TimberCloudDocs

Designer Settings — Pricing Libraries & Job Defaults

The 3D Kitchen Designer prices cabinets out of the box — no catalog product required — using the material rates, labor, and formula you set up here. This is the one-time setup that makes those prices real. Get it right once and every new kitchen you draw prices itself.

Navigation: Settings → Designer

Availability: Build plan and up. Opening Settings → Designer needs the shared Settings permission (settings-page) plus a Build+ plan. (The designer-page permission and the Beta badge apply to the Designer tool — the "Designs" list and the Open Designer button — not to this settings page.)

The page has five tabs: Materials, Front Programs, Labor, Rate Formula, and Defaults.

Important: Until you author a Rate Formula, catalog-free designer jobs refuse to price — every line stays flagged as un-priced (never a silent $0). Setting up Materials + a Rate Formula is the minimum to make the Designer produce a real quote.

Materials

Your material library — the sheet goods and lumber the Designer prices against. The take-off from a design (board feet, square feet, linear feet) is multiplied by these rates.

Click Add Material to create one:

FieldWhat it is
Namee.g. "Maple Plywood 3/4". A stable key is derived from the name, so a rename never breaks existing pricing.
FormSheet good or Lumber (board feet).
Priced byThe unit the rate is measured in: square feet, board feet, linear feet, or per sheet.
ThicknessMaterial thickness, in inches.
RateThe cost per unit (whatever you chose under Priced by).
Waste factor (%)Optional. The Rate Formula can add this on top of material cost.
Sheet width / heightThe sheet size, used for CNC nesting. Leave blank for lumber.
Grain-lockedWhen on, parts of this material won't rotate during nesting (grain direction is preserved).

Default material for new jobs

At the top of the Materials tab is a Default material for new jobs picker. Choose one and every new designer room opens already priced from it, so staff don't pick a material on every job.

Note: This is a seed, not a live setting. Changing it affects future rooms only — it never re-prices designs you've already made. Any room can still switch to a different material in the Designer's Construction section.

Front Programs

Front Programs are your door and drawer-front recipes — a named style that a job assigns to its doors and drawer fronts. They feed both the price and, when tied to a vendor, purchase orders to that vendor.

Click Add front program to create one:

FieldWhat it is
NameYour name for the program (e.g. "Shaker White").
Vendor style nameThe vendor's own style name, if you buy the fronts.
Panel typeFlat panel, Raised panel, Shaker, Glass, Beadboard, or Slab.
VendorOptionally tie the program to one of your vendors so ordering these fronts creates a PO to them.
Default stile / rail widthThe default frame widths for the front, in inches.
Hinge family / Edge profileOptional notes carried with the program.

Labor

A reusable library of labor rates that your Rate Formula can reference. Instead of typing "× $75" on a cost line, you point the line at a named rate here — so when the rate changes, every formula that uses it updates.

Click Add labor rate to create one:

FieldWhat it is
Namee.g. "Assembly Labor". A stable key is derived from it so the Rate Formula keeps pricing after a rename.
RateThe dollar amount.
PerA label for your own reference (Each, Per hour, Per cabinet, Per linear/square/board foot, Per job).
CategoryOptional grouping.

Note: "Per" is just a note. What the rate actually multiplies is the take-off basis you choose on the cost line in the Rate Formula — not this field.

Rate Formula

The single shop-wide formula that prices every catalog-free designer job. You author it once, and it applies to all designs.

The formula is built from plain-language pieces:

  1. Price each line by — the take-off quantity that drives material cost: Board Feet, Linear Feet, Square Feet, Part Count, or Cabinet Count. This is multiplied by the assigned material's rate.
  2. Additional cost lines — any number of extra charges, each a take-off basis × a rate. The rate is either a reusable Labor rate or a one-off custom amount. Example: Cabinet Count × $75 for assembly labor. These are added before margin.
  3. Apply modifiers:
    • Material waste factor — multiplies material cost by (1 + waste%/100) using the material's waste factor.
    • Margin / markup (%) — multiplies the whole line (material + cost lines) by (1 + this%/100). Leave at 0 for cost pricing with no markup.

A live Formula preview shows the whole expression in plain terms as you build it, so you can see exactly what a job will be charged. Click Save Rate Formula when it reads right.

Tip: If a cost line points at a labor rate you later delete, the editor flags it in red and blocks the save until you repoint it — so a broken formula can never quietly under-price a job.

Important: Until this formula is saved, every designer job line stays at $0 and is flagged as un-priced. It is deliberately never silently zero — a missing formula is loud, not invisible.

Defaults

The starting point for every new designer room. Right now this holds the default job contents — whether new rooms include:

  • Fronts (doors & drawer fronts)
  • Drawer boxes

Turn a group off if you sell carcass-only work (the customer supplies their own fronts, or buys drawer boxes complete). New rooms then open without those parts — the openings stay, but the parts leave the drawing, the cut list, and the price together.

Note: Like the default material, this is a seed. Changing it never re-prices an existing design, and any room can still override it in the Designer's Contents section per job.

Next Steps

PreviousStorefront SettingsNextCNC / CAM Settings