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Price List Creator

Manual Version 1.0

Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1

Creating the Initial Price List ......................................................................................... 2

Understanding the Price List Creator Page ................................................................. 3

Customizing a Price List ............................................................................................... 4

Changing the price list title and adding a subtitle .................................................. 4

Changing the Profile Display Name....................................................................... 5

Specifying the number of colors ............................................................................ 6

Specifying the shirt color category ........................................................................ 6

Selecting the rounding ........................................................................................... 7

Changing the quantity breakpoints ........................................................................ 8

Changing the breakpoints to number ranges ........................................................ 9

Changing individual prices .................................................................................... 10

Sending the price list to Microsoft Word ..................................................................... 11

Sending the Price List to Microsoft Excel .................................................................... 13

Sending the price list to the Windows Clipboard ........................................................ 14

Customizing the Microsoft Word template .................................................................. 15

Price List Creator Manual 1

Introduction

The Price List Creator is a software extension to Fast Accurate Bids that lets you create screen

printing price lists quickly and easily.

Here’s just a few ways that the Price List Creator can help you in your business:

Create one or more price lists for your website.

Create individual price lists for the sample apparel items in your showroom.

Create sample price lists to insert into the apparel catalogs you send to prospects.

Create sales price lists to send to your customers.

Create contract printing price lists for the apparel decoration businesses you serve.

Create price lists to assist you in developing and refining the settings for your Fast Accurate

Bids custom pricing profiles.

Create price lists to assist you in setting up pricing in other software programs such as Ink

Soft, Deconet, and QuickBooks.

This manual explains how to use the Price List Creator for creating and editing price lists for your

business.

In addition to this manual, Fast Accurate Bids provides a User Manual that explains how to create

the bids and a Shop Owner’s Manual that explains how to set up Fast Accurate Bids and work with

the pricing profiles.

2 Price List Creator Manual

Creating the Initial Price List

To create a price list, start by choosing an item and a pricing profile in the same manner as you

would for starting a bid. Then, click the Create Price List button. The Price List Creator Page will

open, showing on it the tables for the initial price list.

Tip: You can choose the item from either the Choose Item Page or the Custom Items Page. You can

also enter the item information directly into the Design and Pricing Page’s current item fields. With

the exception of the net cost, all the fields for the current item are editable. To specify the Net Cost,

select the radio button Set Net Cost and enter the amount for the net cost in the field provided.

Whenever the Price List Creator Page is open, Fast Accurate Bids operates in Price List Creator mode.

In this mode, you can use the Choose Item and Custom Item pages to change the item and you can use

the Design and Pricing Page to change the pricing profile, recalculate the price list, and exit the Price

List Creator. All other Fast Accurate Bids functions are unavailable until you exit the Price List Creator.

From within the Price List Creator you can customize the price list and then send it to Microsoft

Word, Excel, or the Windows Clipboard.

To create a bid with Fast Accurate Bids, you need to exit the Price List Creator.

Whenever the Price List

Creator Page is open, the

Fast Accurate Bids features

not related to creating a

price list are dimmed and

unavailable for use.

Closing the Price List

Creator reactivates the

ability to do bids again.


Understanding the Price List Creator Page

The Price List Creator Page has three sections. At the top of the page, it displays the item and profile

that you chose from the Design and Pricing Page. This is the only information that is taken from the

Design and Pricing Page for generating the price list.

The middle area of the Price List Creator Page provides options for customizing your price list.

How to use these options is described in the section in this manual called Customizing a Price List.

The two price list tables the Price List Creator generates are just below the Price List Options. The

top table shows the prices for the item-with-printing and the bottom table shows the prices for

printing-only. There’s a scroll bar that lets you move up and down from one table to the other.

At the very bottom of the Price List Creator Page, there are buttons for recalculating the pricelist and

for sending the finished price list to Microsoft Word, Excel, or the Windows clipboard.

When you make any changes to the information on the Price List Creator page that requires running

the Fast Accurate Bids calculation engine to recalculate the two pricing tables, the Price List Creator

deactivates the Send to Clipboard, Send to Excel, and Send to Word buttons. These buttons become

active again as soon as you have Fast Accurate Bids recalculate the pricing tables.

Use the scroll bar to switch

from the top table that shows

pricing for the item-with-

printing to the bottom table that

shows pricing for printing-only.


Customizing a Price List

You can customize a price list in a number of ways. These include using the Price List Options on

the Price List Creator Page, directly changing the quantity and/or pricing in the price list tables, and

changing the finished price list from Microsoft Word.

When you click the Recalculate button, the choices you make in the price list options fields get

updated whenever you select a different item or pricing profile but otherwise are not overwritten.

The price list tables, however, get completely updated with new data on clicking Recalculate. For

this reason, it’s a good idea to leave editing the tables until the last step before sending your price

lists to Microsoft Word.

The information that follows describes using the options on the Price List Creator Page and directly

changing the quantity and/or pricing in the price list tables.

