> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.menaia.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Items > Build and maintain the items in your Price Book — the priced building blocks estimators add to a job. Set each item's unit, costs, category, image, and pricing behavior. **Items** are the priced building blocks of every estimate. Each item — a material, a service, or a line of labor — carries its own unit, costs, and pricing rules. When an estimator builds an estimate in the Calculator, they pick from this list, and the price you set up here is what flows into the breakdown. This page lives under **Settings → Price Book → Items**, the first tab in the Price Book. Price Book settings are Admin-only. If you can open this page, you can create, edit, and delete items. If you don't see Settings or the Price Book, you don't have the access level for it — ask an admin on your team. ## Find your items Go to **Settings**, then **Price Book**. The page opens on the **Items** tab. The other tabs — **Work Areas**, **Item Categories**, **Factors**, **Additional Costs**, and **Multiplier Ranges** — hold the supporting pieces that items can reference. The list shows each item's **Name** (with its image), **Item Info**, **Unit**, and **Category**. Use **Search by name...** at the top to filter the list to a single item quickly. Click **Filters** and use **Item Category** to show only the items in one category. Choose **All categories** to see every item again. An item can belong to more than one category. When it does, the list shows the first category and a **+N more** badge — hover it to see the rest. ## Create an item When you start a new item you first choose what **type** of item to create: * **Calculator Item** — the full item, with labor hours and material overhead, for better reports and customization. This is the item estimators build with in the Calculator, and it's what the rest of this section walks through. * **Quick Item** — a lightweight item you can add to a proposal fast, with no labor hours or overhead. See [Quick items](#quick-items) below. **For a Calculator Item, set up at least one Item Category first.** A calculator item must belong to at least one category, so you can't save one until a category exists to put it in. If you haven't created any yet, head to the [Item Categories](/guides/settings/price-book/item-categories) tab and add one, then come back here. (Quick items don't need a category — they're filed automatically in the system **Custom** category.) On the **Items** tab, click **Create Item** in the top-right. In the **Create Item** dialog, pick **Calculator Item**, then click **Continue** to open the **Create New Item** form. (To create a Quick Item instead, see [Quick items](#quick-items).) In the first card, set: * **Item Name** — what estimators see when they search for it. * **Item Category** — pick one or more [categories](/guides/settings/price-book/item-categories). At least one is required; categories are how the item is grouped in the Calculator. * **Description** — optional text that shows up in the Calculator and on client proposals. Use it to explain what the item covers. In the **Pricing** card, set how the item is priced (see [Pricing fields](#pricing-fields) below for what each one does). In the **Item Media** card on the right, click or drag to upload a picture or short video of the item. This is what appears alongside the item in the Calculator. Images can be up to 20MB; videos up to 50MB. Click **Create Item**. The item is saved and you're returned to the list, where it's ready for estimators to use right away. ### Quick items A **Quick Item** is a stripped-down item for adding to a proposal quickly, without the labor hours, overhead, factors, or categories a Calculator Item carries. It's a good fit for one-off or simple line items. Quick items don't appear in the Calculator — they're for proposals built from scratch. On the **Items** tab, click **Create Item**, choose **Quick Item** in the dialog, then click **Continue**. The Quick Item form asks for just the essentials: * **Item Name** — required. * **Unit Type** — the unit the item is measured and sold in. Required. * **Description** — optional text that shows up on client proposals. * **Costs** — the cost for one unit. Required. * **Fixed Price (per unit)** — optionally sell the item at an exact price per unit, whatever the multiplier, factors, or payment method would otherwise do. Leave it blank to price from cost. * **Taxable Item** — turn on to mark the item as taxable when it's added to a proposal or estimate. Off by default. * **Image** — optionally upload a picture of the item. Click **Create Item**. The item is filed automatically in the system **Custom** category (no category to pick) and you're returned to the list. ## Pricing fields The **Pricing** card is where you tell the system how to price the item. You don't enter a final price — the system calculates it from these inputs and your branch's pricing settings. * **Unit Type** — the unit the item is measured and sold in (for example, square feet or each). Required. * **Material Cost** — the cost of materials for one unit. Required. * **Labor Hours** — how many hours of labor one unit takes. Required. * **Fixed Price (per unit)** — set this to sell the item at an exact price per unit instead of pricing it from cost. When it's filled in, the branch multiplier and the payment method don't change the line, and there's no material or labor cost for factors to scale — but a **Price** [factor](/guides/settings/price-book/factors-additional-costs#factors) and the customer discount still adjust it. Leave it blank to price the item from cost as usual; enter **0** for a free item. (The Material Cost and Labor Hours you enter are still used for reporting and to work out the job's hours.) * **Multiplier Override** — leave this blank to use your branch's normal pricing. Fill it in only when this one item should ignore the branch multiplier and use a fixed multiplier instead. Ignored when a Fixed Price is set. * **Factors** — optional conditions that adjust the item's price based on answers to the work-area questions on an estimate. * **Additional Costs** — optional extra costs attached to the item, such as a fee or a surcharge that always applies when it's used. You set raw costs and hours here, not the price the customer sees. The customer-facing price is worked out from these numbers together with your branch's pricing — so the same item can price differently from one branch to another. ### Generate a secondary item Some items automatically bring along a second item — for example, a material that always produces waste that needs disposal. Use **Generates Secondary Item** to choose the item that should be added automatically. Leave it on **None** if the item doesn't generate anything. Once you pick a secondary item, a **Primary Units per Generated Secondary Item** field appears. Enter how many units of the main item produce one unit of the secondary item — for example, 40 square feet of the main item generates one disposal unit. ### Item behavior A few optional settings change how the item shows up and behaves on a job: * **Sub Item** — lists the item under **Sub Services** in the job breakdown instead of with the main itemized costs. Use it for supporting items you want grouped separately. * **Requires Info** — prompts estimators to enter extra details (such as a measurement or a note) on this item whenever they add it to a job. * **Taxable Item** — controls whether the item is included when sales tax is worked out. It's **off by default**, so a new item isn't included in sales tax until you turn this on. When it's off, the item is left out of the tax calculation on any estimate or proposal that uses it — and on invoices billed from that estimate — so the selected tax rate applies only to the taxable items. Turn it on for items you collect sales tax on. ## Edit an item On the **Items** tab, click the **pencil** icon on the item's row (or **Edit** in the menu on a phone). The form opens with everything filled in, titled **Edit** followed by the item's name. Update any field. To swap the image, remove the current one with the trash button and upload a new file. The **Save Changes** button stays disabled until you've actually changed something. Click **Save Changes**. Your updates take effect for new estimates immediately. Editing an item changes how it prices going forward. Estimates and proposals that were already built keep the pricing they were saved with — they aren't rewritten when you edit the item. ## Delete an item On the **Items** tab, click the **trash** icon on the item's row, then confirm in the **Delete item?** dialog. Estimates, proposals, and documents that already reference the item are unaffected — deleting only removes it from the list estimators can pick from going forward. ## What's next Set up the areas of a job (like an attic or a crawl space) that estimators choose from when building an estimate. Define the conditions and extra costs you can attach to an item to fine-tune its price. Set the branch pricing that turns an item's raw costs into the customer-facing price.