Assigning a process, material, and finish

Setting the foundation for your quote

Assigning a process, material, and finish is the first step in quoting a part. These selections will create a foundation for the quote, assigning a routing template and determining core characteristics of the part (such as weight), all of which will drive the final price. 

When creating a new quote item, you’ll be prompted to select a process, material, and finish, as well as assign the customer-requested quantity. 

1. Process: An estimating template that will be applied to the part. 
   1. Processes are highly configurable and typically set up to reflect your shop’s capabilities, so picking one should be intuitive. It’s a good rule of thumb to select the process that most closely aligns with how you’ll be making the part on the shop floor. 
2. Material: The raw, atomic material that the part will be made out of. Material selection will drive important costing information like the density, weight, and complexity of a part. 
   1. Assigning a material here is not the same as accounting for a required material cost in the quote. Details like raw material shape and size will be determined later in the quoting process. 
3. Finish: Assign a finish to bring in a routing step to account for associated costs. The finish you select here will also be presented to your buyer on the final quote (dependent on your account settings). 
   1. Don’t see the finish you’re looking for? You may need to add it to your process. Click here to learn more.
4. Customer-requested quantity: The quantity (or quantities) that you would like to offer the buyer on the final quote.

These values can also be assigned or changed later on from the Process section of a quote item.

Note: You cannot assign a material, costing items, or pricing items to a part without first assigning a process. Changing a process will also delete all existing costing and pricing items unless you select Update and keep existing ops.

Once you’ve assigned a process, material, and finish, your quote item should be populated with a set of operations and pricing items, creating a basic router. 

The next step is to set up your router and confirm costs for the part.