Assembly Price Updates and Labour Types

Assemblies and price updates

Items inside assemblies are not static snapshots — they remain live references to the database. This means your assemblies stay current automatically without any manual intervention:

• Price updates — when you run a weekly price update, the trade prices of all items within assemblies are updated automatically alongside everything else in the database.
• Discount changes — if you amend a discount for a product range or an individual item, that change is reflected inside any assembly containing that item.
• Labour time changes — if installation times are updated (either by Ensign or by you), assemblies pick up the new times automatically.

You do not need to open and re-save each assembly after a price update or discount change. The assemblies always use the latest values from the database.

Assigning labour types to assemblies

If you are using multiple labour rates on a job (e.g. standard, weekend, out of hours), you can assign different labour types to assembly components using the LT (Labour Type) column on the examine grid.

Changing labour types after input

After inputting an assembly with split lines, each component row has an LT column. You can change the labour type for individual items or for all items at once:

Individual items:

1. 1

   Click the LT cell for the item you want to change.

2. 2

   Overtype the value with the labour type number (e.g. 1 for standard, 2 for weekend, 3 for out of hours) and press Enter.

All items at once:

1. 1

   Highlight all the lines you want to change on the examine grid.

2. 2

   Right-click and select Change by Range.

3. 3

   Choose Labour Type and set the desired option.

4. 4

   Press Confirm. All highlighted lines are updated to the selected labour type.

The total labour cost updates on screen immediately as you change labour types, reflecting the different hourly rates. You can watch the cost change in real time as you assign different rates to different components.

Setting a default labour type before input

You can also set a default labour type before inputting items:

1. 1

   Click the Labour Factors button at the bottom of the takeoff screen.

2. 2

   Select the labour rate you want to use as the default (e.g. "Out of Hours").

3. 3

   Press Confirm.

All subsequent items — including assemblies — will be input with that labour type. This is useful when you know an entire section needs to be priced at a specific rate (e.g. all work in a particular area must be done out of hours).

Site factor and task factor

When using multiple labour rates, two additional columns become available on the examine grid:

• Site factor — a multiplier applied to all items within a specific section. For example, setting a site factor of 2 on a section doubles the labour time for everything in that section. This is useful for areas with difficult working conditions (e.g. high ceilings, restricted access).
• Task factor — a multiplier applied to an individual takeoff line. This doubles (or otherwise adjusts) the labour time for a single item without affecting anything else.