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Factors (Job Costing)

A factor is a rule that automatically adds extra lines — usually labor, but any inventory item works — to a sale in proportion to the items already on it. For example, a factor can add half an hour of planting labor for every shrub on a proposal, so labor is never forgotten and always scales with the plant count. Factors are part of VMX's job costing toolset for building landscape proposals at the register.

Factors are managed on the Factors tab under Inventory and applied to a sale from the register menu with Reapply Factors ….

Availability

Factors and job costing are enabled per-client by VMX. If you don't see a Factors tab under Inventory, or the Reapply Factors … option in your register menu, contact help@vmxllc.com to discuss enabling job costing for your store.

How factors work

Each factor rule lives on the Inventory → Factors tab and has three key parts:

  • Factor Code — a short code of your choosing (for example PLANT). Items that should trigger the factor are tagged with this code (see "Assign a factor code to an item" below).
  • PLU — the item that gets added to the sale (for example a "Planting Labor" item).
  • Qty — how many of that PLU to add per unit of the triggering item. Decimals are allowed (for example 0.5).

A single factor code can have several rows — one per item to add. For example, factor code PLANT might have two rows: PLU 4001 "Planting Labor" with Qty 0.5, and PLU 4002 "Soil Conditioner" with Qty 1. Ringing up 10 shrubs tagged PLANT and running Reapply Factors … then adds 5 units of Planting Labor and 10 of Soil Conditioner to the sale.

Create and edit factors

Factor rules are created on the Factors tab:

  1. Go to Inventory and click the Factors tab.
  2. Click + New Factor.
  3. Fill in the fields:
    • Factor Code — the code that items will reference (up to 16 characters).
    • PLU — the PLU of the item to add to the sale. VMX doesn't check it when you save, so make sure it's a real inventory item — a rule pointing at a missing PLU shows [ITEM MISSING] in the list and is skipped with a warning at the register.
    • Qty — the quantity to add per unit of the triggering item (decimals allowed).
    • Name — an optional label for the factor.
    • Note — optional free-form notes.
  4. Click Create.

The Factors table lists every rule with its Factor Code, PLU, Description (looked up from the inventory item — a row shows [ITEM MISSING] if the PLU doesn't exist), Qty, Name, and Note. The columns are sortable, and the filter row under the headers narrows the list as you type.

  • To edit a factor: click the pencil (edit) icon on its row, make your changes, and click Update.
  • To delete a factor: click the trash icon on its row and confirm.

Assign a factor code to an item

Items tell VMX which factor applies to them through an item attribute named exactly Factor Code:

  1. If your store doesn't have it yet, create the attribute: go to Inventory, click the Attributes tab, click Edit Attribute Types, then + Attribute Type. Name it Factor Code, set its Type to Text (factors only read Text attribute values — a Number, Single Choice, or Multi Choice attribute won't work), and click Create. See Attribute Management for details.
  2. On each item that should trigger a factor, open the item page's Attributes tab and set Factor Code to the code you defined on the Factors tab (for example PLANT). See Item Attributes.

An item with no Factor Code value is simply ignored when factors are applied. You can also fill in the Factor Code column for many items at once with the Import/Export spreadsheet — see Attribute Management & Import/Export.

Apply factors to a sale (Reapply Factors)

Factors don't add themselves as you scan — you apply them from the register menu once the sale is built (and you can re-run at any time before the sale is posted):

  1. Ring up the sale as usual.
  2. Click the small arrow (caret) next to the register name at the top of the register screen to open the register menu.
  3. Click Reapply Factors ….

VMX then:

  1. Removes any factor lines it added previously, so re-running never doubles them.
  2. For every item on the sale that has a Factor Code attribute, multiplies the item's quantity by each matching factor rule's Qty and totals the results per factor PLU.
  3. Adds one line per factor PLU, at that item's regular price, tagged with the line note FACTOR.

The FACTOR note is how VMX recognizes the lines it generated — Reapply Factors … and Remove Factors … remove every line whose note is FACTOR before recalculating, so avoid using "FACTOR" as a manual line note and re-add factors after changing quantities rather than editing the generated lines by hand.

Reapply Factors … only appears in the register menu while the sale is unposted; posted sales can't be changed.

Phases: factors on sectioned proposals

Job costing sales can be divided into phases: an item from a sub-department named PHASES acts as a section header (it shows in green on the register screen), and everything after it belongs to that phase until the next header. When you run Reapply Factors … on a phased sale, factor quantities are totaled per phase, and each phase's factor lines are inserted at the end of that phase — so each phase carries its own labor and materials.

Remove factor lines from a sale

To take the generated factor lines off a sale without recalculating them:

  1. Click the small arrow (caret) next to the register name at the top of the register screen.
  2. Click Remove Factors ….

Every line tagged with the note FACTOR is removed from the sale. Like Reapply Factors …, this option is only available while the sale is unposted.

Error: "Failed loading Factor(s):"

When applying factors, the register may show an alert beginning "Failed loading Factor(s):" followed by lines like '4001' needed by '2101', '2102'. This means a factor rule points at a PLU (the first number) that doesn't exist in inventory; the PLUs after "needed by" are the items on the sale that triggered that rule.

To fix it, either correct the PLU on the factor's row on the Inventory → Factors tab, or create the missing inventory item, then run Reapply Factors … again. The rest of the sale's factors are still applied — only the missing PLU's line is skipped.

Factor lines on receipts and printed proposals

Factor lines added by Reapply Factors … are ordinary sale lines: they appear on the register screen, post with the receipt, relieve inventory, and report as sales of the factor PLU.

On printed full-page job costing documents (such as a phased proposal — a sale with PHASES section headers), however, factor lines are not shown as separate priced lines:

  • Proposals fold the factor value into the section's pricing — the factored labor isn't printed as its own line, but each section's total already includes it.
  • Work orders (printed before the sale is posted) list the factor items by quantity instead — a SECTION MATERIALS list after each section and a TOTAL MATERIALS list at the end of the document — so the crew can pull the right materials for each phase.

Emailed receipts for these sales follow the same rule: instead of itemizing what the printed document hides, the email refers the customer to the attached copy of the document.

For help setting up factors or job costing, contact help@vmxllc.com.