How to set up Save As You Go item pricing

By default, when you change an item’s Cost or Price in a job card, it’s a one-off change, for that job only. If you want to make it a permanent change, you have to update the item again in your materials database i.e. in Account > Materials & Services.

However, it is possible to update the Cost or Price of an item in one job, and the next time you use that item, it’ll have the updated price.

So, you can choose for any changes to an item’s Cost or Price to:

• Never update that item in your database (how it works by default)
• Always update the item; or
• Only update when the cost or price increases.

To configure this preference in the Online Dashboard, go to Account > Settings > Preferences > Job Settings > Items & Services. Look for Changes to the Cost or Price of an Item in a job card:

If you choose to “Always update the saved item for future jobs” or “Update the saved item only if the Cost or Price increases”, then whenever you make an applicable change to an item’s Cost or Price in a job card online, you will also get a notice that the change will apply to future jobs if/when the item is used again:

Apply saved prices to an existing job

The Billing section of a Job card can also show a cost or price notice with an Apply Changes button when saved values in Materials & Services have changed since you added the items to the job. This offers to bring the items already on the job up to date. The notice does not change the job’s costs or prices automatically; you choose whether to apply the offered changes.

This is different from the confirmation shown above: that confirmation tells you a change made on the job has been saved for future jobs. Apply Changes brings saved values into an existing job.

How the preference controls both features

When ServiceM8 15 is enabled on your account, the same preference controls both whether job edits update saved items and which Apply Changes notices appear:

Preference	Changes you make on a job	Apply Changes notices on existing jobs
Do not update the saved item (one-off change)	Stay on that job; saved items are unchanged.	Both cost and price notices, including their Apply Changes buttons, are hidden.
Update the saved item only if the Cost or Price increases	Update the saved item only for applicable increases.	Offer increases only. Applying them does not also apply decreases to other items.
Always update the saved item for future jobs	Update the saved item for applicable increases or decreases.	Can offer increases and decreases.

Choosing Do not update the saved item (one-off change) has both effects: it hides the notices and stops job edits from updating saved items for future jobs. There is no separate preference to hide only the Apply Changes buttons.

Notices appear only for eligible changes on eligible jobs, so you may not see a notice for every difference in cost or price.