Rooms & Equipment

The Project Details page is where you build out your AV estimate room by room.

Project Details Overview

Click on a project to open the Project Details page. This is your main workspace for:

• Managing rooms
• Adding and organizing equipment
• Setting quantities and pricing
• Creating bundles and dividers

Managing Rooms

Project Details lists the project's rooms on the left, each with its total and item count. The project total sits at the bottom of the list. A room with lines that have no cost entered (or a negative cost, or a 0.00 that nobody has confirmed) shows an amber n unpriced mark. A room with units not drawn shows an amber n not drawn mark under it: a unit is one device of a line (a line of three displays has three units), and it counts as not drawn when a drawing view its category expects, such as the floor plan, does not show it yet. A view counts only once the project has a linked drawing of it. Click a room to open it. Right-click a room to Mark optional (or Mark base), Archive it or Restore it. The menu of a base room also has Duplicate as alternate. The menu of an optional room also has Replaces room… and, once the room replaces another one, Unlink. The Add/Alt Groups section below explains these three.

Adding Rooms

1. In Project Details, click + Room at the top of the rooms list
2. Enter the room name (e.g., "Conference Room A", "Lobby")
3. Click Add

Room Settings

Each room can have:

• Room Quantity - For identical rooms (e.g., 3x "Standard Office")
• Labor Hours - Installation labor for each line item
• Programmer Hours - Programming time allocation for each line item
• Travel - Pass-through travel expenses (no markup)
• Add/Alt Group - Group rooms as optional add alt
• Archive Rooms - Archive rooms

Archiving Rooms

Temporarily exclude a room from all calculations without deleting it:

1. In the rooms list on the left, right-click the room you want to archive
2. Choose Archive
3. The room moves to the collapsed Archived group at the bottom of the rooms list

Archived rooms are excluded from:

• Project Summary calculations
• Estimates and Invoices
• Excel exports
• All financial totals

To restore an archived room, expand the Archived group at the bottom of the rooms list, right-click the room and choose Restore. You can also click the room and press Restore Room in the archived notice above its equipment.

Adding Equipment to Rooms

Using the Search Box

1. Find the room's search box
2. Type to search your product catalog
3. Select a product to add it
4. Products are added with quantity 1

Using Right-Click Context Menu

1. Right-click on any row in a room's table
2. Use the search box in the context menu
3. Select a product to insert at that position
4. Products insert above the clicked row

Equipment Line Item Fields

Each product in a room has these editable fields:

• Qty - Quantity of this item
• Item - The make, the model and the part number (shown as PN) stacked in one cell, each editable on its own line
• Description - Product description, shown on two lines at rest; hover the text to read all of it, and it grows to its full length while you edit
• Cost Ea - Unit cost (can override catalog price). An empty cost means the line is unpriced, and so does a negative cost. A cost of 0.00 that you typed or accepted is an accepted zero: type 0, or right-click the line and choose Accept $0 cost. A 0.00 from before this release, which nobody confirmed, still reads Enter cost until someone accepts it. A 0 that an agent or an API client sends (Claude Desktop, a phone voice agent, AVIP Assistant, a REST integration) does not accept a zero either: a line not already accepted at $0 reads Enter cost until you accept it. A catalog, bundle or saved-default price of 0.00, a price of 0.00 pasted in Bid Mode, or a replaced line's 0.00 cost (when a line is replaced by a different product) arrives as an empty cost. A zero copied from another line carries over.
• Override % - Custom markup percentage (overrides project default)
• Margin - The line's margin percent, shown as a dash when it cannot be computed (for example, on a line with no cost entered)
• Labor Hrs - Installation hours per unit
• Prog Hrs - Programming hours
• Config Hrs - Configuration hours
• Cables - Add per-room cable rows from the Cable Catalog with by-foot or by-run pricing (legacy projects show fixed CAT6 STP / UTP / IDF quantities here instead)
• Cables Ext - The line's cable sell: each cable's runs × length (or runs alone, per-run) × the line quantity at the cable's rate, the way Labor Ext shows labor
• Equipment Source - Vendor/supplier
• PO # - Purchase order number
• Quote Ref - Vendor quote reference
• Notes - A line's note shows on one line under its description, followed by More; click + note to add one, and the note turns amber on a line that has no cost entered yet (or a negative cost, or a 0.00 nobody confirmed). More, or a click on the note, opens a box to read and edit all of it. Less, Enter or a click away saves it and closes the box, and Shift+Enter adds a line break. The Notes control in the room toolbar switches every note between Hidden, 1 line and Full, and your choice is remembered in this browser
• System - The system the line belongs to (AV, IT, Security…), used in device tags
• Tag - The device tags of the line's units, such as DISP-003…005. An amber mark before the tags means a unit of the line is not drawn on a view its category expects; rest the pointer on the cell to see which. See Device Tags.

