Parts and Materials Tracking
Log every part and material used on a job, track your supplier costs, and make sure your margins stay healthy — all without a separate spreadsheet.
Adding materials to a job
You can add materials to a job from two places — the job record itself, or the quote that leads to the job.
Open the job, scroll to the Materials section, and click Add material. Search for a part from your material library or type a new one. Enter the quantity used, the cost price, and the sell price. Click Save. Materials added here are reflected in the job cost summary and carry through to the invoice.
When building a quote, add line items from your material library. Once the quote is accepted and the job is created, those materials are automatically attached to the job record so there is no duplication of effort.
The material library
The material library is a central catalogue of all the parts and materials your business uses. Each item in the library stores:
To manage your library go to Settings > Materials > Library. You can add, edit, and archive parts from here.
Calculating material margin
Trade2Base calculates the margin on each material line automatically. The margin percentage is shown next to each item in the job materials section and on the job cost summary panel.
The formula used is:
The job cost summary at the top of the job record shows your total materials revenue, total materials cost, and blended materials margin for the job as a whole. This helps you see at a glance whether the job is on track to meet your target margin.
Setting markup percentages by category
Instead of setting sell prices individually, you can apply a standard markup percentage to an entire material category. When you add a new item from that category, the sell price is calculated automatically from the cost price and the markup.
- 1Go to Settings > Materials > Categories and select or create a category.
- 2Enter your default Markup % for the category. For example, 30% means a part costing £10 will have a default sell price of £13.
- 3Click Save. New materials added to this category will use this markup by default. You can still override the sell price on individual items.
Linking materials to job stages
If your jobs have multiple stages (for example, a first fix and a second fix), you can attach materials to a specific stage rather than the job as a whole. Open the job, go to the relevant stage, and add materials from within that stage's materials panel. This helps you track which parts were used at which visit and makes it easier to build accurate stage-by-stage cost reports.
How materials appear on quotes and invoices
You have control over how materials are presented to the customer on quotes and invoices:
Set your default preference in Settings > Quotes & Invoices > Materials display, or override it on a per-job basis from the quote or invoice editor.
Importing a materials list from CSV
If you have an existing parts list in a spreadsheet, you can import it directly into Trade2Base rather than adding items one by one.
- 1Go to Settings > Materials > Library and click Import CSV.
- 2Download the Trade2Base CSV template and populate it with your part names, categories, cost prices, and sell prices.
- 3Upload the completed CSV. Trade2Base will validate each row and show any errors before importing. Correct any flagged rows and re-upload.
Reporting on material costs vs revenue
Go to Reports > Materials to see a breakdown of material revenue, cost, and margin across all jobs in a date range. Filter by category, supplier, engineer, or job type to identify your most and least profitable materials. The report also shows which materials are used most frequently so you can review whether your pricing is keeping pace with supplier cost increases. Export the report to CSV for use in your accounting software.