The products or services, which encompass the items in your proposals as well as the components listed in the bill of materials, are usually synchronized from the SAP material master or directly created within this application, particularly when they are solely utilized for proposal costing. By double-clicking on an item from the product or service list, you can access its details, which are presented across multiple tabs.

• Product key information
• Product estimating parameters explained below
• Costs & Price
• Bill of Materials
• Supplier Sources
• Comments & files attached to this product
• History

The PLANNING & ESTIMATING tab has three options for how product/service planning and estimating data is maintained, as follows:

1. Maintain one set of data for each product or service across your enterprise. With this option all the SAP material master data which is at plant (valuation area or MRP area) level is consolidated up to a single level or document, or
2. Maintain one set of data per business area, segment or company code, by selecting a Company code in the top right corner, or
3. Maintain one set of data per site, location or SAP plant code (‘Department’ in iPE) by selecting a site or department in the top right corner.

Option 3, by plant/department, is closest to how SAP maintains MRP planning data (by plant in SAP) but adds complexity in terms of maintaining potentially the same data multiple times for a given product or service across a range of sites or locations. In either option 2 or 3, selecting a new company or department will copy what is currently in view to the new company, site or department, termed as ‘extending’ the material master or product data.

Aside from the option to select the basis for planning and estimating data maintenance, this tab has the following attributes:

