Curious what’s actually working for everyone in today’s market with rising material costs and labor rates.
Currently - I do time + material and then add in my overhead/profit % and I still get tons of kick back. Other big electricians in my area charge 3-4x the amount for something that I do and it works for them. I can't wrap my head around it.
Time and material can work but it all depends on how you lay out your invoice. We have a service line where we describe what the problem was and what was done, as well as any PO information and the requestor.
Next we have our labour line which identifies the tech and rate, then truck charge, and finally materials (the description lists the material but its one line item with a total cost not a cost for every item used, I caution against this for price checking clients), after materials we can sometimes have permit or parking charges.
The biggest help with T&M jobs for us was the development of photos in job forms, with every invoice we send a job form stating who went what we did and any findings or observations that were made on-site as well as material that was consumed.
This has really helped with the blow back from clients, hard evidence makes it hard to argue. Some of our clients have made it mandatory for other trades to provide similar reports to justify costs.
We use chatGPT projects with specific instructions to take our technician notes and craft these reports.
I hope this helps!
We went to the flat rate model when we started our Service business. As we were trained in the practice we became aware that flat rate is all encompassing, and allows us to build a business for growth, let's us provide a price our clients can rely on before we start, and takes the math work out for our technicians. Presenting a professional product has been important to us, and one that was more attainable with this switch.
Going away from the old ways of T&M was very scary. And even implementing and selling the price that our flat rate price has been even scarier. But we know the numbers in our budget. And the budget doesn't lie. So doing anything less, we would be cheating ourselves and our employees.
I'd suggest going to a class on the flat rate system and see for yourself.
Can you share what flat rate system you use and how you integrate it into jobber?
Start in products & services in the jobber settings. Start filling it up with any prices you have. Also when making current quotes in Jobber you can always save those line items as well as you go.
I would also start saving quote templates for things that you quote all the time.
Also, they are working on a price book, so that's gonna be coming down the pipe for everyone.
I would strongly suggest you should do a budget for your year with sales / variable expenses / fixed expenses. This budget is going to tell you what amount of revenue you are going to do and the most important thing, what margin you are going to do that revenue at.
So if you did a budget at a 50% gross margin you need to be sending your quotes out at a 50-55% margin just for some slippage.
If you're J man cost you $50 / hour + say another $10 for the insurance / other stuff he cost's you $60 / hour at a %50 gross margin you need to charge $120 / hour for him. And if your materials are $500 then your charging $1000.
Worry about your margins and what you need to charge and don't worry too much about the competition. You know your numbers you don't know theirs and their overhead.
Quote each job at a flat rate at the margin you need to hit.
I don't like hourly, I find it dangerous to hit the client with a large number at the end and hope they pay it. I like the upfront price, get a 50% deposit with CC on file and life is great !
If you want to chat further I'm happy to jump on zoom if you like.
How are you using jobber to quote flat rate jobs? I find it hard to catagorize and find the jobs options once they are imputed under services. Does anyone use a flat price book they are able to use with Jobber?
You need some sort of naming system.
But it's pretty good if you just search something like EV charger or service upgrade. Anything you have saved in products and services is going to pop right up.
Hey WiringByron! Able to chime in here? 👀⚡️
Flat rate for 20 years. It is fair to us, and fair for the customer. It takes the pricing pressure off the employee and the business.
I use a mix of both. Since I just started my business less than a year ago. Once I figured out my expected future overhead as in 6-12 months ahead and figured out what my potential employees labor would be plus an amount added onto that I get my labor rate. Then you go into the actual materials with a decent markup I feel like I wouldn’t mind paying for. And boom all profit is fixed with in the job but if you have some well off clients add some more especially if it’s a pretty serious job. The only work I don’t get is the cheap clients that rather have a handyman doing it.
For over 20years ive done time and material but now are switching to flat rate to try to boost profits and limit blowback from owners and it seems to be working
Flat Price
Flat rate pricing for my business. Seems to work the best for us.
what area are you in? im just starting out and i would greatly appreciate any helpful advice youd be willing to share with me.
We're based in Philadelphia. How about you? I'd be happy to help. First thing I would do is figure out what is your overhead.
