This article will provide you with a breakdown of Frequently Asked Troubleshooting Questions pertaining to the Price List in LMN Estimating for your convenience!
Select from the list below to jump to its spot within the article!
- Why are my materials not showing after I uploaded or updated the list?
- The unit price for materials looks wrong. My calculation gets a different price.
- SiteOne: SyntaxError: Unexpected token s in JSON at position 0
Why are my materials not showing after I uploaded or updated the list?
The common reasons why your material list will not upload can be caused by the following:
1) The file is NOT saved in a .csv format (the excel spreadsheet must be saved in a .csv format or the system will not recognize the file)
2) Number of items on the spreadsheet (we would recommend having less than 1000 items on the excel spreadsheet for a faster and successful upload, the materials list should contain less than 1000 rows; 999 Items + 1 Header row)
3) Duplicated categories (you should not have the same two categories because the system will not know which ONE of the two categories to upload the materials to), to check if the category is duplicated go to your Settings > Price List > Material Categories
4) Hyperlinks in the spreadsheet should not be present (you will have to delete them as the system will not allow for hyperlinks)
5) Special characters may cause an error
6) Borders around the headers(headers should not be adjusted in any way)
7) Headers or Columns were adjusted OR deleted (you should not be adjusting the format of our sample file material spreadsheet in ANY way, the system will not recognize the adjusted format)
8) It is possible the materials have the same name (ex: three materials from your list is named "soil")
9) Description is too long in that column (there is 255 character limit)
10) Did you categorize those materials?
11) It is recommended to have a fresh export for your materials list if you wish to update it, meaning EXPORT the categories you wish to update. Do not use a previous old exported list and update information from there (you can export the new list with selected categories by going to LMN Estimating > Price List > Materials > Export)
The unit price for materials looks wrong. My calculation gets a different price.
We tend to get asked the question "what is the formula for adding the OH markup and Profit for material catalog items as they are not making sense".
Most people are confused between a profit margin and a profit markup. LMN uses profit margins - which give you a true net profit... so if you're looking for 10% net profit, you'll get 10% net profit.
Consider this: You have something that costs $100 and you want to make 20% net profit. Most companies do the following:
$100 x 1.20 = $120
And there's your 20%. Or is it? It's not. And if you don't believe us, just do the math.
- Profit Margin = (Sales - Costs) divided by (Sales)
- Profit Margin = ($120 - $100) divided by ($120)
- Profit Margin = ($20) divided by ($120)
- Profit Margin = 16.67%
Did you see that? Just a few seconds ago you added a 20% profit margin, but when you do the math, you realize you only made 16%. Just imagine what that's been costing your company over the last 10 years!!!!
The solution lies in correcting how profit is added. If you want to earn a profit of 10%, you cannot simply add 10% to the cost. It doesn't work that way. 10% of the cost is less than 10% of the selling price, and that is how a profit margin is calculated - by a % of the selling price.
The simple fix is to fix the formula for adding profit. Profit is correctly added by using the following formula:
Price = (Cost) divided by (1 - Profit Margin)
So, in our example above, it would be:
- Price = ($100) divided by (1 - .20)
- Price = ($100) divided by (.8)
- Price = $125
It looks weird, but its right... just do the math:
- Profit Margin = (Sales - Costs) divided by (Sales)
- Profit Margin = ($125 - $100) divided by ($125)
- Profit Margin = ($25) divided by ($125)
- Profit Margin = 20%
Here's the Material item formula complete with all markups and margins:
- Cost
- Plus Shipping
- Plus Warranty
- Plus Tax
- = Subtotal + OH Markup
- = Subtotal divided by (1 - profit as a decimal number)
- = item price
For example:
- Cost $26.40 + shipping (0%) + warranty (0%) + tax (0%) = $26.40
- $26.40 + OH Markup (10%) = $29.04
- Profit = 13.8% = 0.138
- $29.04 / (1 - 0.138) = $33.69 is the item price
SiteOne: SyntaxError: Unexpected token s in JSON at position 0
Users reported an error "SyntaxError: Unexpected token s in JSON at position 0" popping up when trying to download materials from SiteOne (Estimating > Price List > Materials), and when trying to log into their Greenius account.
This is an error that occurs on newly updated Windows Machines. For some reason the coding clashes with LMN, Greenius and SiteOne.
In order for the error to dissipate, the Windows update needs to be reverted back/uninstalled.
If you require further assistance, please contact our Support Team via email at support@golmn.com or reach out to us through our Live Chats feature or by Phone: (888) 347-9864!
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