On-the-fly parts — cost in, price out
Key the cost of a part you bought for the job and let the customer's pricing matrix set the sell price. No mental math, margin captured.
Some parts you buy for one job and never stock — a filter grabbed from the parts store, a fitting from the hardware aisle. For these "on-the-fly" parts you know what you paid; you don't want to do markup math in your head. Type the cost and Meridian prices the line using the customer's negotiated markup.
The Cost field only appears if your account can see cost. Owners, managers, and accounting see it by default; anyone else needs the See cost & margin override (Settings → Users). A tech or counter person without cost access never sees cost — just the sell price.
On a Quick Ticket
Open Quick Ticket. From Tickets, choose Quick Ticket, and pick the customer.
Add a part line, leave the price blank. Type the part number or a description for the part you bought — do not pick a stocked part from the dropdown (that's a stock part, priced from its own record).
Type the cost in the Cost box. It sits between Qty and Price. Enter what you paid (e.g. the NAPA invoice cost) and leave Price empty — the placeholder shows auto.
Create the ticket. The customer's pricing matrix prices the line — for example a "cost + 40%" rule turns a $118.40 cost into a $165.76 sell price. Open the ticket to see the resolved price. The "why this price" note shows only to people who can see cost.
The same Cost box appears on the add-line row of any open ticket, for ad-hoc part lines — again between Qty and Price, so what you type shows up in the column you typed it into. Leave Price blank there and a small amber chip reads auto — priced from the matrix, with Total showing a dash until the price is worked out on save. The box is greyed out on a line linked to a stocked part: that part's cost comes from its own record.
Both columns line up the same way on a Quick Ticket and on a full ticket, so the habit carries between them.
How the price is chosen
The entered cost feeds the customer's price matrix exactly like a stocked part's cost would. A rule whose base is Cost (for example a scheme or customer rule "all parts: Cost + 40%") sets the price. If several rules could apply, the most specific one wins (part → line code → category → all), and a customer's own rule beats a shared scheme.
If no cost-based rule matches, Meridian keeps walking the ladder you configured: the customer's price level, then your shop's default price level, then that level's default markup over cost (Settings → Pricing). Only when none of that is set up does the line stay unpriced for you to fill in by hand. Meridian never invents a number you did not configure — but it will use one you did. And if you do type a price, your price wins and the matrix is skipped.
Set the rule once. In Settings → Pricing, add a scheme or customer rule with base Cost and your markup percent. From then on, every on-the-fly part for that customer prices itself.