shopVOX Guides
Materials in shopVOX: The Foundation of Accurate Costing and Efficiency
Materials are the raw ingredients you convert into finished goods, get them right, and everything downstream gets easier.
Materials are the raw ingredients you convert into finished goods. Get them right in shopVOX, and accurate costing, quoting, and production become much easier. Get them wrong, and every job carries hidden errors that compound over time.
Most people feel lost when setting up materials, especially with naming and the fields that need to be filled correctly. The good news is that once you have a solid method, maintaining your materials list becomes surprisingly easy.
Why Material Setup Matters So Much
Poor material setup leads to:
- Inconsistent naming across the team
- Formulas that don’t work because width, height, or cost fields are missing or wrong
- Costing that doesn’t reflect reality (no real cost per square foot, sheet, or piece), and underpriced jobs when material costs are wrong
- Hours spent on manual corrections fixing orders that should have calculated correctly
A well-built material record, on the other hand, becomes a reliable building block for your entire catalog.
The Power of Consistent, Informative Naming
One of the biggest sources of confusion is material naming. When five people call the same material five different names, chaos follows.
Best Practice: Create clear, consistent, informative names.
Example: Instead of “White Vinyl”, use something like “Vinyl-White-54in-Matte” or “Vinyl-White-Gloss-60in”.
The name should tell the team what they need to know at a glance. Consistent naming saves massive time and prevents costly mistakes.
Critical Fields That Must Be Filled Correctly
For materials to work properly in formulas and costing, pay special attention to:
Without these filled accurately, your formulas and costing won’t function reliably.
How to Build Your Materials List the Smart Way
Don’t try to set up hundreds of materials at once. That’s overwhelming and usually leads to shortcuts.
Recommended Approach:
- 1Start with the 1 or 2 most common materials your shop uses every day.
- 2Spend the time to set them up 100% correctly, naming, fields, costs, everything.
- 3Use these as your template and standard for the rest of the list.
- 4Once you have a solid base, you can import large groups of materials quickly using Excel or Google Sheets.
This method gives you fast wins and a reliable foundation you can grow from confidently.
The Bigger Picture
You are selling finished goods, but materials are the raw product you are converting. When your material records are clean and consistent, everything downstream (quoting, costing, production) becomes smoother and more accurate.
Once you have the method down, maintaining and expanding your materials list becomes straightforward and fast.
How Bitprint Helps with Materials
Material setup is one of the areas where experience delivers the biggest return.
The goal is a clean, maintainable materials foundation that removes guesswork and frustration.