A Tour of the Main Window

What is this?

This is the map of the main window: what each area is for and where its detailed page is. Read it once, then come back whenever you need to find something. The four pages that follow in this chapter cover the menus, the button row, the data grid, the summary and the banners and badges in depth.

Walk through it in the app: guide 1001 — Opening the Options window and the lesson series Main window overview (1004–1009: Menu bar, Selection box area, Button bar, Grid, Summary section, Future Price panel). Margin Master can walk you through these steps live: turn on Training / Guide Mode from the Help menu, then type the number into the Lessons & Guides box — or ask Margin Master support to run it with you.

Window Layout Overview

1. Menu bar

Every feature lives under one of the menus: File (print, database, utilities), View (sort, columns, field names, selection boxes), Strategy (custom groups, exceptions, cost breaks, min/max, the Strategy Manager and Execute), Data (rebuilds, vendor sync, POS import, Excel and competitor imports), Tools (Find Sku, Clear ALL Selections, Options) and Help. Every item, with its shortcut, is listed in The Menus.

2. Button row

Refresh Data and the Records Found count on the left; on the right the drop-down that chooses Show Ace Skus / Show Non-Ace Skus / Show ALL Skus (named for your vendor), then icon buttons for the Cost Break Model, Profit Analyzer, Statistics, Future Price greater than $0.00, Edit Columns, Edit Sort Order and Print/Export. Each is explained in The Button Row.

3. Selection panel

The tabs along the top group the selection boxes - Department, Class, Vendor Product Group, price and margin ranges and many more. Ticking values in a box narrows the grid to matching rows; boxes combine, so Department 10 plus Class 5 shows only rows that satisfy both. Each box can include or exclude what you tick. F12 clears every box. Which boxes and tabs appear is yours to decide in Edit Selection Boxes; how to use them well is Chapter 13.

If a saved selection is loaded, its name appears as a button above the tabs.

4. Results grid

The grid is where you read prices. Current Price cells are yellow; Future Price cells are green with an up or down arrow. Two narrow columns carry icons: * shows a padlock on items priced by a specific rule and Z a vendor logo on items with zone pricing. Sort by clicking a header, resize and re-order by dragging, right-click a row for SKU detail. Everything the columns mean is in The Main Data Grid.

5. Summary and Future Price panels

Summary (left) counts the increases and decreases the proposed prices would make in each store and projects the dollar impact by month, using last year's sales. The Displayed / All / None choice controls it; None switches it off for speed. See The Summary Section.

Future Price panel (right) is where prices are set. It has three tabs:

• Future Price - Set Future Price to a price level, cost-plus or margin, with an optional Plus or Minus adjustment in percent, rounding points, cents or dollars.
• Rounding [scheme] - the rounding scheme applied to the result; the tab shows the scheme in use.
• Advanced - No Decreases and Min/Max protection; a green dot on the tab means one is on.

Apply writes the proposed price into the Future Price column of every displayed row. Save (the camera) keeps the current selections and settings as a named saved selection - the building block of a strategy step. The full treatment is in Chapter 14, Future Pricing.

6. Title-bar badges and banners

Badges appear in the title bar only while something needs attention - Demo Mode, Data Aging, Update Available, a running background job, an open support issue. Yellow banners across the top of the work area report an offline license or a point-of-sale import that could not reach the POS. Margin Master has no status bar; long jobs show a Please Wait panel. Every badge and banner is listed in Banners and Badges.

Tips

Ctrl+F finds a SKU from anywhere; F12 clears every selection.

Panels can be resized by dragging the splitter between them; the layout is remembered per computer.

Common Questions

Q: How do I find a specific product? A: Press Ctrl+F (Finding SKUs), or narrow the grid with the selection boxes.

Q: The grid shows too many columns. A: View > Edit Columns Displayed chooses the columns and saves the layout as a column view - Edit Columns.

Q: My selection tabs are different from a colleague's. A: Tabs and boxes are configured per store in View > Edit Selection Boxes.

Q: Where are the messages I would expect on a status bar? A: There is no status bar. Progress shows in the Please Wait panel and conditions show as badges and banners.