Importing historical work from your ERP

Leveraging historical work when quoting a part can help your shop decrease turnaround time and drive consistency in your prices. Whether a historical part was only quoted or became a job, use the Import historical work action to quickly import part information, costing, and pricing data from your ERP into new quotes.

Quick start guide

Create a new quote or begin editing an existing quote from your Drafts.
Select Import historical work when adding a quote item.
Search the interface for the part number you wish to import.
1. Tip: Use search toggles to expand your search by quote number, job number, or to include children of assemblies.
Select parts from the results to preview part information, costing, and pricing data from the historical quote or job. Once you have selected the item you wish to import, click Import item.
1. To import more than one item at a time, check Import another item before importing to keep the window open.
Link the ERP record to an existing part in your library or a new manual part.
The selected item will be added to the quote as a new quote item, complete with all relevant data from the historical quote or job.
Either quickly resend the quote, make minor changes to the costing, or fully requote the part before sending it to your buyer.
1. Note: Each of these processes is slightly different because of how we recreate costing and pricing from your ERP in Paperless Parts. For more information, check out the written walkthrough and FAQ below.

Written and visual walkthrough

First, open the Import historical work window from a new quote (or any quote in Drafts).

Create a new quote or begin editing an existing quote from your Drafts.
Click the + symbol at the top of the navigation bar and select Import historical work.

From here, search for the part number you wish to import. If you do not have the exact part number, you can toggle off Search part number only and search by part number, file name, quote number, RFQ number, and job number.

Note: This search engine will only return exact results, but we'll recommend existing part numbers to you in grey font as you type. Press TAB to grab the suggested part number. To learn more about how search works in the Import historical work window, check out our Search FAQ.

Search results from your ERP system will be marked with a grey ERP tag.

Select a result to preview its part information and router.

Once you have selected the item you wish to import, click Import from ERP.

Tip: To import more than one item at a time, check Import another item before importing your selection. (This will determine if the window stays open or closes after you import the first item.)

From there, you’ll be prompted to link the ERP record to a part in your account - either a compatible, existing entry in your Part Library or a new manual part.

Linking ERP data to an existing part

If the part that you’re quoting already exists in your part library, link it to the ERP record. This will add the imported quote or job to the existing part’s quoting history.

If there are multiple entries in your library for the same part, use the Last linked tag to make sure historical data is centralized in one location. You can also use the Open in viewer option to review the BOM structure and geometry of the existing part entries before making a selection.

After selecting a part, click Import item and link part to import the ERP record to your quote. The selected item will be added to the quote as a new quote item, complete with part data from your library and routing from the ERP quote or job.

Linking ERP data to a new manual part

If the part that you’re quoting does not already exist in Paperless Parts, select New manual part to create a new entry in your library and link the ERP record to it.

Click Import item and link part to confirm your selection.

Note: New manual parts will not have any associated part files. If you create one while importing an ERP record, we recommend attaching any part files you may have available to the part afterward - that way, you can reference the part’s geometry while requoting.

Finishing the quote

Once the imported quote item has loaded, either:

Quickly resend the same price to your buyer
Make minor adjustments to the quote, or
Requote the historical part

For more information on why these workflows are different and how we map costs from an ERP quote/job to a quote in Paperless Parts, check out the FAQ below.

Resending the historical quote

If you're quickly turning around a quote with the historical unit price, you don't technically need to adjust anything before sending the quote to your buyer - we'll bring in the exact unit price from your ERP record.

However, the process for the imported quote item will be “Requoted” (rather than one of the standard processes that you use to quote new work). This process name may display on the digital quote (depending on your account settings), so if you want your buyers to see a different name, change the process - but be sure to click Update and keep existing operations so you don’t affect costs in the imported quote.

Note: Changing the process will also assign the new process’s standard lead time to the quote item (unless the lead time has been overridden).

Making minor adjustments (adding quantities or operations, adjusting material cost, etc.)

Because we're importing the exact costing and pricing from your ERP, the ERP operations in an imported quote are static and will not recalculate when you make minor changes to the quote. Non-ERP operations that you add to the quote will behave as normal, so you can add and remove routing steps as usual to any quote you've imported from your ERP.

If you add a new quantity to an imported part with only ERP operations, the cost for the new quantity will be zero. However, you can still quickly get your buyer a quote simply by overriding the new quantity's final price with the unit price pulled from your ERP.

