The parts catalogue is a per-garage library of parts you order or stock often. Instead of retyping the same descriptions, part numbers and prices every time you add a part to a jobcard, the catalogue remembers them and you pull them in by name.
What's stored on a catalogue entry
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Description | What this is |
| Part number | The supplier part number carried over from the part row |
| Supplier | Default supplier — pulls into the part row |
| Unit cost | What you typically pay |
| Unit price | What you typically charge (or it auto-calculates) |
How to use it on a jobcard
When you click Add Part on a job, the part row has a search icon next to the description. Click it to open the Parts Catalog search — type a description and Pistonlog matches catalogue entries, showing supplier, part number, pricing, how often each has been used, and recent jobcards it appeared on. Click Use and the row fills in with the catalogue values, which you can still edit per-line.
Sort the results with the selector at the top: Most Used (the default), Recently Used, A–Z, or Price.
The Cost column only appears if you have the parts.view_cost permission, and the Price column only if you can see prices at all (see Unit cost visibility). A technician searching the catalogue sees the description, supplier, part number and usage count, and no money.
Adding to the catalogue
You don't add entries by hand: the catalogue builds itself. Every time you save a new part on a job, Pistonlog creates a catalogue entry from it (or, if an entry with the same description and part number already exists, bumps its usage count and fills in any missing supplier or pricing details). The most-used parts float to the top of search results.
Where the part number comes from
The Part # column in the search results shows the supplier part number from the part row it was created from. The manufacturer part number is never filled in automatically, so an entry will show a dash there unless the original part row carried a supplier part number.
Per garage
The catalogue is per garage. Bristol's brake pads aren't automatically Bath's — each garage maintains its own. There's no cross-garage import/export workflow today; if you want to share, you'd duplicate the entries manually in each garage.