Trades

5.6.1 Purpose

A trade (Gewerk) represents a package of work awarded to a contractor. It carries the commercial terms that apply to everything billed under it — VAT, discount, cash discount, securities, and deductions — so that these are defined once per trade rather than repeated on each invoice. A trade must exist before a bill of quantities can be uploaded against it.

Note: In earlier documentation and earlier versions of the application this object was called a Ticket Category. It is now called a Trade. The two names refer to the same thing; anyone working from the older document should read "Ticket Category" as "Trade".

5.6.2 The Trades list

Figure 26 — The Trades list

Each row summarises the commercial terms of one trade so they can be compared at a glance.

Column	Description
Source	Indicates where the record originated, shown as an icon.
Trade	Name of the trade.
Contractor	Company awarded the trade.
VAT	VAT rate applied to invoices under this trade.
Discount	General discount applied to all invoices under this trade.
Cash discount	Early payment discount and the number of days within which it applies (for example 2% / 7d).
Contract security	Rate, basis, and amendment handling for the contract performance security (for example 10% / Calc. / w/ amend.).
Warranty security	Rate, basis, and amendment handling for the warranty security (for example 5% / Calc. / w/ amend.).
Actions	Opens the row action menu.

Use Filter trades… to narrow the list and View to adjust the displayed columns.

5.6.3 Creating a trade

Open Trades within the project.
Select Add trade. The Add trade dialog opens.
Enter the Name and select the Contractor. Both are mandatory.
Set the commercial terms: VAT, Discount, BoQ warning, Cash discount and Days.
Optionally record the Order number, Order date, and Order start date.
Set the Contract performance security and Warranty security. See section 5.6.5.
Add any General deductions. See section 5.6.6.
Select Create trade.

Figure 27 — The Add trade dialog

5.6.4 Field reference — Add trade

Field	Mandatory	Default	Notes
Name	Yes	—	Name of the trade.
Contractor	Yes	—	Selected from the companies assigned to the project. A contractor must be selected before a bill of quantities can be uploaded.
VAT	No	19%	Options are 19% or 0%. Applied to invoices under this trade.
Discount	No	2%	General discount considered for all invoices under this trade.
BoQ warning	No	85%	Threshold at which a warning is raised against the bill of quantities.
Cash discount	No	2%	Early payment discount.
Days	No	7	Number of days within which the cash discount applies.
Order number	No	—	Reference number of the order.
Order date	No	—	Date of the order (dd.mm.yyyy).
Order start date	No	—	Date work is due to start (dd.mm.yyyy).

5.6.5 Securities

Two securities (Sicherheiten) can be defined per trade. They are retained from payments to the contractor and apply at different stages of billing.

Security	Applies to	Typical rate
Contract performance security	Interim invoices (Abschlagszahlung, AZ)	10% of the order amount
Warranty security	The final invoice (Schlussrechnung)	5%

Each security is configured with the same three settings:

Setting	Options	Meaning
Rate	Percentage	The percentage retained.
Basis	Calculated or Fixed	Calculated: the required amount is determined on an ongoing basis and any missing security is retained. Fixed: no calculation is performed; the amount recorded is accepted as sufficient.
Amendments	With amendments or Without amendments	Determines whether the security is calculated on the original order amount alone, or on the order amount plus approved amendments uploaded as LV.

Note: Amendments and supplements (Nachträge) refer to the same thing. The Add trade dialog uses "amendments"; other screens use "supplements". Use one term consistently in training material and flag the inconsistency to the product team.

5.6.6 General deductions

General deductions allow custom retentions, fees, or other percentage-based line items to be added to a trade. Select Add to insert a row. Where no deductions have been defined, the panel states that none exist.

Field	Description
Label	Name of the line item, for example an administrative fee or training cost.
%	Percentage applied. Default 0%.
Basis	Whether the percentage is calculated on the gross or net value. Default gross.
Actions	Removes the line item.

5.6.7 Rules and constraints

The following rules were documented for the earlier Ticket Category and are expected to apply to trades. Each needs to be re-tested against the current build before this section is published.

Rule	Status
A trade can be edited as long as no invoice under it has been finalised.	To be verified by QA
VAT can be changed only before the invoice is finalised for that trade.	To be verified by QA
A trade cannot be deleted once an LV file has been uploaded against it.	To be verified by QA
An LV file cannot be uploaded until the trade exists and appears in the Trades list.	To be verified by QA
A contractor must be selected before a bill of quantities can be imported.	To be verified by QA
Changes to percentage fields are reflected in the supplier information sheet.	To be verified by QA

Caution: These rules govern whether financial data can be changed after billing has started. They are the rules most likely to cause a support call, and the most damaging to get wrong. Do not publish this table until QA has verified each line on the current build.