Items
Items in Commit are a catalog of all the services and products you offer and their prices. The Items list in Commit acts as your price list. Note that setting the price for an Item is optional; they can be set ad-hoc when using the Item for adding a Charge. For further details see Using Charges.
There are three types of Items in Commit:
- Product/Parts Items: hardware, software, or any other items you ship to your customer. These items have fixed-prices.
- Labor Items: services you provide to your customers, such as server installation, network installation, on-site technician visits, etc. These Items can be priced according to the employee hourly-rate, a fixed hourly-rate or by a fixed-price for the service.
- Expense Items: used to charge expenses, such as travel and special deliveries. Expense Items can have a fixed-price per unit or a fixed hourly rate.
Pricing Methods for Items
It is possible to use different Pricing methods for Items as follows:
Hourly Rates
- Employee Hourly Rates
The hourly rate for labor or expenses can be based on the rate set for each employee. When using this method, the employee rate is automatically used for all labor or expense charges added. The hourly rate of each employee should be determined by their skills and role. These rates are set in the New Employee window or on the Employee tab when viewing employee details.
Note that you may use Custom Pricing to set fixed hourly rates for specific employees, all employees, for specific Accounts or Contracts. You can read more about custom pricing in the Custom Pricing section.
Fixed Price Items
- Fixed Labor/Expense Prices (by units, not hourly)
Use fixed labor rates when charging for labor or expenses on a per-service basis rather than on an hourly basis.
For example, you can have fixed-rates for specific services, such as $50 for printer setup, $60 for PC examination, $1,000 for server installation, etc. In these cases, time does not affect the final charge.
Use the following settings when you want to charge a fixed price for Labor Items: Price Source='Fixed Price' and Price='Per Unit'.
Note that in addition, you can set fixed prices for Items using Custom Pricing, which defines the custom pricing for specific Accounts or Contracts. You can read more about custom pricing in the Custom Pricing section.
- Fixed Hourly Rates (regardless of the employee)
When you need to charge a fixed hourly rate regardless of which employee has performed the work, you should use labor or expense Items with the following settings: Price Source='Fixed Price' and Price='Per Hour'.
When adding new charges with these settings, the hourly rate which was set for the Item will be used for the Charge.
Note that you can also use Custom Pricing to set a fixed hourly rate for specific employees for specific Accounts or Contracts. You can read more about custom pricing in the Custom Pricing section.
Items Fields
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Code (mandatory) | The Item Code is a unique ID for each Item. It can contain numbers, letters and special characters. The Item Code can be used in order to sort and find the Items (e.g. HP-P4200TN). |
| Name
(mandatory) |
Contains a short description of the Item (e.g. "Hp LaserJet Printer 4200 Network Support"). |
| Type | The Item Type is a customizable field which allows you to define a list of possible types. For example Labor Items may include the following types: Consulting, HW Installation, Maintenance etc., while Expense Items may include the following types: Travel, Parking etc. The Item Type list for selection is determined according to the Item group (Labor, Expense or Parts). |
| Pricing Settings | Pricing settings vary based on the Item Group (i.e. Labor, Expense or Products/Parts), and the pricing method which is selected (fixed-price or employee-rate).
Products/Parts: Expense: Labor: |
| Suspended | Items can be Active or Suspended. A suspended Item cannot be selected when adding new charges (it is not available in the list of Items for selection). Existing Charges which are using this Item will not be affected.
Suspend an Item when you do not want to sell it anymore or when it's temporarily out of stock. |
| Tax Fields | Using taxes in Commit is optional. By default, the tax option is not activated. To begin using taxes, you first need to set the taxable Accounts and taxable Items. You can read more about taxes in [[Charges#Charging Using Taxes|Charging Using Taxes. |
Setting Up Items
You can start working with Commit without setting up any new Items. Commit's default installation includes three pre-defined Items, one for each Item type; (Labor, Expense and Parts). This is designed to make the initial steps with Commit easier.
It is advisable to define your own Items List which will better represent the products and services offered by your business.
Items can be manually defined, or imported from various data sources, including Excel® files, CSV files, QuickBooks®, etc. This way you can import your existing price list into Commit.
Read more about setting up the system in the New Users section.
Items Custom Pricing
Custom Pricing lets you set special pricing for different Accounts or Contracts. Once you set custom pricing to an Account or Contract, each time you log a Charge for those Accounts or Contracts, CommitCRM automatically pulls up the correct custom price for it. You can also manually adjust the prices while creating a Charge.
When should I use Custom Pricing?
By default the standard employee hourly rates and item prices will be used automatically.
You should use custom pricing only when you want to use a different set of prices or rates for a specific Account or Contract. For example when you want to set a global 10% discount for a customer or when you want to set specific custom hourly rates for employees for a specific Account. You then set up a Custom Pricing for the Account or Contract and define the adjustments.
Once set, the system will automatically use the custom prices or rates instead of the standard ones when Charges are logged under this Account or Contract. When defining a Custom Pricing you can choose between a global custom price level or a per-item price.
You can read more about Custom Pricing in the Custom Pricing section.