Room Figures

• Sell / Cost / Margin - The tiles above the equipment table show the open room's sell, cost and margin, where Sell is the room total before tax. The tiles count the whole room (equipment, services and travel), while the Equipment total at the foot of the table counts equipment only, so the two sets of figures differ by design
• Find price - When a room has lines with no cost entered (or a negative cost, or a 0.00 nobody confirmed), a Needs attention tile counts them, and its Find price action jumps to the first such line's cost so you can enter it
• Units not drawn - The same tile counts the room's units not drawn on a view their category expects, as n units not drawn. Its Find action selects the Tag cell of the first line with such a unit, or that line's Qty cell when the Tag column is hidden. A unit missing from two views counts once. The count refreshes when the page reloads its data, such as after a save, a version switch or tag assignment, not while you type
• Room breakdown - The detailed room, install and financial summaries sit below the table in the Room breakdown panel, which starts collapsed; click it to expand

Drag and Drop Ordering

Reorder equipment within a room by dragging rows. The order is preserved and used in reports.

Single Item Reordering

• Drag any row by the grip handle to move it to a new position
• Drop on another row to place the item at that location

Multi-Select Move

Move multiple items and dividers as a group:

1. Select items - Hold Shift and click the copy button on each item/divider you want to move
2. Drag any selected item - All selected items will move together
3. Drop at target location - The group moves while maintaining their relative order

After a successful multi-move, the selection is automatically cleared.

Copying Line Items Between Rooms

Reuse line items from one room in another by copying and pasting:

1. Select items - In the source room, hold Shift and click the copy button on each item you want to copy
2. Open or create the target room - Click + Room at the top of the rooms list to create a new room, or click an existing room in the list
3. Paste - Right-click in the target room's equipment table and select Paste

Copying a Whole Room

Duplicate an entire room's equipment (line items and dividers) into another room in one step:

1. Copy the source room - In the source room's header, click Copy room
2. Open or create the target room - Click + Room at the top of the rooms list to create a new room, or click an existing room in the list
3. Paste - Click Paste room in the target room's header. The button shows the source room name and the number of items being pasted.

Full-Screen Room Expansion

For large equipment lists, expand a room to full-screen mode for easier viewing and editing:

Opening Full-Screen Mode

1. Open ⋯ in the room header and choose Expand to full screen
2. The room opens in a full-screen overlay
3. The overlay provides a dark-themed, distraction-free workspace

Full-Screen Features

• Complete Equipment Table - All columns visible with horizontal scrolling
• Inline Editing - Edit all fields directly (quantity, costs, labor, notes, etc.)
• Drag & Drop - Reorder items by dragging the grip handle
• Zoom Controls - Use +/- buttons to zoom in/out for optimal viewing
• Product Search - Search and add products via the footer search bar
• Add Dividers - Insert subtotal dividers to organize equipment
• Room Quantity - Adjust room quantity directly in the header

Closing Full-Screen Mode

• Click the Close button in the header
• Press Escape key

Add/Alt Groups

An optional room is priced apart from the base rooms. Use optional rooms for add alternates, the extras you offer the client on top of the base proposal. Several optional rooms can join one group, and a group prints on a proposal as a single alternate.

1. In the rooms list on the left, right-click the room and choose Mark optional. The Detailed Summary now lists it under ADD ALTERNATE ROOMS, priced separately from the base totals. Choose Mark base in the same menu to undo it
2. To group optional rooms, open the Detailed Summary and click Create Group in the Add Alt Groups Management bar. The bar appears once the project has an optional room
3. Type a Group Name, add an optional description and color, then click Create Group
4. On each optional room's row in the Detailed Summary, pick the group in its dropdown. Choose No Group to take the room out of its group

How it affects pricing: Optional rooms never count in the base total. Each group shows its own TOTALS row in the Detailed Summary.

Proposals can print each alternate with its own total. See Proposal Templates → Add Alternates for the switches.

Linked alternates

An optional room can replace a base room instead of only adding to it. Use this to offer a substitute for a room, such as a cheaper display package for the boardroom. The proposal then shows the alternate as a difference from the room it replaces, and the base total still never includes it.

1. Right-click the base room in the rooms list and choose Duplicate as alternate. AVstackr adds "Room name (Alt)" at the end of the version, or "(Alt 2)" when the first name is taken. The new room is optional, holds a copy of the base room's equipment and dividers, and replaces the base room
2. Change the copy's equipment and prices to the substitute you want to offer
3. To link an optional room you already have, right-click it, choose Replaces room…, pick the base room and click Save. Pick No room (additive) to make it a plain add alternate again
4. To drop a link, right-click the alternate and choose Unlink. The room stays optional

What the rooms list shows: A linked alternate has an "in lieu of" line that names the base room. Its figure is the signed net before tax: the alternate's total minus the base room's total, each multiplied by its room quantity. With one flat freight charge for the project, the base room's share of that freight is not part of the figure, because swapping rooms does not change the freight; see Proposal Templates → Add Alternates for this rule. A minus sign means that accepting the alternate lowers the price, a plus sign means it raises the price, and a fresh copy reads $0.00. Hover the figure to see how many rooms it covers and which room it is measured against. The Optional line at the bottom of the list adds up these signed figures.

When a link breaks: If the base room is deleted, archived or marked optional, the alternate's row shows link broken in place of "in lieu of". Hover it to read the reason: "Base room is missing from this version", "Base room is archived" or "Base room is now optional". A room with a broken link counts as a plain add alternate, so its figure is its own cost and a broken link prints at full price on the proposal. Restore the base room, mark it base again, or pick another room with Replaces room… to repair the link.

Branching a version and duplicating a project keep the links, and they point at the copies of the base rooms. See Proposal Templates → Add Alternates for how linked alternates print.