For instance, let's say you previously quoted 10 of this part for a customer, and they requested another quote for 15 of the same historical part. Add a quantity of 15 to the quote item and scroll down to the pricing table.

Here, we can see that the total price for the new quantity is $0.00 - again, because the ERP operations in this quote are static and will not calculate a price for a new quantity. We'll override the unit price for quantity 15 with $1,800.00 to match the historical price.

On the Digital Quote, the customer will now see two quantity options (10 and 25) at $18,000 and $27,000 respectively.

Requoting the historical part

Sometimes, you need to recalculate the price of a historical part, but you don't want to start from scratch. Importing a historical part from your ERP can still be useful in those cases - especially when you're requoting a historical part and you want to leverage geometric automation in your account, or when you're requoting a historical assembly part with a PDF (or no file) and you don't want to have to reconstruct the BOM.

Let's start with the first use case. To requote a historical part with geometric automation:

Upload the part's CAD model as a supporting file.
Make the CAD model the primary file.
Change the part's process.
1. Click Update to remove ERP operations and replace them with your account's configured operations.

This will recalculate the cost for the part using the CAD file and the calculations in your configured operations.

Next, let's say you want to recalculate the cost for an assembly part (ROOT-ASSM), which has two subassemblies and four manufactured parts in the BOM hierarchy. All of the manufactured parts are lasered, and you need to account for assembly steps like "Inspect" and "Pack" at the top level of the part.

First, assign the correct process to each part in the BOM structure.

At the top level, click Change process and select the "Assembly | Parent-Level" process. Click Update to clear all ERP operations and replace them with your configured ops.

To bulk update all child parts with the "Laser" process, scroll down to the Assembly components section of the quote item. Toggle to Flat BOM to view all components in the BOM and select the manufactured parts.

Click Actions in the top right corner and select Update process/material/finish.

Choose the desired process and material and click Confirm to update all selected parts.

Once you're satisfied with the price on your repeat parts, send the quote as normal and facilitate an order if you win the work. Like any other order, this will create a record in your ERP system (but will not override the part master for the historical part).

FAQs

How are costing and pricing items different for parts imported from my ERP?

Because ERPs calculate cost differently than your configured operations in Paperless Parts, costing and pricing on quote items imported from your ERP will look and behave differently than they might for a part you have quoted in Paperless Parts.

Process

The process for a part imported from your ERP will be “Requoted”.

ERP Operations

Each operation in an imported quote reflecting a routing step from your ERP will have an ERP badge.

ERP operations are static, meaning that they are not performing a cost calculation the way that other operations do, and their variables cannot be changed. If you need to make a change to an operation's cost, override its final cost from the Build-a-Quote page.

All “Required material” costs will be captured under a “Required materials” operation.

Pricing items

Quotes imported from your ERP may have a pricing item called “ERP Cost Calculation Adjustment”. This pricing item accounts for any discrepancy between the final price in Paperless Parts and the final price in your ERP, which likely comes from markups, yield, and rounding.

Why can’t I add/change the part's quantities and have costs calculate like they would for a new part?

The costs for any new quantity you add to a part imported from your ERP will be zero by default. ERP operations are only able to reference your ERP’s existing routing and costs, and unlike your account’s configured operations, they do not perform cost calculations. This is because ERPs and Paperless Parts do not calculate costs the same way, making it currently impossible to recreate the live calculations performed on a quote/job in your ERP in Paperless Parts.

How does search work?

Searching in the Import part window will only return exact matches (including punctuation). For example:

Searching “123-456” will only bring in results for “123-456” and will NOT bring in results for “123”, “456”, or “123456”.
Searching “123-” will not return “123-456”.

Once you start typing, we'll suggest part numbers from your library in grey. If you see the correct number, press TAB to grab it and search.

You can use two toggles to refine your search results: the Search by part number only toggle and the Include child parts toggle.

Search by part number only toggle:

ON: Results will only include exact part number matches.
OFF: Results will include exact matches by quote number, part number, and job number.

Include hild parts toggle:

ON: Results will include children of assembly parts.
OFF: Results will only include root parts.

If multiple part entries meet the search criteria, they’ll be listed in order of descending part creation date, with the most recently created parts shown first.

Quotes / jobs for the same part will also be listed in descending creation date order.

I want to import a child assembly part as a root part. How will quantities and yield come over?

For any child assembly part you import, the child’s BOM quantities are imported as the requested quantities of the new quote item.

