Puts a coloured bar on the lines and documents whose margin drops below what you have decided is acceptable, so that a quote sold far too cheaply does not slip through.
What it is
A visual warning. You set two thresholds — one for a warning and one for an alert — and any margin that falls below them is coloured wherever you happen to be looking: in the document list, inside the document window and in the quoting engine. It does not block anything and it does not stop you saving: it only draws your attention.
Until you switch it on, nothing changes appearance.
What it is for
- Seeing at a glance, from the list, which quotes or orders are thin on margin.
- Knowing which particular line is dragging a document's margin down, without opening them one by one.
- Noticing it while you are quoting, before you send the quote to the customer.
- Spotting lines with no cost loaded, where the margin looks perfect and in fact nobody knows.
Where it is set up
Settings → Integration → Margin warning.
What the bar colours mean
| Colour | What it means |
|---|---|
| No bar | The margin is above both thresholds. All correct. |
| Yellow | Warning: the margin has dropped below target, but not yet below the minimum. |
| Red | Alert: the margin has dropped below the acceptable minimum. |
| Grey | There is no cost loaded, so the margin you see is not real. It is not that you are selling cheaply: the figure is missing. |
Hovering over it shows the reason it has been flagged.
Where the colour appears
| Screen | What is flagged | With which thresholds |
|---|---|---|
| List of quotes, orders, delivery notes and invoices | Coloured bar to the left of the document row | Document thresholds |
| The same list, when you expand a document | Coloured bar to the left of each line row | Line thresholds |
| Document window | The Margin field in the footer, coloured (it is a field, not a row) | Document thresholds |
| Document window | Coloured bar to the left of each line row | Line thresholds |
| Quoting engine | The Margin field in the footer, coloured (the overall figure for the quote) | Quoting engine thresholds |
The margins of each piece of artwork, substrate, guillotine or operation inside the quoting engine are deliberately not coloured: they move as you calculate and would turn the screen into a set of traffic lights. The decision that matters is the overall margin.
A line can be flagged even when the whole document is fine, and the other way round. That is intentional: it is how you see which one is pulling the total down.
Analysis widgets
In Analysis there is a group of quick views called Margin warning. Any of them can be saved as a widget on your home dashboard, either private or shared with a role.
| Quick view | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Margin warnings · quotes | How many quotes are on warning, on alert or with no cost loaded. |
| Margin warnings · lines | The same, line by line. It is the most granular: it shows what proportion of your work is running thin. |
| Margin warnings · documents | How many complete quotes, orders, delivery notes or invoices are below the threshold. |
| Amount at risk from margin warnings | How much money sits at each level, not how many rows. A single large job in red weighs more than twenty small ones. |
| Margin warnings by sales rep | Which sales rep has the most lines on warning or alert. |
| Documents with a margin warning · this month | A single figure: how many documents have crossed the threshold in the current month. |
| Documents on margin ALERT · this month | The same, but counting only those below the minimum (red). |
| Lines with a margin warning · this month | The same counter at line level. |
| Amount with a margin warning · this month | How much money the flagged lines of the month add up to. |
| Documents with a margin warning · this year | Columns month by month: whether things are getting better or worse. |
| My documents with a margin warning · this month | The monthly counter, filtered to your own documents. |
The three scopes also appear in the Group by dropdown when you create a widget, so you can cross them with customer, month or sales status and build your own.
The widgets use the same thresholds as the coloured bars, so what the widget counts and what you see flagged in the tables always agree. With the module switched off, everything appears as No warning.
Button / Action → what it is for
| Button / Action | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Enable the margin warning | Switches the whole module on or off. Switched off, no screen changes appearance. |
| Warning (yellow) below | The percentage from which the margin is coloured yellow. |
| Alert (red) below | The percentage from which the margin is coloured red. It has to be lower than the warning figure. |
| Quoting engine thresholds | The two above, applied to the overall margin in the quoting engine. |
| Document thresholds | The two above, applied to the total margin of the quote, order, delivery note or invoice. |
| Line thresholds | The two above, applied to each line separately. |
| Warn when the selling price is 0 | Decides whether give-away or sample lines get a red bar. Switched off out of the box. |
| Warn when there is no cost loaded | Decides whether lines with no cost get a grey bar. Switched on out of the box. |
Glossary / Key concepts
- Warning: the first step, in yellow. The margin has dropped below the target you set yourself.
- Alert: the second step, in red. The margin has dropped below the minimum you consider acceptable.
- Threshold: the percentage at which each step is triggered.
- Scope: what a pair of thresholds applies to. There are three — quoting engine, document and line — and each has its own, because a single line is not judged the same way as a whole quote.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Why do I not see any bar even though I have switched it on?
A: The module requires the Pro plan or higher. On any other plan, the Settings option appears with the plan badge and never gets as far as colouring anything. Check as well that the margin you are looking at really is below the threshold, and that the Margin column is visible in your table.
Q: Why does a give-away line not get a red bar?
A: A give-away or a sample has a margin of −100% by definition, so it is not flagged out of the box — otherwise all your samples would always come out red and nobody would look at the warning any more. If you want to catch lines that somebody left at zero by mistake, switch on Warn when the selling price is 0.
Q: Why does a line get a grey bar instead of a red one?
A: Because it has no cost loaded. With no cost the margin comes out at 100% and no alert would ever be triggered, so it is flagged separately to stop you confusing it with a low margin. Load the cost and the margin will be judged normally.
Q: I set the alert above the warning and they swapped over by themselves.
A: That is correct. The alert (red) has to be stricter than the warning (yellow); the other way round, the yellow would never be seen. They are swapped when you save and you are told about it.
Q: Are text lines and section headings flagged too?
A: No. A row with no amount and no cost has no margin to judge, so it never gets a bar.
Q: Does the bar print on the PDF, or can the customer see it?
A: No. It is an internal on-screen warning. Neither the printed document, nor the PDF, nor the customer portal shows it.