From the Estimating main menu, selecting File > Maintenance > Materials & Service Mgmt > Manufacturers accesses the file containing manufacturer data including name, abbreviation (short name), DCI code, rank, web site address, and more. The manufacturers set up here appear in the choices for Manufacturer when editing a record in Items and Favorites.
When you first receive the Estimating and the Databook plug-in, the Manufacturers file will be empty. You can either build it from scratch (following the instructions in Adding Manufacturers) or, if you have the Materials Management plug-in, use its Import function to import manufacturer short names, names, and DCI codes from the Merlin purchasing program.
The Manufacturers sidebar function contains a grid and searching capabilities. Figure 1 shows a sample Manufacturers file, imported from Merlin (using the Materials Management Import function).
Once items are imported or once you have built up a large Manufacturers file, you can perform searches to find specific manufacturers. See Searching For Manufacturers. You can also edit manufacturers by following the instructions in Editing Manufacturers.