Understanding Items, Materials, and Suppliers in Payaca
This guide will walk you through what "Items you sell" and Materials and Suppliers mean in Payaca, and how to use them, including advanced functions like grouping items into templates.
Items you sell
What are they? "Items you sell" are what your customer sees on a proposal.
Level of Detail: You can describe a simple item (e.g., a specific solar panel) or a complete package (e.g., "Solar Installation Package", "Heat Pump Installation", "EV Charger Installation"). The level of detail is up to you.
Formatting: You can format the item title (e.g., with bold text) and include a description with key features, often presented as bullet points.
Tip: Consider using AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to help you quickly write compelling descriptions for your items. Provide the tool with some guidelines about what you're selling and ask it to format key features as bullet points to save time.
Linking to Materials: You can link specific materials to an "Item you sell". This helps you track the individual components needed for a job.
Materials
What are they? Materials are the individual physical elements you'll order from your suppliers.
Distinction: "Items you sell" are for the customer (sales-focused), while "Materials" are the actual things you buy.
Linking to Items: You can link materials to an "Item you sell" and specify quantities.
To link a material, search for it (e.g., "Vaillant Unistore 150 litres") and add it to the item.
You can remove incorrectly linked materials.
Setting the Price for Items (Linked to Materials)
Once materials are linked to an item, you have options for setting the selling price:
Profit Percentage:
This is not a markup (where you add a percentage to the material cost).
It's a profit margin, meaning you set a desired percentage of the final selling price that you want to be profit. For example, if you want to make an 18.7% profit margin, you set it here. Payaca then calculates the selling price based on your material costs to achieve that margin.
Specific Profit Amount:
You can set a fixed profit amount for an item (e.g., you always want to make £500 on this item). Payaca will calculate the selling price accordingly.
Auto-Update Prices:
If you switch "auto-update" on, the selling price to the customer will automatically adjust if the linked material prices update. This is particularly useful for direct integrations like City Plumbing.
Tax Settings: Ensure your tax settings are accurate.
Images: You can upload an image for an "Item you sell" which will appear on the proposal.
Tip: If linked materials already have images (e.g., from supplier integrations), you can right-click the image, save it, and then upload it to the "Item you sell" for the proposal.
Item Groups
What are they? You can group multiple "Items you sell" together. This allows you to quickly add a bundle of items to a proposal.
Functionality:
You can set items within a group as "multiple choice," allowing the customer to select from options.
You can designate a default choice within a multiple-choice set.
Pricing Display: If an item group contains multiple choice options, the price might show as a range because the final selection isn't yet known.
Managing Materials
Central List: The "Materials" section lists all your materials.
Multiple Suppliers: A single material can be linked to multiple suppliers.
For example, if you have a material from City Plumbing, you could add another supplier (e.g., "John Smith Carpenter") with their price for the same material (£700).
Images: Materials can also have images. Direct integrations may pull these in automatically.
Filtering: You can filter your materials list by individual suppliers, categories, or where they are linked to existing items.
Field Service App Access: In "My Company" settings (top right) and then "Field Service App," you can configure which materials your field service users can access via the app.
Managing Suppliers
Supplier Details: This section holds the details for all your suppliers.
Linked Materials: You can see all materials associated with a specific supplier.
Uploading & Updating Materials (Non-Integrated Suppliers):
For suppliers not connected via direct integration, you can upload materials.
To update existing materials for these suppliers, you can download a template of the current materials, make changes, and re-upload.
Using Items and Groups in Proposals
Adding Individual Items:
When creating a proposal (after potentially adding an introduction from a template), you can add "Items you sell".
If an item is linked to materials, you'll be able to see them.
Creating Groups within a Proposal:
You can create new groups directly within a proposal (e.g., a "Solar" group containing a battery and an inverter).
Items within these proposal-specific groups can be marked as optional or multiple choice.
Adding Pre-defined Item Groups:
You can search for and add existing "Item Groups" (e.g., "Heat Pump Demo Group") to pre-populate sections of your proposal.
Customisation within a Proposal:
You can reorder items by dragging them.
You can edit the linked materials for an item (quantity or link new ones) specifically for that proposal.
You have the option to update the saved version of the item with these changes or keep them unique to the current proposal.
Syncing Materials from Accepted Proposals
Once a customer accepts a proposal, you can go to the "Materials" section of that job.
You can then "sync from items that have been accepted". This will pull through all the linked materials from the accepted items.
This pre-populates your materials list of things you need to order, allowing you to then create purchase orders or direct orders.
Adding CIS to Items you sell
CIS needs to be enabled from the "My Company" page of your account.
Make sure you're on the "Company info" sub-tab and scroll to the bottom of the page.
You will see a box titled "Construction industry scheme" and a switch below it labelled "I am a CIS subcontractor".
Click on the switch.
The CIS deduction rate drop-down will now be visible.
You will also see a message saying:
"If you change the CIS deduction rate for this company, CIS deduction rates will be updated against all applicable line items and against any quotes and invoices which have not been sent. The old CIS deduction rate will remain on any sent quotes and invoices".
Use the drop-down to select from 0%, %20 or %30.
Please note: If you use QuickBooks or Xero then you will need to configure these platforms to match your new CIS deduction rate once it's switched on.
Now that your CIS rate is enabled, you can add it to individual items.
Open the item that you want to apply CIS to, either from a quote/proposal or from the "Items you sell" page.
Within the item editor, you will see two drop-downs, one for tax and one for CIS.
The default CIS deduction state will be set to "No".
Click on the drop-down to switch the CIS to "Yes".
In brackets you will see the CIS percentage, this will match the rate you chose earlier when enabling CIS deduction.
CIS will now be applied to that item.
Repeat for any other items you want to add CIS deduction to.