Materials

A material is stock your installers cut and use by length or weight rather than a finished part: copper tubing for a tank-to-house line, polyethylene gas pipe for an underground run, black iron pipe inside a building. Instead of typing a free-text name, you build each material from a few lookup lists (what it is made of, its shape, its size), so two people describing the same tubing always end up with the same material.

What you see

Items → Materials lists every material with its Material ID, Item Name, Description, Substance, Shape, Finish, Grade, Dimension, Type, Item Group, Tracking, Unit of Measure, Default Method, Supplier and Active status. Opening one shows the same tabs as a part: Details, Purchasing, Accounting, Planning, Inventory, Sales and Quality.

The lookup lists live under Material Properties in the Items menu:

Because sizes belong to a shape and grades belong to a substance, the lists filter as you choose: pick a substance first and only its grades and finishes are offered; pick a shape and only its sizes are offered.

How to set up the lookup lists when you first describe your materials

1. Under Material Properties, open Substances and add each substance with a Name and a Code.
2. Open Shapes and add each shape with a Name and a Code.
3. Open Dimensions, Finishes, Grades and Types and add the values your installers use, choosing the substance or shape each one belongs to. Types needs both a substance and a shape, plus a Name and Code; the others need only a Name.
4. AimRack starts every company with a shared starter list; your additions are yours alone and never change another company's lists.

How to add a material when you start stocking a new pipe or tubing size

1. On Items → Materials, choose Add Material.
2. Choose the Substance and the Shape; these two are required when your company lets AimRack number materials automatically. Then choose the Type, Grade, Finish and Dimensions that apply.
3. If your company numbers materials by hand, enter the Material ID. If it lets AimRack number them, the ID and short description are built for you from the choices above, and changing a choice rebuilds them.
4. Add any Sizes you stock; each size becomes its own selectable variant on purchase orders.
5. Set the Inventory Unit of Measure (for example feet), the Tracking Type, the Default Method Type (Pull from Inventory for stocked coils), the Item Group and a starting Unit Cost.
6. Choose Save.

Whether AimRack numbers materials is a company setting: Settings → Items, Material IDs, which shows "Generated IDs are enabled" or "Generated IDs are disabled".

How to buy, stock and sell a material when it is set up

The tabs work exactly as they do for a part: suppliers and price breaks on Purchasing, costing method and unit cost on Accounting, reorder levels and the supply and demand chart on Planning, storage and quantities on Inventory, sale price on Sales, and inspection plans on Quality. The Parts guide walks through each tab step by step.

How to fix a refused save when a material will not save

• "Substance is required" or "Shape is required": your company numbers materials automatically, so both are needed to build the ID. Choose them.
• "Material ID is required": your company numbers materials by hand, so type the ID.
• A lookup value refused for a missing parent: a finish or grade needs its substance, a dimension needs its shape, and a type needs both. Choose the parent first.
• "Failed to insert material" or "Failed to create material": the database refused the save. A common cause is that another material already has the same ID, which happens when the same combination of properties is chosen twice. Change a property or the ID so it is unique.

Where this fits

Materials are bought on purchase orders, received through receipts and counted in inventory. The settings every item shares are explained in Items.