The Material Database is your company's approved list of materials. Material requests, RFQs, orders and invoices all draw on it, so what is in here decides what your team can order.
Before you start
By default, only Admins and Purchasers can open the Material Database. The menu item needs the Can edit material database permission, which your company sets per role in Company Settings.
Users and Material Requesters can still create a material while they are building an order or a request, because they hold Can create new material by default.
Where to find it
Open the menu at the top right of any SubBase screen, then click Material Database.
The tabs you may see
The page opens on Material Database. Depending on what your company has turned on, you may also see:
Cost Code: the cost codes your orders and invoices are coded to. Cost codes are available on some plans. A padlock on this tab means your company does not have them — check with your account team.
Phase Code: appears when your company runs phase codes separately from cost codes.
Tax Code: appears when your company has tax codes turned on.
Price Sheet: appears when your company has price sheets turned on and your role can view them.
What the list shows
One row per material. The columns include Description, Unit, Material, Group, Sub Group, Size, Manufacturer, Product ID, Conn. Type, Preferred Vendors, Cost Code, Phase Code, Projects, Weight, Tags, Commitments and Active.
Two sets of columns are conditional. Last Price, Avg. Price and Lwst. Price need historical pricing, which is available on some plans. Stock appears when your company uses Inventory and your role can see it.
From this page you can:
Search the list by description or identifier.
Open the options panel to set Filters, choose Columns, or use Download.
Click Add to create 1 material, or Upload to bring in a spreadsheet.
Click a row to open Update Material and edit it.
Active and inactive materials
Every material is either active or inactive, and the list opens filtered to Active materials. A material your team has stopped using is deactivated rather than deleted. There is no way to delete a material in SubBase.
That matters when you add materials. An inactive material still counts as one that exists, so it still blocks a new material with the same details. If SubBase tells you a material already exists and you cannot see it, it is almost certainly inactive.
How it connects to the rest of SubBase
Material requests, RFQs and orders all search this list, so a material has to be here before anyone can order it. A material's Default Cost Code is applied when the material is ordered, which is why the coding lives here rather than on each order. If your company syncs to an accounting or ERP system, each material is also matched to an item in that system.
Best practices
Add inactive materials to the Active filter before you decide a material is missing. The list hides them by default, but they still block a new material with the same details, so the one you cannot find is the one stopping you.
Agree 1 spelling of Unit across your team. Unit is part of what makes a material unique, so the same item entered once as EA and once as BOX becomes 2 materials, and your price history splits across both.
Set the Default Cost Code on the material instead of coding each order. It is applied automatically when the material is ordered, so you correct it in 1 place. Leave it empty when a material genuinely spans several cost codes.
If this doesn't work
Start a chat from the Messenger in the bottom-left of this page, or email help@subbase.io. Include the order or project number and what you expected to happen.