Plan materials and load the truck

A project’s materials move through a small lifecycle: someone plans them, a vendor ships them, they sit in the warehouse, a crew loads them onto a truck for a particular day, and sometimes some come back. Florio keeps that lifecycle on the Materials card of the event, hangs the pick list off the day the truck goes out, and counts cost on the project at the moment the crew confirms the load, because that is the moment somebody can actually see.

Before you start

Materials must be turned on for your workspace (Set up Projects). Planning lines needs the permission to plan materials; staging a day and confirming a load needs the permission to ship them, which the warehouse role holds. Unit costs and anything counted in dollars show only to people who can see project money.

Plan the lines

Open the event’s Materials tab. The tab shows only on workspaces that plan materials, and its count chip carries how many lines have not arrived.
Choose Add materials and fill in the form: the Item, the Quantity, the Unit cost, the Vendor and PO number when there is one, the Costing and the Status. Choose Create.

The Add materials form: item, quantity, unit cost, vendor, PO number, Costing and Status Screenshot from a demo workspace; data illustrative.

Costing says how this line’s cost reaches the project, and it matters because one job normally mixes both:

From our stock: the item comes off your own shelf, so its cost is counted on the project when it leaves the warehouse.
On the vendor bill: the item was bought for this job, so its cost reaches the project when accounting codes the vendor’s bill to it. Nothing is counted here, so it is never counted twice.
No cost to us: client-supplied or otherwise free.

Status starts at To order, On order or In hand. Once a line exists, its status, costing and staged day are edited in place on the table.

The item name, and the manufacturer and model number under it, are edited in place too, on every line the proposal no longer owns: a line you added by hand, and any line that has been released to purchasing, is on a purchase order, or has arrived or shipped. Point at the line and click the text. A manufacturer or model number the line does not have yet, or one its name already carries, offers itself while you point at the line. A line from the proposal that is still to order, with nothing claiming it, keeps the proposal’s name, because Rebuild from proposal would put that name back. A change order that already carries a line keeps the wording it gathered, so correct the line before you add it to the change order, or add it again. The same fields edit the same way on the purchase order’s own page.

The status follows the quantities. A line on a purchase order is received on the order, not here, and marking a line Shipped needs the permission to ship: it ships only what is in hand, and says so when the rest has not arrived. A status the quantities would contradict is refused with a note saying where to make the change, and each choice in the status list says where it leads on that line.

Read the table

The Materials tab: stats, the lifecycle filter chips, and the line table with the approval mark left of each item and its Costing, Status and Staged for columns Screenshot from a demo workspace; data illustrative.

The stats across the top are the tab in one line: how many Lines, how many have Not arrived (and how many of those a booked day is waiting on), how many have Shipped across how many shipments, the Unapproved cost standing against the approved projected cost, and Counted here: the stock cost counted on this project so far. The chips filter by status: To order, On order, In hand, Shipped, Returned, and Not approved when any line needs an approval.

Each row leads with an approval mark beside the item, a green check when an approval covers the line, a red exclamation when one does not (hover it for Approved or Not approved; see Approve planned cost). Then come the item, its vendor and PO, quantity, unit cost, Costing, Status and Staged for, the day whose truck it is going on. A line that has shipped in part reads In hand, or On order while the rest is still to come, with “24 of 40 shipped” beside it.

The item leads with the part’s description, with its name and location note under it, beside a small product photo. A line with no photo shows an empty tile. Click the photo to see it full size with the part number under it.

Stage a day and load the truck

Every scheduled day on a project has a pick list: what goes on the truck that morning. There are two ways in.

From the Materials tab, set a line’s Staged for to one of the project’s days. Only this project’s days are offered, and a shipped or returned line cannot be staged.
From the schedule, open a day. The block editor carries a Pick list action, and a day that already has items staged shows a readiness chip that links straight to its list.

The pick list for a day: the staged list on the left with one on-order item refused in red, and the crew's load column on the right with a quantity stepper and the confirm button Screenshot from a demo workspace; data illustrative.

The left side is the warehouse view: Staged for this day, each line with its costing and vendor, and Stage items to add more from the project. An item that is still on order is refused and named in red: it cannot go on the truck, and the banner says the crew will be short unless the order lands or the work moves. Take off removes a line from the day without touching the line itself.

