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Categories, Subcategories & Groups

Organize the catalog with the six item categories, your own subcategories, and reusable item groups.

Three layers of organization keep a large catalog usable: fixed categories that control behavior, your own subcategories for filtering, and item groups that bundle several items into one reusable package.

Categories

Every item belongs to one of six built-in categories:

  • Service — the work you sell (pruning, removals, treatments).
  • Material — physical goods like mulch or fertilizer. New Material items default to Taxable.
  • Labor — labor line entries.
  • Equipment — machines and equipment charges.
  • Expense — pass-through costs.
  • Discount — price reductions. Discount items cannot carry a positive default price, and discount lines are excluded from sales-tax calculations.

Categories can't be renamed or added to — they drive built-in behavior like tax defaults and the discount rules. Use the Category filter on the Items tab to slice the list by kind.

Subcategories

Subcategories are your own labels within categories — for example "Plant Health Care" or "Snow" under Service.

  1. On the Items page, open the Subcategories tab.
  2. Click + New Subcategory.
  3. Enter a Name and choose which Categories it applies to.
  4. Click Save.

Assign a subcategory on the item form's Identity section, then use the Subcategory filter on the Items tab (and in the item picker on jobs) to find things fast.

Warning: Deleting a subcategory removes it from every item that uses it, and this cannot be undone.

Item Groups

An Item Group bundles several items — with preset quantities, costs, and prices — so a whole package drops onto a job in one click.

Create a group

  1. Open the Groups tab and click + New Item Group.
  2. Give the group a Name and optional Description. Leave Active checked so it appears in the picker, or uncheck it to save a draft.
  3. Under Items in this group, click + Add Item for each child. For each row set the Unit of Measure, Quantity, an optional override for Default Cost and Default Price (leave blank to inherit the item's own pricing), and the Default Bill Type (Actual or Billable).
  4. Click Save.

Group behavior flags

  • Invoice as group — on customer documents the group appears as a single line with one total. Crew work orders always show every child, so the field team still sees the full breakdown. Individual items with Show on documents enabled still print even inside such a group.
  • Ratio Locked — quantities scale together: changing the group's quantity on a job scales every child proportionally. Mark a child Fixed? to exempt it from scaling (a permit fee, for example).
  • Production Rate — you can pick a default production rate for the group. It's saved with the group, but it does not yet auto-calculate the group quantity when the group lands on a job.

Use groups on jobs

In a job's estimate, click + Add Item Group and pick a group from the Item Groups tab of the picker (or click + Create empty group on this Job to group lines ad hoc). Once on the job you can adjust the group quantity, edit individual lines, or use Detach Group to promote the children to top-level rows and remove the group container.

Archive or delete groups

Archiving a group hides it from the picker; existing jobs that use it are unaffected, and you can restore it later. Permanent delete is only possible when no job references the group. If a group contains archived items, they are skipped when the group is added to a job — the group form warns you about them.