Design Manager displays the Project information in a hierarchy, beginning with the Project. Projects in Design Manager are made up of the Project itself, Locations, Items, and Components.
The Project holds the client?s billing address, contact information, site address, etc.
A Location is a logical association of Items and Components within a Project. A Location can be a physical locale; such as a bedroom or living room, or a more abstract concept such as consulting or travel expenses. Locations can then be populated with Items. Items are organized by Location on Proposals, Invoices, and many management reports in Design Manager.
Items are the finished merchandise or service that is provided to the client and will be displayed on a Proposal and Client Invoice. A Project is made up of one or more Items and each Item is comprised of one or more Components. The Item Tab of the Item Window displays all of an Item?s Components, and provides access to the Component Window where Vendor and purchasing information can be entered.
Components are the constituent pieces that comprise an Item. Components appear only Purchase or Work Orders to your vendors and various reports. A client will not see the Component Description, ONLY the Item Description. Each Component has a cost and a price. In Design Manager, the term ?cost? refers to your cost from the vendor. The term ?price? refers to what you are charging the client. Design Manager will sum the price of each Component to derive the total price that you will bill the client for the Item.
For example, you might be making a custom sofa for your client?s Family Room. The Location would be ?Family Room,? the Item would be the ?Sofa,? and the Components would be the frame, the fabric, upholstery work, freight charges, etc. Each Component of the sofa may be ordered from different vendors. (the frame may be ordered from one vendor and the fabric from another). The frame and fabric can be shipped to the upholsterer (a 3rd vendor) who then ships the finished sofa back to you.
Using our example, the Project might look like this:
Project: Smith Summer Home
Location: Family Room
Item: Custom Sofa
Components: Sofa Frame
Shipping Charge for Frame
Fabric
Shipping Charge for Fabric
If you have already entered an Item with multiple components that you want the client to see on a Proposal or Client Invoice, there are 2 ways to resolve this:
1. Edit the Item Description and copy or type the pertinent information that you wish the client to see into it.
2. Edit the Component and Copy your component description.
Add a new Item.
Paste the component description you copied into the Item Description field.
Go back to the original item and delete the component that you have copied to the new Item.