Materials Master

Materials Master

The materials master (menu Materials) collects your organization's items with their code, description, technical specifications, manufacturer, and the files attached to them (drawings, datasheets), so you have them on hand when putting together a purchase without having to describe each item from scratch every time.

Enabling it

This is an organization-level module. If you don't see "Materials" in the menu, ask an admin of your organization to enable it from the account settings.

How to import it

1. From the materials list, choose Import master and upload an Excel (.xlsx) or CSV file.
2. The AI automatically proposes a column mapping (which column is code, description, technical specifications, manufacturer, unit of measure, etc.). You can review and correct the mapping, and re-analyze the file with the fix before continuing.
3. A preview is shown with the valid rows ready to import and, separately, the rows with problems (missing code, duplicate code, missing description) so you can fix or discard them.
4. Before confirming you can check "This file is the complete master": when enabled, active materials that don't appear in the file are switched to Inactive (materials entered by hand in the system are kept either way). If left unchecked, the file only adds or updates what it contains, without deactivating anything.
5. On confirming, the system creates new materials and updates existing ones (matched by code).

Searching and editing records

From the list you can search by code (this includes previous codes, so an old code that's no longer in use still finds the right record), description, or manufacturer, and filter by status (active/inactive).

Opening a record, the purchasing team can edit its technical specifications, requirements/comments, manufacturer, unit of measure, material group, and the previous codes associated with it.

Material files

Each record has its own files section (drawings, datasheets, technical sheets): you can upload new files with an optional description, download existing ones, and delete them from the record. Deleting a file only removes it from the material's record — it doesn't affect purchases that already used that document at the time.

Using the master when creating a purchase

When creating a purchase, if the master is enabled, the "Search the material master" search box appears next to the items: you can search by code, description, or manufacturer. Selecting an article adds it to the purchase with its code, description, unit, technical specifications, and files; the item stays editable just like one entered by hand, and the record's files are attached to the purchase automatically.

Saving a material from a purchase

When entering an item with an internal code (under Specifications), the purchasing team can turn on "Save this material to the master" to add it to the master. If the code already exists in the master, only the missing data in that record is filled in — what was already there is kept as is.