" directly, MainBoss automatically recalculates "Unit Cost" by dividing "Quantity" into the new "Total Cost".

Cat. No.: The vendor's catalog number for the item. This number will be printed on any purchase order you send to the vendor for this item.
Use Item Code: Clicking this button sets the "Cat. No." field to the identification code for the item. This is useful if you have chosen your item identification codes to match the numbers in the supplier's catalog.
Save & New: Saves the current record and clears fields in the window so you can enter a new record.
Clone: Copies information from this price quote and creates a new price quote record containing the copied information.
Delete: Deletes this price quote.
Save: Saves the current record, but leaves all data as is. You can then continue to edit the same record.
Cancel: Closes the window. MainBoss discards any information that has not already been saved with Save.

The window contains a number of other fields that provide current information about the item (for example, current unit and total costs as opposed to the quote you've just received).

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