Pricing for jobs?

[JD89]

Hey people. Currently coming to the end of my NVQ level 2 and hoping to move on to my NVQ level 3 soon after.

One thing I've always wondered about is how to price for work? Starting to pick up hobbles here and there and getting asked for quotes all the time. Thing is I've never been with my boss when he's priced for work so I don't have a clue.

I don't want to go in to high but not to cheap either so I'm not earning anything on the job?

Any advice?

Thanks.

 

[AWheating]

it all comes with experience, its different for every body and how you run your business. Untill you have some data of your running costs it will be alittle guess work on your part but its really a simple calculation of adding the costs together.

for a basic idea you want to add together the cost of the materials, the labour and your business costs. For somebody starting out this could be as simple as adding £10 per day to the materials and labour to cover your petrol for example.

as you get to know your running costs then you can work out the daily running cost of your businesss. This can be done by adding up all your costs over a year and then dividing this the number of days you will work or even the number of hours.

you may then want to consider adding a percentage to the materials cost to cover problems like faulty parts, call backs, returns, warranty issues etc......

you may want to add a profit margin or just include this in your labour charges

you could make it as simple or as complicated as you wish, but most small firms will want to keep things very simple to make quoting fast and less time consuming.

some of the cost you will need to cover are:

van
van insuarnce and running costs
petrol
PI insurance
tools
training and registrations like gas safe and acs
accounting
office costs (may include rent)
time spent not earning money (ie. quoting, maybe fetching materials etc....)
Holiday pay
consumables

you will be supprised how much there is to consider when running a business, keep it simple.

 

[JD89]

Hell of a reply, thanks for that. Need to know this.

Suppose I need to start studying the materials side of things then cover myself with the labour. I thought learning about the trade was hard enough. Can see the business side of things being a trade itself.

 

[AWheating]

what jobs you looking to do?

make yourself a survey sheet with a materials ticksheet section so you can quickly note whats needed and then you wont forget something expensive when you quote for the work.

 

[JD89]

what jobs you looking to do?

make yourself a survey sheet with a materials ticksheet section so you can quickly note whats needed and then you wont forget something expensive when you quote for the work.

Anything I can get my hands on to be honest.

Yeah good call, so really I could make a generic sheet of materials with stuff like bath, copper lengths, fittings, basin, taps etc and just tick off what I need?

 

[AWheating]

what i have is a sheet for bathrooms, boiler change, full heating system and for small jobs.

all apart from the small jobs sheet has a list of most likely needed materials, so for example a list of bathroom parts and a box to either tick or write an amount.

apart from the sanitary there may be

15mm copper in meters
22mm copper in meters
tmv required?
pan connector required?

also i would have a section to detail the hot water system in the propery so i know what im quoting will be suitable

hot water type? gravity? combi? unvented/mains?
cold water presure?
cold water flow rate?

stuff like this will help know what taps will be suitable and whats size pipework etc......


basically anything you want that gives you enough information to quote for the job, not miss any major material items. you also have to remember some customers may not ask you to do the work for a month or two by which time you may not remember what the job needed but you have the sheet filed away with all the information you need.

if you pm me your email address i will give you a copy of one of my sheets to give you an idea.

 

[kozak1968]

When you do jobs keep a diary of the time and description of work. Then your get an I dear of how to price for starters then allow for picking up materials, surveying the job, ect ect.

 

[stevetheplumber]

allways get the materials right as they will cost you money if its wrong with labour costs all your loosing is your own time but even when loosing money youll be gaining experience