Categories & variants

Category type

• Consumable — materials. Quantities are computed and waste % is applied to the subtotal.
• Feature — labor add-ons, upgrades and other line items. Treated as part of the features total (waste does not apply).

Required vs optional

Required categories must always have a variant selected. Optional categories can be turned on or off by the customer (or the contractor) and only contribute to the price when enabled.

Variants

Variants are the picklist of choices in a category. Each variant has a fixed unit price and an optional capacity declaration so the engine can compute the right purchase quantity.

Capacity

Capacity tells Quotespan how much one unit of this variant covers. Example: a 12 ft rail variant has capacity 12 ft, so the engine will purchase ceil(length / 12) rails to cover the run.

Quantity computation

• Spaced — based on a spacing formula, e.g. ceil(length / 8) + 2 end posts.
• Per-dimension — like rows = width × factor.
• Fixed — an absolute count, regardless of dimensions.