1. An indicator if the product or service is purchased, manufactured in house (make-part) or manufactured at vendor. Sub-contracted parts manufactured at a vendor are purchased but have a bill of material for the parts provided to the vendor to make it from Cost Estimating, MRP Planning & Time-Phasing
2. The estimating method or costing hierarchy for this part's cost estimate e.g. Purchased Part Estimate vs. Manufactured Part Estimate. This in turn determines how this part is costed. Each estimating method is an entire costing hierarchy addressing a series of ranked cost sources (estimating sources) in turn based on confidence.
3. How set-up quantity (for make parts) or the pricing quantity (for purchased parts) is determined. This affects both the set-up time for make parts (which is spread over the production lot quantity) and the purchased part special charges (again, non-quantity dependent costs spread over the purchased lot) as well as volume price discounts and quantity adjustment factors. The options are:
   • Consolidate the total quantity in the proposal or quote for this part number into a single lot for pricing purposes, with any optional or independent proposal line items or phases being priced separately. This is the most common and recommended strategy for set-up or pricing quantity and is what's behind the term "Consolidate and Cost the Bill of Material" where multiple instances of the same part are consolidated, as shown in the diagram below, to achieve higher volumes. Technically speaking, parts in the same proposal for a different make/buy strategy, supply plant or estimating methods are separated into separate lots for pricing or setup purposes
   • Consolidate all the requirements over a specific time period into a single lot for set-up calculation or purchased part pricing purposes. At a minimum all requirements in a calendar month are combined, so for example the same part number required in July would be a separately priced lot to that part required in June. You can however consolidate all requirements by calendar year, or by quarter. Calendar year is useful if the unit costs are deemed to vary significantly from year to year. Calendar quarter and month based pricing lot-sizes are not recommended unless prices are extremely volatile or subject to aggressive escalation.
   • Consolidate requirements into fixed lot sizes, where the lot quantity is specified in this tab. All requirements "up to" the fixed lot size are combined into a single lot or setup, and priced according to that lot size. The cost of each requirement is then the unit cost, or total cost / fixed lot-size multiplied by each requirement's quantity. For example if the part is produced or purchased in lots of 100, then pricing is for 100, and if there are six requirements for 30 the first three (up to 90) and the first 10 of the fourth requirement will be priced according to the first lot of 100, and the remaining 20 of the fourth requirement plus the last two requirements for 30 according to the second lot, with 20 excess material costs being accounted for in this estimate. Typically with the lot-size constant the unit cost is also constant, however it is possible that they have different inflation factors, given that costing proposals are based on the earliest requirement or commitment date associated with each lot.
4. Once the cost of each requirement has been established it is important to control how these costs are distributed over the period of performance of the estimate for cash flow reporting purposes. By default material costs are distributed based each associated requirement date, which are in turn calculated based on the lead-time offset or how many days this material is need before the proposal line item delivery date, as measured cumulatively down the bill of material or BOM. This "MRP style" requirement date calculation is highly accurate, aligning costs over time with when costs will actually be incurred during the program delivery, accommodating each BOM component's lead time; however it is dependent on having accurate lead times. Escalation is also calculated based on when costs are incurred so this option impacts the inflation adjustment. The default (first) and other options are:
   • Per each delivery & lead-time offset - as just explained, costs are spread according to when these materials will actually be needed, in the delivery month for purchase parts and spread across the production month(s) for make parts. This means that one consolidated material estimate could have its cost spread across several months or even years of the proposal's period of performance.
   • One delivery (earliest requirement date): multiple consolidated instances of the same product or service in the bill of materials or across deliveries assume that cost will be incurred at the earliest requirements date (based on BOM lead-time offsets from the earliest end item delivery). This is equivalent to a supplier delivering the consolidated buy-qty as one lot, and not spread out over time.
   • Curved to fit estimate's cost profile: a distribution curve is assigned to the estimate and all the products with this setting are distributed across the estimate's time frame to fit this curve on an aggregate basis. While each material estimate is allocated to a single month only for performance reasons, the combined total cost of all the estimates is designed to mirror the estimate's distribution curve. Use this option only for low-value parts.
   • Per assigned WBS/task dates & curve: if lead time offset incurred cost date calculation is unacceptable - perhaps because lead times are unknown or in-house make parts take many months to assemble - this option will spread incurred cost according to the assigned WBS or task dates, which can be manually edited. Any assigned WBS or task durations in excess of one month, costs will be spread based on the distribution curve assigned to a specific material estimate which is selected here. Use this option for high value products/services or BOM sub-assemblies where your organization does not use MRP for production planning and consequently does not maintain lead-times.
5. The production or procurement lead-time is copied in the proposal-specific BOM and can be edited there. It determines how far back in time any sub-components of this product are needed prior to the need date for this part, when distributing costs based on lead time offsets as explained above. Costs for this part will be incurred when it is required, not when required minus lead-time; it is the cumulative lead time or "due before" of higher level assemblies which dictates when this part's cost will be incurred in other words.
6. Quantity Curve – quantity curves are used for purchased parts to adjust the unit cost from the historical purchasing source document quantity to the consolidated requirement or pricing quantity. For example, if the historical purchasing source was a supplier quotation for 100 pieces and the new requirement is for only 5 pieces then the unit price is anticipated to be higher given the smaller quantity, so less of a volume discount. Quantity curves can be stepped (fixed ratios based on quantity variance ‘bands’) or based on a logarithmic or power curve, or linear to the total or unit price.
7. Bulk material - check this box if the material is a bulk material such as a low-value part which is purchased in bulk and may not be discretely bought and assigned to each shop order. Bulk materials are typically items stored in bulk in the warehouse or work-shop such as glues, chemicals, nuts, bolts, screws, washers etc. They are lower cost and often not estimated individually, but rather costed as part of a general support or indirect cost pool. You have the option to exclude bulk materials from the proposal BOM import, but still cost them if sold as end items or proposal line items.
8. The Scrap Factor is also copied into the proposal-specific BOM and can be edited there. It determines how requirement quantities are calculated - the extended BOM quantity is calculated as: quantity of next higher assembly x quantity in next higher assembly x (1 + scrap factor)
9. Consider Transportation Times – transportation times are maintained in separate table by means of transport to/from country or region of project vs. supplier and can be optionally included in sourcing/lead-time calculation. Most companies bake transporation times into the supplier lead time however if you are buying from one global supplier, delivering to your site all over the world, then it can be beneficial to maintain separate transportation times for each site or deparment where you estimate material costs.
10. Escalation Factor – the escalation or inflation factor is a multiplier used to adjust costs or prices over time to account for anticipated increases in expenses, inflation, or other factors. Escalation factors can default based on country or currency, or based on commodity or product/service specifics. Check ‘do not escalate’ if you want the country/currency default escalation factor to apply
11. Supplied from a Central Plant – if this is a part which is procured from or supplied by a specific plant in your company, select it here. This is based on the configuration of the special procurement key in SAP. It determines which plant to first search for routings to use to determine make part hours and resource groups for costing purposes. 
12. Default Template – template projects can be imported into any project or proposal to start-from, including multiple templates imported into one project. The CRM connection automatically imports a template which is specific to a product / service or group of similar products or services in the quotation or contract line of proposal, based on the template assigned to each product or service here. You can also maintain rules-based templates.
13. Do cost not minimum buys - by default if a supplier quotation or contract has a minimum buy, or you adopt a fixed lot sizing strategy, then any excess quantity of the minimum buy or fixed lot is still costed, with the costs including in your material estimate marked as excess material costs so you can use it to negotiate with your customer. If the material is high-volume, perhaps managed in your supply chain on a re-order point, safety stock or kanban basis, then you can make an assumption that there won't be excess costs in your proposal as any excess or minimum buy material will be used up on another project. Check this box to exclude excess or minimum lot-size costs therefore.

Travel Expense Costing Properties

Travel expense costing properties only apply to ‘travel’ product or service types.

Quantity for trip indicates how the quantity of this service is automatically calculated based on trip information in the travel estimate, options:

• One per trip e.g. airfare - this refers to expenses or items that are incurred only once for the entire duration of a trip. For example, airfare represents the cost associated with a single flight journey from the departure to the destination location. It encompasses all expenses related to securing transportation via air travel for the entirety of the trip.
• One per day e.g. per diem - this denotes expenses or items that occur once daily during the course of a trip. For instance, per diem represents a daily allowance provided to cover various expenses such as meals, accommodation, and incidental costs incurred by individuals while traveling for business or other purposes. Or rental car fees might be on a daily basis.
• One per night e.g. hotel - this signifies expenses or items that occur once for each night spent during a trip (qty is one less than one per day). For example, hotel expenses encompass the cost of accommodation for each night stayed at a hotel or lodging facility.