Enter Part Categories

Categories and sub-categories are used to organize your inventory into manageable sections. They are also used to configure the way prices of parts assigned to them are calculated.  

While Categories can easily help you to break down your items in Reports and allow you to recalculate prices by Category instead of all at once, they are not a mandatory part of inventory tracking.  This means that you may have as many or as few Categories and Sub-Categories as you see fit.  ESC only requires one Category and Sub-Category to be setup before you can begin entering parts.  It also allows you to add as many Categories and Sub-Categories as you will need.

1. Head to Inventory → Enter Part Categories.
2. If you wish to add a new Category, click the Add New button and assign the Category a name.  If you wish to edit an existing Category, simply double-click the name of the Category to open it.
   
   
   
   
3. To help you manage your prices a default Markup Code can be applied to each Sub-Category. You can also tell the Sub-Category to apply the Markup Code to the Average Cost or Base Price of the item when the price is calculated. See the Update Inventory Pricing topic to learn how this works.
4. Sub-categories also allow you to assign a default Price Book to all parts added to them. This can be useful if you want to limit the items that particular technicians can see. Check out the Enter Salesman Price Books topic for more details on how to setup and use price books.
   
   

Tip: We recommend setting up your Categories and Sub-Categories the same way your primary vendor has their catalog divided. This will help you find items easily because you will already be used to the system they have in place.

Note: All parts must be assigned to a Category and a Sub-Category. When you are setting up a new Category, if you don't create at least one Sub-Category , ESC will automatically create one for you.  The default Markup Code and Price Book settings for each Category will override what has been selected as defaults in the System Setup → Inventory screen.