Yes — and it's a specific kind of painful because you can't see it coming. Everything feels productive until you actually break down where the hours went and what they cost.
The fix for us came in three stages:
1. Build a fully-loaded hourly cost — not just wage, but payroll burden, vehicle cost per hour, tool amortization, and overhead allocated per billable hour. That number is your floor. Every quote has to clear it before you've made anything.
2. Track job mix by margin, not revenue. Once you have per-job costing, you'll find fast that some job types are carrying the business and others are just keeping the trucks warm. Cutting or repricing the thin categories made a bigger impact than raising prices across the board.
3. Get real time data from the field. Estimated vs. actual hours is where most of the margin fade lives — jobs that quote at 2 hours and run 3.5. If your techs aren't capturing time accurately, your costing is based on guesses.
The quarterly pricing review Judith mentioned is smart too. Costs creep every year and most operators reprice reactively instead of proactively.
What job types were the worst offenders for you margin-wise?
this looks useful. Thank you.