Any costs associated with the yield of the child or its parent(s) will be added to the “ERP Cost Calculation Adjustment” pricing item. This means the total price of the new quote item will always equal the total cost of the child when it was in the assembly.

Note: The make quantity from the ERP may be different since we will not import yield. This is the same behavior as importing root parts from the ERP.

Why does importing a part from my ERP take longer than importing from Paperless Parts?

Importing work from an ERP can take up to 1+ minute (for complex parts) since we are creating new data in your account. Because these imports take slightly longer, you won’t see a new quote item appear until it’s finished loading.

The alert below will let you know that an import is in progress, so feel free to leave the page and continue working - we’ll let you know when the import is done!

How do I know the final price imported from my ERP is correct? What is the “ERP Cost Calculation Adjustment” pricing item?

ERPs and Paperless Parts do not calculate costs the same way, making it impossible to completely match all fields on the quotes / jobs from the ERP to the fields on quotes in Paperless. Those differences primarily lie in yield, markup, and rounding.

Because of this, when you import a part from your ERP you may notice an additional pricing item called “ERP Cost Calculation Adjustment” added to the quote item. This pricing item accounts for any discrepancy between the final price in Paperless Parts and the final price in your ERP, allowing us to preserve critical quote details while still ensuring that the final price in Paperless Parts will always be the same as the final price from your ERP on import.

The following warning will appear if you’re previewing an ERP record that requires a cost adjustment:

How are markups brought over from my ERP?

Each ERP handles markups differently. For example, some ERPs allow you to add markups to children of assembly parts, which is not something that is possible in Paperless Parts. Because of this, all markups applied to a part (either on a root part or any of its children) will be combined into one pricing item on the imported quote item, called “ERP Cost Calculation Adjustment”.

For example, let’s say you’re importing an assembled part with multiple children into Paperless. In your ERP, the top level of the assembled part is marked up 15% and its child part is marked up 10%. After importing, the new Paperless Parts quote item will have a pricing item equaling the sum of the markups for the root and child parts.

How is yield brought over from my ERP?

Each ERP handles the concept of making extra parts to fulfill the customer-requested quantity a little differently (both from Paperless Parts and other ERP systems). For this reason, any quote item imported from your ERP (regardless of its yield or scrap percentage in your ERP system) will have a 100% yield in Paperless Parts, meaning the make quantity will match the customer-requested quantity. The resulting discrepancy in price will be accounted for in the “ERP Cost Calculation Adjustment” pricing item.

How are required materials brought over from my ERP?

Unlike Paperless Parts, ERP systems bundle all raw material costs under a “Required materials” section. Those costs will appear in Paperless Parts as one “Required materials” operation.

How is hardware brought over from my ERP?

When a part with hardware is imported from your ERP, each piece of hardware will be assigned to an entry from your purchased component library based on the part number.

What does Link ERP record to part mean?

When you import a quote or job from your ERP into Paperless Parts, there will be no part file tied to the record that you’re importing. We can’t pass part files from an ERP into Paperless, and oftentimes there is no file in the ERP to bring over. That being said, we know that referencing a file while quoting - even for repeat jobs - can be useful, especially if you’re leveraging geometric automation or presenting the part thumbnail to your buyer on the Digital Quote.

The Link ERP record to part option allows you to associate the ERP data you’re bringing in with a part entry in Paperless - either an existing one or a new entry with a manual part. Once you’ve linked the ERP record to a part, you can either upload part files to the new part in your account or reference historical data from the existing entry.

It’s good to keep in mind as you quote that each part in your Part Library is tied to relevant historical quotes, notes, collaboration messages, and orders. Not linking ERP data you import to a part in Paperless could lead to duplicate part entries, preventing you from seeing the full picture of a part’s history the next time you quote it.

What does the Last linked tag mean?

If a part is flagged as Last linked, that means that (out of the listed compatible parts) it was the part most recently linked to a historical job or quote.

This tag can be helpful if you have duplicate entries for a part in your library. Importing data only to the Last linked part will keep your quoting history centralized in one part entry and easy to find later on.

How do imported parts get brought back into my ERP when an order is placed?

When a part is ordered in Paperless Parts and brought over into the ERP (as part of a standard integration), any existing item / part master for a part will not be overridden or updated if the part number already exists in your ERP. Any changes to the BOM or router (including overrides in operations, changes to the material item, etc.) made in Paperless will not be brought into the ERP. This may or may not include updates made to part revisions depending on your ERP system.

This is done in order to maintain the ERP as the main system of record for an item/part master.