Watch time: 5 minutes
In BuilderBid, each line item in your project spreadsheet can have its own waste factor, markup, tax settings, and cost type. Knowing how these work—and where to adjust them—helps you produce accurate estimates and organized cost breakdowns.
This guide explains how to manage each of these settings at the line item, group, and section levels.
Watch this video to learn more(5 minutes):
Steps
1. Open the Line Item Settings
Click the gear icon on any line item.
This opens the settings panel where you can adjust cost type, waste, markup, taxes, and rounding.
2. Review and Set the Cost Type
On the left side of the settings panel, you’ll see Cost Types.
You can choose from:
Other
Material & Labor
Material
Labor
Equipment
Allowance
Markup
These categories help you organize your estimate and apply accurate markup or tax rules.
3. Adjust Item Properties (Waste, Markup, Taxes, Rounding)
On the right side of the panel, you’ll find the line item’s adjustable fields.
Waste Factor
Waste increases the quantity of the item.
If you raise the waste %, the system automatically recalculates the quantity and total cost.
Markup
Local markup affects only this line item.
Adding a markup % updates the unit cost.
If you have a global markup set on the Markup tab, you’ll see that % appear here, but you can override it at the line item level.
Taxes
Toggle Yes/No depending on whether the item is taxable.
Tax is added into the item’s unit cost.
You control the tax rate in the Markup tab.
Rounding
Use this when you need whole-number units, such as:
Sheets of drywall
Boxes of nails
Bundles of material
4. Apply Cost Types at Group Level
If you want to set the same cost type for all items in a group:
Click the gear icon next to the group parent row
Choose the cost type (e.g., Allowance, Material, Labor)
All items inside the group will update automatically
This saves you time when multiple items share the same category.
5. Apply Cost Types at the Section Level
Hover over a section header to reveal a small settings icon.
From here you can:
Set the cost type for all line items in the section
Quickly standardize entire sections like “Cabinets,” “Electrical,” or “Flooring”
Also in the section settings, you can choose a Default Cost Type.
This means:
Any new line item added to that section will automatically use the default type
Useful when a section has predictable costs (e.g., all Material, or all Labor)
6. View Cost Types Easily Using the Cost Codes Column
By default, you must hover over the Gear icons to see the line item type.
To make the type always visible:
Go to Settings
Enable the Show Cost Codes
You’ll now see the cost type displayed on the right—great for reviewing your worksheet or checking markup rules by type.
