Getting your gear into Flightcase
Quotes price themselves from your inventory, so the gear list is the thing everything else leans on. It is worth an unglamorous hour early rather than a scramble mid-quote.
Screenshots are from a demo workspace. Where a step has more than one, select Play walkthrough to watch them in order, or Next frame to go at your own pace.
About an hour for a first pass
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1. Set up your departments and categories first
Departments (audio, lighting, video, rigging) are the shape every quote and pull sheet inherits, and categories sit under them. Make them match how you actually talk about the kit. If your team says "comms" and "rigging", use those, not a taxonomy borrowed from someone else's warehouse. Both are added from the Inventory page with the + Dept and + Category buttons.
Inventory grouped by department and category, with quantity, daily rate, case and serialized status on every line. 1 / 2 -
2. Add gear underneath them
Each item carries what you own, its daily rate, its replacement value, a shelf location and whether it is for rent, for sale or both. Quantities matter more than they look: availability is worked out from them, so a job that would overcommit a case shows up before the truck is loaded rather than after. The Availability tab on any item shows owned, committed and free by day and which quotes are holding it.
A new item: department, category, daily rate, replacement value, accounting mode, stock quantity, weight and shelf location. 1 / 3 -
3. Track individual units where it matters
Consoles, projectors and moving lights are worth tracking one unit at a time. The Serialized tab holds a row per physical unit with its serial, scan code, asset tag and purchase price, and that is what phone scanning reads when the unit goes out and comes back.
The Serialized tab: one row per physical unit with serial, scan code, asset tag and purchase price. -
4. Group cases and kits
A comms kit goes onto a quote as one line at one rate, not as a pile of parts. A standard case has its contents packed up front in inventory and travels as a single thing through quoting, pulling and returns; an open case starts empty and the warehouse crew add to it during prep. Equipment Kits are the quoting-side version: a reusable group priced as a kit or as a discount on its components.
Inventory by case: each case with its department, packed contents, daily rate and replacement value. 1 / 3 -
5. Put replacement values on as you go
This is the step everyone skips and everyone regrets. Replacement values are what your rate card, your insurance schedule and the dry rental security hold are built from, and filling them in item by item later is far more painful than doing it while you are already in the record. For serialized gear the value is the average of the priced units, so a purchase price on each unit does the job.
The replacement value on an item. For serialized gear it is averaged from the purchase price on each unit. -
6. Or import the list you already have
If the catalog is in a spreadsheet, Import CSV takes it in two passes: cases first, then items. Download the template, fill it in, and the preview matches departments, categories and case names against what already exists so nothing is created twice.
Import Inventory CSV: download the template, then upload. Departments, categories and cases already on file are listed so the names match.
Worth knowing
- Serialized units and asset tags are what make phone scanning work later. Worth adding for anything you track individually.
- The Price List button on Inventory exports a rate card from the same data, so keeping rates current in one place keeps the card current too.
No workspace yet?
The free plan covers the whole path this guide describes, with no card. Open one and follow along with a job you are actually working on.