Using the Manual Cost Override on a Quote in EDGEBIC

The manual cost override replaces a quote's rolled-up simulation cost as the pricing basis while keeping the calculated labor and material split intact, so you can price around a cost the routing cannot see without hiding why. EDGEBIC by User Solutions computes an effective total cost that equals your override when you set one, and equals the simulation's total otherwise. Markup, price, profit, and margin all build on that effective cost, while the labor and material figures stay untouched underneath.

This is the field that keeps a good price honest. Every shop has costs the routing does not carry, and the override is the documented place to add them without corrupting the record.

What the override actually changes

A simulated quote produces a labor cost and a material cost. Their sum is the estimated total cost. Normally the price builds on that sum. The manual cost override intervenes at exactly one point: the effective total cost.

The override changes what the price is built on, and nothing else. The rolled-up breakdown remains as the simulation calculated it. That is the design that makes the override safe to use.

When to reach for it

Use the override when you know a real cost the routing does not contain:

• Tooling wear on a run that chews through inserts or a difficult die.
• Scrap on a part where first-pass yield is genuinely low and you will make more than you ship.
• Inbound freight on material that has to travel.
• A material surcharge the standard unit cost does not reflect this quarter.
• Any cost that lives outside the labor and material the routing can price.

The routing prices what it can see: work-center hours times rates, and material from material steps or the product's unit cost. The override is where the costs it cannot see go, and what a quote's estimated cost does not include sets out that boundary in full. On a documented rush job, a 50-unit casting simulated at $14,400 labor plus $3,000 material for a $17,400 total. The planner knew from experience that tooling wear and scrap added about $2,000, and set the override to $19,400. That is the effective cost the price now stands on.

The rush-job example, priced end to end

With the override at $19,400 and a 30 percent rush markup, the price works out cleanly: $19,400 times 1.30, divided by 50 units, gives $504.40 per unit and $25,220 total. Profit is $5,820, and margin is 23.1 percent. Crucially, the $14,400 labor and $3,000 material figures are still stored. When production finishes and actuals flow in against the converted order, you can compare the real work content against the estimate and tell whether the $2,000 extra was real or whether you underestimated the base work. The override priced the job honestly and left the evidence in place. For the pricing mechanics around it, see setting markup and unit price.

Why not just raise the price?

The tempting shortcut is to skip the override and bump the unit price by hand to cover the extra. It reaches the same total price, so why does it matter?

It matters because the price with no explanation is a landmine for the next quote. Three months later, someone re-quotes the part, sees the old unit price, and has no idea it carried a $2,000 tooling allowance. They either carry it forward without knowing why, or drop it and underprice. The override avoids this by recording the higher cost basis explicitly. The variance report can then separate "we deliberately priced around a known extra" from "we underestimated the work," which is exactly the distinction the next quote needs. A hand-bumped price destroys that distinction; the override preserves it. This feeds directly into quote-versus-actual hours, the loop that sharpens future quotes.

The override and re-simulation

The override is a value you set on the quote, so it survives a re-simulation. If you change the routing and re-run the simulation, the labor and material figures update, but your override stays as the pricing basis until you clear it. When you want to re-derive the price from the new calculated cost, clear the override so the effective cost falls back to the simulation total, then re-apply markup. When you want to keep pricing around your known extra, leave it in place and re-apply markup on the override. You are always in control of which cost the price stands on.

The one thing the override is not

The override changes the cost basis, not the dates and not the hours. It has nothing to do with the promised date, which comes from the finite capacity simulation against your real load. If a job is late, the override will not fix that; a scenario that adds capacity might. Keep the two concerns separate: the simulation answers when, and the override adjusts what the price is built on. Both are honest tools, and using each for its own job is what keeps a quote defensible.

The manual cost override is a small field with an outsized effect on pricing discipline. It lets you charge for what a job really costs while keeping the record clean enough to learn from. See the full quoting workflow in the EDGEBIC quoting guide, understand the cost model it adjusts, and explore EDGEBIC to price a real job with the costs your routing cannot see.