D-Tools Cloud has several features to automate repetitive tasks, and Category Rule is one of them. Category Rule can help you set the labor estimate and the accessories list for Products at the category level. Once set, the labor and accessories are automatically added to the quotes when you add products. You have the flexibility to update and fine-tune the labor and accessories to your liking at the subcategory level, in the product catalog, or even in the quote.

Category Rule can be enabled using the Category Option setting under "Settings > Catalog > Categories". Upon setting this to "On", you will receive D-Tools curated labor estimates and accessories for products. At this time, the estimates may not be available for all products. However, we plan to make them available in the future.

Category Option can also be set to "Suggest" to show our labor estimate directly in the quote or "Off" to let you specify your own labor and accessories.

Check out this article for more details about how the Category Option setting works on D-Tools Cloud.

Enabling the Category Rule feature allows you to standardize Accessories, Item Settings, and Labor estimates.

Accessories are products that are required to make your main product more useful and versatile. For example, a Wall mount for a Television, an SD card for a Camera, and cables with a Router.

Defining the accessories list for a category can reduce the effort of adding them to every quote. The accessories list can be fine-tuned at the subcategory, product, or quote level at any time to accommodate for stock clearance of promotional offers.

Check out this article for more details.

Item Settings help you define what Phase the Product is typically used in projects and what System the product falls under. When products are added to a quote, they sit under the relevant Phase or System in the Items view.

Phases and Systems can be updated, or new ones can be added under "Settings > Catalog". Item Settings is not restrictive; you can always change this in the product's sidebar in the quote.

Labor is a fee you charge your customers in addition to the price of the products supplied as part of the project. For example, "Installation" Labor and "Programming" Labor to put the products in use, and "Project Management" Labor to supervise work at the site.

The fundamental unit of labor on D-Tools Cloud is "Labor Type," which represents the nature of labor and the rate and cost of labor.

Most products come with a D-Tools-curated labor estimate mapped to the default Labor Type "Installation". If you are using a different name for the Installation Labor Type or want to add more labor, such as "Programming", you can edit the default Labor rule and set your own labor estimate. This now becomes the Labor rule that will apply to the product category.

Check out this article for more details.

Another way of leveraging D-Tools-curated labor estimate without setting the Labor rule for categories is to set the Category Option to "Suggest". This will give you a labor time suggestion in the product's sidebar in the quote. You can either accept it or add your own labor.

Check out this article for more details.