Tracking inventory and material prices

You already photograph your receipts. Every one of them is a real price, from a real supplier, on a real date — and BidCraft now keeps them. Over a few jobs that turns into two useful things: a running record of what your materials actually cost, and a list of what's still sitting on the shelf.

None of it asks you to do extra data entry. You log receipts the way you always have and this builds itself underneath.

Your receipts build a price history

When BidCraft reads a receipt, it does more than total it up. It recognizes the store, matches the line items to products in your materials library, and files each one as a dated price you paid at that supplier.

It also remembers the store's own item number for that product. That's the small number printed next to the description on a big-box receipt — the one that means nothing to anyone but the store. Once BidCraft has seen it, the next receipt from that supplier matches that line on its own, without guessing from the description.

Your library rows start showing a Paid chip — the last price, the supplier, and the date. That's the receipt of record for what you're really spending.

Tap a material's name to see the whole run of it. The material's page lists every price you've paid, newest first, with the supplier, the date, where the number came from (a receipt, a price list, typed in by hand), and a small arrow showing whether it went up or down from the time before. Underneath that, every item number your suppliers use for it. Full tour in Your materials library.

The "update your cost?" nudge

Your library also holds your cost — the number BidCraft uses when it prices a job. Supplier prices move; that number often doesn't.

So when a fresh receipt comes in more than 10% off what you have on file, the material shows a small amber chip:

Paid $42.80 at Home Depot on Aug 2 — update your cost from $38?

Confirm takes the new number. Dismiss leaves your cost exactly where it is and retires that particular nudge for good — though a newer receipt that's still out of line will ask again.

[!tip] Nothing reprices itself. Your cost is a business decision, and BidCraft only ever asks. If you buy at a negotiated rate and the big-box price is irrelevant to you, dismiss it and move on.

The Inventory tab

Head to Catalog → Inventory. This is what you have left over.

When a receipt shows you bought more than the job consumed, the extra lands here automatically — with what it cost you. Nothing to enter. Materials used up all the way stay in the list at zero, tucked behind a Show used up toggle so the page stays short.

Two actions on every row, and they mean different things:

• Adjust is a relative change — "three sheets came back off the truck." Positive adds, negative takes away.
• Count is an absolute — "there are four on the shelf, whatever the app says." Use this when the running total has drifted, especially if a row has gone negative.

You don't have to come to the Inventory tab to move stock, either. Open any material and its On the job section shows what's on hand, when that number last moved, and the same controls — + Add, − Remove, and Set exact total. Handy when you're already looking at the material and just want to log the three bags that came back.

Below the list, once there's enough history, a Purchase Insights card shows what you buy over and over, whether the price is climbing, and which materials you buy often enough that a bulk order would save you trips. Once you've told BidCraft where you usually buy (below), it names them in that nudge — "worth asking Arizona Tile about a bulk price" beats "consider a bulk order."

Telling BidCraft where you buy

Open Settings at the top of the Materials page (the gear button) and find Where you buy. Set a default supplier, and add category rules for the shelves that come from somewhere else — tile from the tile dealer, everything else from the supply house.

Three things use it:

• The price-list review screen pre-picks your supplier, so naming the list is a confirmation instead of a hunt through a dropdown.
• A material with no supplier of its own shows what it falls back to, and says which rule got it there.
• The bulk-buy nudge above names who to call.

Most-specific wins: a supplier set on the material's own page beats a category rule, which beats your default. Any of the three can be left blank.

Naming your supplier on a price list

If you upload a price list from a distributor, the review screen asks where the list came from. It's optional and worth answering — and if you've set a default supplier, it's already filled in.

Name the supplier and BidCraft ties every row to them: their item numbers get learned, and each price becomes part of that material's history. Skip it and the materials still import fine — they just arrive anonymous, so nothing gets smarter about that supplier next time.

Using what you already have

On a job's materials list, anything you're already holding shows a green In stock chip with the count. Next to it, Use from stock lets you say how many of them are coming off your shelf instead of the truck.

That takes the units out of inventory and marks the row, so the next job sees an honest count. It does not change the proposal. What you charge for a job is your call, not a number the software should quietly rewrite because you had leftovers.

Next steps

• Set up the library these prices attach to: Your materials library
• Get receipts flowing in: Logging receipts on a project
• Understand why a big receipt only counts partly against one job: How receipt allocation works