Changing the price list title and adding a subtitle The default for the field Price List Title is taken from the current item field Description. There is

no default for the field Subtitle. The subtitle is always blank when you first generate a price list.

You can change the title to whatever you want by clicking in the field Price List Title and changing

the text. If you want to also add a subtitle, you can do so by clicking in the field Subtitle and

entering whatever text you want.

The title and subtitle become the first two lines on the finished price list you send to Word. For

example, in the screen shot that follows, the title has been edited to provide the general category of

shirts (100% Cotton, 6.1oz T-Shirts) and a subtitle has been added that lets the user know that they

have a choice of the specific shirt brands (Your choice of Hanes, Gildan, or Port and Company).


Changing the Profile Display Name The default for the field Profile Display Name is taken from the pricing profile you selected for

doing the price list. This information gets printed at the bottom of the Microsoft Word version of the

finished profile. If you don’t want the actual name of your profile shown on the finished bid, enter

the name you want in this field. For example, if you use the built-in profile 3 Middle Price Bid,

consider using the profile display name 3 MPB.

Important: If you use the Fast Accurate Bids built-in pricing profiles, be sure to change the display

name for the profile, since the names for the built-in pricing profiles imply the level of pricing they

produce. For example, if you use 4 Higher Price Bids for creating a price list, having this appear on

the bottom of your price list could create problems for you with your customers.


Specifying the number of colors The field Number of Colors determines the number of color columns on the price list. The default

is 8 but can be changed to any number between 1 and 12.

Consider setting the number of colors to the maximum number of colors you can print. For

example, if you have an 8 color press, then set the number of color columns to 8.

Changing the number of colors requires recalculating the price list, and once set, the Price List Creator

retains the setting for the number of colors. So you only have to set the value for this field once.

Specifying the shirt color category The choice you make for the shirt color category becomes the third line of the header for the finished

Microsoft Word version of the price list.

The default labels for the shirt color choices are White Shirts, Light Shirts, and Dark Shirts, but

you can change them as desired. For example, consider adding a fuller explanation for Light Shirts

so that it reads Light Shirts (ink color is darker than shirt).

Changing the shirt color category requires recalculating the price list.

The rightmost choice for the shirt color category always adds a flash charge to the price list

calculations.


Selecting the rounding The rounding options let you leave the calculated pricing exact or round it to the nearest nickel or

dime. The default for rounding is No Rounding (i.e., use exact prices).

Changing the rounding requires recalculating the price list.


Changing the quantity breakpoints The quantity breakpoint numbers are taken from the Screen Qty Breaks table for the currently

selected pricing profile.

To change the breakpoints,

1. Open the Fast Accurate Bids Settings Page and choose the pricing profile that you intend to

use for the price list.

Tip: To have access to the Settings Page while running the Price List Creator, open the

Settings Page before clicking the Creat Price List button.

2. Make the changes you want to the Screen Qty Breaks table.

Tip: Because Fast Accurate Bids requires the breakpoint quanties to be in order from the

lowest to the highest quantity, consider starting by setting all the quantity breakpoint

quantities on this table to your highest quantity and then adding the breakpoint quantities in

asending order.

3. Save the pricing profile.

The new quantity breakpoints for the pricing profile will be used for your price list.

For more information on editing pricing profiles, see the Fast Accurate Bids Shop Owner’s Manual.


Changing the breakpoints to number ranges To change the quantities from single breakpoint numbers to number ranges, double-click on each of

the quantity fields and change the breakpoint number to the number range you want.

The screen shot that follows shows the difference in readability for the Microsoft Word version of

the final price list between retaining the single quantity breakpoint numbers versus converting the

breakpoints to number ranges. Note that in both cases, because the initial number is 12, it implies

that the minimum order quantity for the price list is 12 items.

Tip: It’s a good idea to wait on changing the quantity breakpoints to number ranges until you are

ready to send your price list to Microsoft Word. This will ensure that you don’t have to do it again if

you decide that you want to change one or more of the price list options and need to recalculate the

price list.


Changing individual prices The data for the prices for the two price list tables are generated using the Fast Accurate Bids

calculation engine. If there are any fields that you want to change, you can double-click in the field

and change it to whatever you want. You can also delete the values from the fields entirely.

Consider changing to N/A (or simply deleting) the values for quantity/color combinations that you

don’t want to offer. For example, the blank fields in the screen shot below indicate that 24 is the

minimum order quantity for printing jobs requiring more than 4 colors.

Tip: Keep in mind that there is an upper table that shows the pricing for the item-with-printing and a

lower table that shows the pricing for printing-only. Don’t forget to make the changes to the lower

table. Also, it’s a good idea to wait on making changes to the individual price fields until you are

ready to send your price list to Microsoft Word. This will ensure that you don’t have to do it again if

you decide that you want to change one or more of the price list options and need to recalculate the

price list.


