General Settings
The General Settings is the central control panel for the Costing application. Administrators can configure a wide range of settings to streamline workflows, enforce business rules, and automate critical processes.
These settings are essential for maintaining accurate costing data, reducing manual errors, and ensuring seamless integration between the costing system and related applications like Orders and Styles.
Quick Check - Before You Start
- Confirm Site Settings › Costing › General Settings access; supplier-facing behaviour also depends on Portal configuration.
- Decide whether Order Pricing and Style Pricing auto-updates align with your retail costing template usage—these options do not apply to every template type.
- If Components supplier editing is enabled, agree which suppliers may change unit measures, price, or quantity in the supplier portal.
Components
Control supplier permissions for component data management within the supplier portal. This can be turned on or off.
When enabled, suppliers can modify component unit measurement, price, or quantity directly in the supplier portal. This empowers suppliers to update pricing and specifications in real-time, reducing communication overhead and ensuring accurate cost data. When disabled, component details remain locked, maintaining tighter control over pricing and specifications.
Default
Streamline costing creation by setting default values for key fields. The value you select for each dropdown will be automatically populated whenever a new costing is created, reducing manual data entry and ensuring consistency across all costings.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Customer | The default customer or account for new costings. |
| Department | The default internal department (e.g., Sales, Production). |
Configure Lists
- To configure the list of Customers, go to: Site Settings > Company > Customer.
- To configure the list of Departments, go to: Site Settings > Order > Department.
Files
Automate document organisation by automatically creating a folder structure for every new costing. This helps maintain consistent documentation practices and ensures all costings are immediately linked to supporting files.
Automatically Create a Folder: Enable this option to automatically generate a new document folder for each new costing record. This ensures that from the moment a costing is created, there is a dedicated space for storing related documents, images, specifications, and other supporting materials.
Members
Automatically assign default members to new costings to streamline collaboration and ensure the right team members have immediate access. You can assign members based on brand or category, or assign them to all new costings.
- Click "Add another item" to add a new member.
- Select a Member from the dropdown.
Configure the List of Members
To configure the list of members, go to: Site Settings > Company > Staff.
Order Pricing
Automate order pricing updates when costings are finalised. This can be turned on or off.
When enabled, changing the status of a costing to Completed will automatically update the associated order's sell price with the total cost from the costing. This ensures that order pricing always reflects the most current costing calculations, eliminating manual price entry and reducing discrepancies.
Note
This setting only applies when using the retail costing template.
Style Components
Automate component transfer from styles to costings during costing creation. This can be turned on or off.
When enabled, all components defined in the associated style will be automatically copied to the costing when a new costing is created. This saves significant time by eliminating the need to manually re-enter component information and ensures that costings start with the complete and accurate component list from the style definition.
Style Pricing
Automate style pricing updates when costings are finalised. This can be turned on or off.
When enabled, changing the status of a costing to Completed will automatically update the associated style's buy price and sell price from the costing. This maintains pricing consistency across the system and ensures that style records always reflect the most current cost calculations.
Note
This setting only applies when using the retail costing template.
Style Specification
Automate the creation of version-controlled specification documents for compliance and audit purposes. This can be turned on or off.
When enabled, a version-controlled style specification document will be automatically created when a new costing is created. This provides a complete audit trail of all specification changes over time, simplifies compliance reviews, and ensures that historical versions of specifications are preserved for reference. Version control is essential for maintaining documentation integrity and meeting regulatory requirements.
Pro Tips for Costing Configuration
- Automate Pricing Synchronisation: Enable both Order Pricing and Style Pricing to create a seamless pricing workflow. When a costing is completed, prices will automatically flow to both the associated order and style, ensuring consistency across all systems and eliminating manual data entry errors.
- Streamline Component Management: Enable Style Components to automatically populate costings with components from the style definition. This not only saves time but also ensures that costings always start with the complete and accurate component list, reducing the risk of missing critical components in cost calculations.
- Maintain Compliance with Version Control: Enable Style Specification to automatically create version-controlled specification documents. This is essential for maintaining an audit trail, meeting compliance requirements, and simplifying reviews when costings are updated or revised. Combined with automatic folder creation, this ensures all documentation is properly organised and traceable from the outset.
- Control Supplier Access Strategically: Use Components settings to balance efficiency with control. For trusted suppliers and standard components, enabling supplier editing can reduce communication overhead. For margin-sensitive products or critical specifications, disabling supplier editing maintains tighter control and prevents unauthorised changes.
Troubleshooting
Why did order or style prices not update when I completed a costing?
Order Pricing and Style Pricing run only when the costing uses the retail template type. Other template types ignore these toggles.
Steps to resolve:
- Open Site Settings › Costing › Template and confirm the costing record’s template Type is Retail if you expect automatic price sync.
- Re-enable the relevant toggle under General Settings and set the costing status to Completed again after a save.
- Verify the costing is linked to the expected order or style record.
Why can suppliers not edit component lines in the portal?
The Components switch controls whether suppliers may adjust unit measurement, price, or quantity. When disabled, values stay internal-only.
Steps to resolve:
- Enable Components under Site Settings › Costing › General Settings if your process allows supplier-entered costs.
- Confirm the supplier user has portal access and sharing rules for the costing.
- Communicate expectations—some teams disable this for margin-sensitive SKUs even when the global toggle is on.
Why are specification documents missing for an older costing?
Style Specification auto-generation applies when the setting is on at the time new costings are created; it does not retroactively create folders or documents for every historical record.
Steps to resolve:
- Enable Style Specification before creating new costings that need audit versions.
- Pair it with Files › Automatically Create a Folder so each costing has storage from creation.
- For legacy records, generate or attach specifications manually following your compliance procedure.