04.4 · Direct Costs

Direct Cost Breakdowns

A breakdown is a sub-line inside a single direct cost item. It is the right tool when one line item is made up of multiple component costs but you want them to appear under one parent on the sell-rate schedule.

Breakdown vs Child Item

Feature	Breakdown	Child item
Lives in its own pane	Yes	No — appears on the main grid
Appears separately on sell rate	No — rolled up to parent	Yes (unless pricing mode hides it)
Has its own formula context	Yes (scoped)	Yes (global)
Max indent levels	4	6
Can apportion hidden costs	No	Yes

Use breakdowns for build-up detail. Use child items for genuinely distinct sub-items you want to see on the schedule.

Opening Breakdowns

Select an item and click Breakdowns on the toolbar.
Or press Ctrl+B.
Or double-click the row.

A panel opens to the right (or pop-out) with the breakdown grid.

Adding Breakdown Lines

Same pattern as direct cost items:

Column	Purpose
Item	Component description.
Qty / Unit	Component measurement.
Resource	Optional link.
Rate	From resource or typed manually.
Total	`Qty × Rate` or sum of children.
Formula	Excel-like expression (see 07.3 for syntax).

Parent Total Behaviour

When an item has at least one breakdown:

The item's HasBreakdowns becomes true.
DirectTotal is recalculated as Σ breakdown totals.
IsDirectTotalEditable becomes false — the grid cell becomes read-only.
The item's BuildUpAppliesTo setting controls whether the sum updates the Total or the Rate of the parent.

BuildUpAppliesTo Modes

Mode	Effect on parent
Total	`DirectTotal = Σ breakdowns`. Rate back-calculates from Qty.
Rate	`DirectRate = Σ breakdowns / Qty`. Useful for per-unit build-ups.

Formulas Inside a Breakdown

Breakdowns have their own scoped formula context (DefineScope.DirectCostBreakdown). Line references (L1, L2) resolve to breakdown rows, not main grid rows. Scoped parametrics declared here are only visible inside this breakdown.

Example: breakdown rows

L1: Timber   3 m   @ $12/m
L2: Labour   0.8 hr @ $65/hr
L3: Total = L1 + L2

Indenting Breakdowns

Up to 4 levels of indent — use sparingly. Common pattern: a header row per trade group, then material / labour / plant under each header.

Formatting

Bold / italic / underline / colours behave identically to main grid rows.

Breakdown Status

Each breakdown has its own Draft → Review → Approved → Complete status, independent of the parent item's status.