Sending the price list to Microsoft Word

Finish the price list by clicking the Send to Word button on the Price List Creator

Page.

Once you send the price list to Word, you can edit the text in the Word file as you

would for any other file you create or use in Word. The screen shot on the next page shows a sample

price list created by our sister company, Bellingham Screen Printing.

Keep in mind that the pricing grids in the Word file are non-editable images; not editable tables. So,

if you see changes you’d like to make to the pricing grids, go back to the Price List Creator Page,

make the changes, and resend the price list to Word. Alternately, you can send the price list to

Microsoft Excel from the Price List Creator Page, make the changes to the price list in Excel, and

paste the Excel table into the Word document.

There is a section at the end of this manual that describes how you can customize the Price List

Creator’s Microsoft Word template for your business. In addition to putting your company logo at

the top of the template, be sure to review the additional charges. The list on the template is provided

to give typical examples of additional charges that are included on screen printing price lists. Be

sure change this list and the associated prices to the additional charges that you want to use for your

own shop.

Note: The Price List Creator disables the Send Bid to Word button whenever you choose an option

that requires running the Fast Accurate Bids calculation engine for the change to be reflected in the

pricing tables. This ensures that your final pricing reflects the choices you have made. You can

reactivate the Send Bid to Word button by clicking Recalc to recalculate the pricelist.


Sending the Price List to Microsoft Excel

Clicking the Send to Excel button on the Price List Creator Page lets you send the

pricing tables to Microsoft Excel. When you click this button, a dialog box

appears to let you choose which of the tables you wish to send to Excel; you can

only send one table at a time.

The figure to the right shows a sample Fast Accurate

Bids price list table sent to Microsoft Excel.

Once you send the price list to Excel, you can edit it

and change it in the same was as you would for any

other spreadsheet you create or use in Microsoft

Excel.

Note: The Price List Creator disables the Send Bid to

Excel button whenever you choose an option that

requires running the Fast Accurate Bids calculation

engine for the change to be reflected in the pricing

tables. This ensures that your final pricing reflects the

choices you have made. You can reactivate the Send

Bid to Excel button by clicking Recalc to recalculate

the pricelist.


Sending the price list to the Windows Clipboard

Clicking the Send to Clipboard button on the Price List Creator Page lets you send

the pricing tables to Windows Clipboard. When you click this button, a dialog

box appears to let you choose which of the tables you wish to send to the

clipboard; you can only send one table at a time.

Once you’ve copied one of the pricing tables to the clipboard you can paste into any document just

as you would any other piece of information on the clipboard. The information in the paste buffer is

a Microsoft Office object. This means that the table is a non-editable image; not an editable table of

information.

Note: The Price List Creator disables the Send Bid to Clipboard button whenever you choose an

option that requires running the Fast Accurate Bids calculation engine for the change to be reflected

in the pricing tables. This ensures that your final pricing reflects the choices you have made. You

can reactivate the Send Bid to Clipboard button by clicking Recalc to recalculate the pricelist.


Customizing the Microsoft Word template

The Price List Creator has an associated Microsoft Word template that generates the Word file to

which the price list is copied. The template is called Fast Accurate Bids Price List Template.dotx

and is located in the folder Documents/Fast Accurate Bids Price List Creator/Documents.

To edit the template,

1. Open Microsoft Word and from the File menu open the file Documents/Fast Accurate Bids

Price List Creator/Documents/Fast Accurate Bids Price List Template.dotx.

Note: You must open the file by selecting Open from the File menu. Attempting to open a

Word template by double-clicking on it will result in opening it as a document file.

2. Edit or replace the text with the information that you want displayed on your price lists.

Important: Do not delete the words enclosed in angle braces (e.g. <PriceListGrid>), unless

you do not want the associated information included in finished price list.

3. When you have finished the edits you want to make to this file, select Save As from the File

menu, save the changes, and close the file.

Things to Note

In case you need it, Fast Accurate Bids provides a backup copy of the word template in

Documents/Fast Accurate Bids Price List Creator/Documents called Fast Accurate Bids

Price List Template – Copy.dotx.

The template supplied by the program can only be used with Word 2007 and later. If you

have an earlier version of Word that uses .dot templates, you can click the Send Price List

to Clipboard button on the Price List Creator Page to copy the price list table and paste it

into a document that you have created.

Toward the bottom of the default template, the section on Additional Charges provides

typical examples of additional charges provided on screen printing price lists. Be sure to

change this information to the additional charges that you want to use for your own shop.

The field <ProfileName> will be replaced by the name of the pricing profile’s name when

you create the price list. So, if you use one of the built-in pricing profiles (e.g., 4 Higher

Price Bids) for creating a price list, having this appear on the bottom of your price list could

create problems for you with your customers. To avoid this, be sure to change the default for

the field Profile Display Name to a different name. For more information, see Changing the

Profile Display Name.


Important: When editing the template, be careful not to delete the elements circled in red unless you want to remove the associated information from your finished price list.