There are a few items you can set up in advance that will make building your plant schedules much easier. This article is intended to help you preset the container sizes you use most and the average prices for those container sizes.
Why use sizes and prices?
Use this tool to select the sizes you use most often and save them as favorites. That way every time you open a project, you'll see these sizes at the top of every list.
No more having to scroll through hundreds of sizes!
And while you're selecting your favorite or most used sizes, if you take one extra step, you can add a price. This price should be the average cost for that container size. So if you select 1 gallon, and prices range from $8 - 15, consider setting the price at $12.
While you might use other tools to budget your project, you can use our plant budget tools to make sure your plant costs are staying on track. By taking the extra minute add a price to the sizes you use most - the second you start filling out the plant schedule with quantities, you'll also have a running total of your plant costs.
Set up your favorite sizes and prices.
The name of the game is speed – you want to be able to fill out your plant schedule quickly.
So, stop! Don’t just start entering sizes and quantities into the spreadsheet. The first thing you want to do is set up your average prices and select your most used sizes.
At the top of the page, click on the button called “Sizes/Prices”. This button is located in the both plant budget and plant schedule sections. You can open and make changes from either section.
This will pull up a modal window that looks like this. This is your workspace to do two things. First, you the can set the average price for any container size. Second, you can favorite the sizes you use in your projects.
You will notice that nothing is selected and there are a ton of options (which can feel overwhelming). The next step is to start favoriting the sizes you use the most often in your projects.
We recommend that you select 6-10 sizes, instead of worrying about every option.
The sizing options expand and contract just like the filters in the plant search. So use them to navigate to the container sizes you want.
For this example, we will select “Gallon Sizes” first. Click on the downward arrow next to the name or the name itself to see all the gallon options.
Once you click on “Gallon Sizes” it should look like this.
To make a container size a “favorite”, simply click on the hollow star next the size.
The star will change to a solid green color and now it’s a favorite!
You’ll also see the size jump to the top of your modal and is now also listed under “Favorites”. We selected “1 Gallon”, “5 Gallon”, and “15 Gallon” for our favorites.
Next, we recommend that you find all your favorite sizes, then come back and enter average prices. But you can do this however you prefer. We also selected “flat”, and “pint” for our favorites. It should look like this once you have selected your choices.
Now you can enter the average price for each size. When you are happy with your favorites and prices, click “Save and Apply”.
Best practices for sizes/prices:
Any size can be a favorite – you don’t have to enter a price to create favorites.
You can add an average price to any size – they don’t have be favorites.
Easily remove a price by clicking the “x” button.
If you change the average price, it will only make changes for anything new you update. (If you have older projects, the prices will not automatically change in those projects. However, if you go back to an older project and change the size, it will pull whatever the most recent average price is. But it will not automatically change the prices in older projects.)
To remove a favorite, click on the solid green star again and it will be removed from the list.