Kits
Bundle parts and labor into one sellable kit that expands into real lines on the order.
Build a kit when you sell the same bundle over and over — an LOF with oil, a filter, and the labor to do it. An advisor adds one line at the counter; Meridian expands it into the real parts and labor underneath, so stock draws and pricing stay accurate. A kit is a normal catalog part you flag as an assembly and then fill with components (its BOM, if you like the term).
Open the part that will be the kit. From the catalog, open the part you want to turn into a kit and click Edit.
Flag it as a kit. On the Settings tab, check Kit / Assembly, then click Save Changes. The part now carries a KIT badge.
Add the components. Back on the part's detail page, find the Kit Components panel and click Add Component for each line. Pick Part or Labor in the Type dropdown, then fill in the description — for a part, add the part number, quantity, and price; for labor, add the quantity and the labor hours. Click Add.
Repeat for every component, and remove any line with the trash icon. The panel keeps a running Parts Total so you can check the kit's price against the sum of what's inside.
Sell it. When an advisor writes up an order, they search the kit part like any other. Because it's flagged as a kit, choosing it expands onto the order instead of adding a single line — a kit header followed by each component part and labor line.
Kits vs. Service Kits. The kit above is a catalog part. Meridian also has Service Kits under Settings → Service Kits — vehicle- and LOF-style bundles an advisor picks from the Service Kit line type on an order. They serve the same "one pick, many lines" purpose but are built and managed by an admin in Settings rather than on a part. See Service Kits if your shop uses those instead.
What happens behind the scenes
- A kit is just a part with an assembly flag. Flagging Kit / Assembly turns on the Kit Components panel; clearing it hides the panel again. The components live on the kit part, not on any one order.
- Expanding writes real lines. When the kit is added to an order, Meridian drops in a kit header line carrying the kit's price, then one line per component: parts land as part lines, labor lands as labor lines. From that point they behave like any hand-added line — you can edit or remove them.
- Part components draw from stock and post to the books when the order is invoiced, exactly like a part you added yourself. Nothing is consumed just by expanding the kit onto an estimate.
- Labor components come in without a price and bill at the customer's labor rate times the hours when the order is invoiced — so a kit never locks in a stale labor charge.
- Pricing is the kit's, not the sum of the parts. The header line carries the kit price you set on the part; the component prices are there for reference and for accurate parts costing underneath.
Troubleshooting
The part isn't flagged as a kit yet. Click Edit, go to the Settings tab, check Kit / Assembly, and Save Changes. The panel appears on the detail page once the part is a kit.
A kit with an empty component list can't expand. Open the kit part and add at least one component in the Kit Components panel, then try adding it to the order again.
That's expected — kit labor lines don't carry a price of their own. They pick up the customer's labor rate and the component's hours when the order is invoiced, so the charge is always current.
Those are Service Kits, built under Settings → Service Kits by an admin. An advisor adds them from the Service Kit line type on the order rather than searching a part. Ask your manager to set them up if you don't see any.