Auto-configure or custom input: which to use

Every line is one or the other. Let thintent auto-configure the price from the press, the stock and the finishing, or type a price you already know.

Choosing

New lines start on auto-configure, priced from your stock, press and finishing costs. The Auto-configure | Custom input switch in the line’s header changes that: pick Custom input for a supplier’s price, a design fee or a one-off.

Click the other side of that switch to change it. Switching to custom input carries over what the line reads, costs and sells for as it stands. While you’re on the page, switching back undoes it: the settings, or the prices you typed, come back as they were; a line saved as custom input keeps no settings, so it starts blank, holding its typed prices and wording until you pick the press, stock and finishing.

If the line’s extras were going to a supplier, switching to custom input says so. A custom line has one supplier, for the whole item: tick Outsourced if they make all of it, or raise the purchase order from the job.

Auto-configure

Under 1 · The job, set the Finished size and Bleed. Under Stock & press, pick the Printer, the Material and the Sheet size or roll width; under Pages & printing, the Folding, Pages and Printed sides (or colours front and back on litho); under Finishing & extras, anything on top, from Search your finishes… or as a + One-off extra, each with a Who does it if a supplier does it. Under Packaging, pick the boxes it goes out in; the boxes are counted from each quantity. A supplier’s extra is costed at Their price, what they charge for the job; when the line offers several quantities, type theirs for each on that quantity’s tab in Full breakdown. Anything not in your lists yet can be added from inside the dropdowns. + Add component adds a cover, an insert or a second stock, each with settings of its own.

The price table shows every quantity’s cost, sell price, mark-up, price each and price with VAT. On a wide screen it sits beside the settings and stays in view as you scroll; on a narrower one it’s the last part of the line. Full breakdown lists every part of the job (material, printing, each extra) at every quantity: type a mark-up or a price in any cell and the other follows. Typing over Sell ex VAT sets every mark-up for that quantity to land on it. Takes about adds up how long each quantity takes: the press, from its speed, and every finish with setup and run times; Full breakdown gives each part’s. Anything with no time set is named under the table rather than counted as none. The bar along the bottom adds every line up (a range while a quantity is still to pick), leaving out outsourced lines, whose time is the supplier’s; the job sheet prints the job’s total under TIME. How long a job takes covers where else it shows and when it changes.

Use it for the jobs you run yourself, where the point is knowing what it costs you and what you’re making.

Custom input

Type the Sell ex VAT for each quantity, and the Cost if you know it so the green mark-up figure can show. The spec is label-and-value pairs you write for the customer’s copy. Custom lines are the ones that can be ticked Outsourced to a supplier. Takes about is optional: how long it takes you, in minutes (90 for an hour and a half), printed on the job sheet. It isn’t asked on an outsourced line; that time is the supplier’s.

Use it for anything you price from experience, a trade supplier’s quote, or a job that isn’t sheets and clicks: design time, a delivery, a service.

Things to know

• An extra ticked Internal is still charged but hidden from the customer’s quote and PDF.
• Supplied by customer in the Material list prices the paper at nothing and tells you how many sheets to ask for.
• Where a minimum charge sets a price instead of a mark-up, the price table says so, for example Drilling minimum sets the price at 500 and 1,000.
• A line priced at cost, or at £0, is flagged under the editor and again in the Send modal. It never blocks sending.
• An auto-configured line can’t be sent until every component has a press.