Aspire’s item catalog has very few limitations – you can set up as many items as you want, determine which category of item it is, its purchase unit and allocation unit, what, if any, take-offs it is associated with, the branches it is applicable to, weather it is an item you inventory or not, and much more. Since it is so versatile it can be easy to lose track of some important steps to maximizing its functionality. Here are a couple things, when if prioritized regularly, will help you utilize your catalog the most efficiently and accurately.
Allocate From Mobile
If you would like to grant your team permission to allocate materials from mobile, be sure to check the “Allocate From Mobile” Box within each items set-up. This allows the frontline team to allocate the materials to a work ticket – which allows you to properly job cost the work.
For example, if you keep an irrigation stock that is not managed within Aspire (purchased outside of Aspire), you can still set up irrigation items so that your Irrigation Lead can allocate any material used on T&M repairs. This would only be applicable for the materials pulled from stock, not materials that were purchased specifically for this client. Those materials would be allocated to the job via a Purchase Receipt.
Keep in mind, if you set up an item as “inventory” it will automatically be available to allocate from the mobile device.
SiteOne Integration
Aspire offers a feature that sync items from your SiteOne catalog, directly into your Aspire catalog. The perk to this feature is easily accessible SiteOne items with not only their item codes included, but the pricing is updated nightly. This means each time you estimate a job with these items, you are automatically estimating updated pricing for the materials.
Recurring Catalog Updates
If you have items in your catalog that are not sync from Aspire, they need to be updated regularly. The frequency is up to you and how tightly you want to manage it. We recommend updating pricing at least twice a year. This process involves sending the items to your vendors, requesting updated pricing, then updating the items individually with the vendors data.
Outside of manually changing each items price, you can also update all your items by a percentage. This is a much quicker way to update the catalog to ensure you are not under-estimating.
Catalog Related Role Permissions
Updating the catalog pricing is a tedious task, especially if you have a large number of items in the catalog. Because of this, we suggest that you only allow a select number of individuals access to add items to your catalog. For example, perhaps the Office Manage, Senior Estimator, and Branch Manager are the only individuals with access.
If you found this topic beneficial and would like to discuss it in further detail, please reach out to schedule a consultation!
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