The right side is the crew’s load list, with no money on it. Each line has a quantity; when more than one is on hand, a stepper lets the crew take a Part load and leave the rest on the shelf. The confirm button, which counts the items as it goes, records what actually left:

Each confirmed quantity ships. Its cost, if it is from your stock, lands on the project now.
A part load keeps the line open for the balance, and the rest stays staged for the day.
Anything not arrived stays behind, and the result names it back rather than marking it out.
Confirming twice records nothing twice.

Un-ship, and the shipments ledger

When something recorded as shipped did not go out, or came back from site, choose Un-ship under the item. Choosing In hand or On order in a shipped line’s status opens the same card. It asks How many (type it, or step it) and What happened:

Came back: it is back in your hands, ready to go out again.
Shipped by mistake: it never left; the record was wrong.
Never arrived: it is not here either. The received count comes down with it, and on a purchase order the order goes back to partly received, so the rest can be chased or moved back to the queue.
Not needed here, for a line from your own stock that is not on a purchase order: the units go back on the shelf and the line shrinks by the same amount. Taking back all of a line this way closes it as Returned.

The line under the choices says what will change before you confirm, including what comes off the project’s stock cost. Un-shipping needs the permission to ship materials, and a project closed to cost refuses it like any other cost change.

Returned is for a line that went back to the vendor: it takes back everything that shipped, and a returned line stays closed.

On a purchase order, a received quantity cannot be lowered below what has shipped. The order page says how many went out and links to this tab: un-ship them here first, or choose Never arrived, which lowers the receipt in the same step.

The Shipments ledger under the table records every movement in order. An un-ship appears as a negative row against the shipment it takes back, with its reason beside the date (“never arrived”, “came back unused”), never as an erasure. The same ledger shows a part shipment as its own row.

The Shipments ledger: each movement with the item, the day and block it shipped on, who confirmed it, the quantity, and what was counted on the project, with the return shown as a negative row Screenshot from a demo workspace; data illustrative.

Phases

A project’s days group into phases on the Schedule panel: Manage phases adds, renames and dates them, with a status of Planned, Now or complete. The strip above the days shows each phase’s planned window, how many of its days are done, and a state:

Planned: not started.
Now: active, with days still to come.
Wrapping: active, every scheduled day done.
Done: marked complete.
Late: a day is booked past the phase’s planned end, whatever its status says.

The Schedule panel on a project: the phase strip, then the days grouped by date, with a red readiness chip on the day that is short Screenshot from a demo workspace; data illustrative.

Schedule a phase generates the days: pick the phase, keep or change the From and To dates (they default to the phase window), choose What kind of day, Hours per day, People per day, the Crew on every day, and whether to keep Weekdays only. Then Generate days. Running it again extends the run rather than duplicating it, and a day you add by hand can join a phase from the block editor.

The Schedule a phase dialog: the phase picker, From and To, the kind of day, hours and people per day, crew, weekdays only, and Generate days Screenshot from a demo workspace; data illustrative.

Deleting a phase leaves its days on the calendar; they stop rolling up to a phase.

My projects, every morning

My projects in the sidebar brings the above together across every job you own: the current phase and its state, the next four weeks as day dots (booked, at risk because something has not arrived, or booked with nobody named), materials readiness, and a Next action in plain words. Rows sort by urgency, and the chips narrow to Needs action, In the field or Slipping. Switch the scope from Mine to All to see every project.

My projects with five rows: a late phase, a day short on materials with the PO to chase, unapproved cost needing sign-off, items still in the warehouse, and days with nobody named Screenshot from a demo workspace; data illustrative.

Good to know

A line can be removed while nothing has shipped from it. Once something has, un-ship it instead.
Un-shipping a line from your stock lowers the project’s cost to date in the month you record it. A line on the vendor bill changes nothing here; its cost follows the bill.
Materials lines add to the project’s unapproved cost until a re-estimate covers them; see Approve planned cost.
The warehouse role sees what to load and never what it cost. The crew’s load column carries no money for everyone.
The purchasing queue and each purchase order show a part the same way, photo and all. A purchase order’s PDF prints each part’s name, description and part number for the vendor, and never where on the job the part goes. A part that a change order touches reads Held · change order pending on the queue until the change order is decided; see Swap or remove a part.