Aptora

[Rewire]

I got an email from Aptora about their flat rate pricing books.Has anyone used them and are they worth the cost? How easy are they?

 

[Sparky555]

I tried it, wasn't impressed at all & returned it. Maybe it'll work for you. Anything you get will take a lot of tweaking to adjust for your crew or yourself. It's more accurate to work from your own job history than a package.

I can usually estimate very well. If there's a new job that's not in my pricing sheets I find something close, or do a T&M on paper in the truck or in Excel in the office to create a price. What's more important is to track the job to see if it was profitable at that best-guess of a price. If it wasn't I adjust the price accordingly. The key is to adjust the price of an unprofitable job rather than continually losing money on unfamiliar work.

 

[electricalperson]

i would love to get a flat rate price book. the plumbers all do it and i think i could make more money by giving flat rate prices vs time and material.

can you post some examples of prices out of the book?\

what does a 100 amp service change cost?

 

[aline]

i would love to get a flat rate price book. the plumbers all do it and i think i could make more money by giving flat rate prices vs time and material.

can you post some examples of prices out of the book?\

what does a 100 amp service change cost?

You create the prices in a flat rate book.
A 100 amp service change out costs whatever price you put into the book.

Most flat rate books aren't really books but software that allows you to create and print the books. You determine the prices that go into the book. The advantage to buying the flat rate software is that there are tasks already set up in them but you'll still spend a lot of time modifying the task times and task materials to meet your needs. It's still quicker and easier than starting from scratch.

You determine the hourly rates and material prices for the tasks in the book.
You can buy pre-printed flat rate books but the prices in these books are based on what you tell the people your buying the book from. If you want to make changes later you have to give them the new information and have the new books printed again. You're better off buying flat rate software, creating and printing your own books.

You can change your hourly rates and material price in the software and all the tasks will automatically be adjusted. Then you can print out new books.

Lately I've been using Wintac Pro to create my flat rate books. It also handles my accounting, dispatching and job scheduling.
The drawback to Wintac Pro is that it didn't come pre loaded with tasks so I've had to create them from scratch but you can create an invoice and simply turn it into a task for future use. This allows you to create tasks as you go if you don't want to sit down and create them all in advance.

Here's the link to their website. http://www.intacinternational.com/

 

[aline]

I can usually estimate very well.

The idea behind a flat rate book is so that other's can estimate very well and not just you.
You want all your technicians to be able to estimate from the book so you don't have to.
This way when your on vacation sitting at the beach jobs are still getting estimated and completed without you having to be involved.

 

[Sparky555]

The idea behind a flat rate book is so that other's can estimate very well and not just you.
You want all your technicians to be able to estimate from the book so you don't have to.
This way when your on vacation sitting at the beach jobs are still getting estimated and completed without you having to be involved.

95% of the tasks performed are already on pricing sheets. It's the occassional odd situation that requires a little creativity.

Rewire,

I'm sure you've been doing this long enough to put together pricing. Start with the most frequent tasks. There are probably less than 100 tasks. In residential service it's:

Travel & Staging
Diagnostics
Fishing
Breakers
Panels
Exterior Service
Grounding, Bonding
Fans
Lighting
Home Runs/Circuits
Outlets, Switches
Surge Protectors

Under each will be more breakdown as in:

Lighting w/o ladders
With various ladders and with scaffold
With assembly of the fixture
Cans
Undercabinet Lighting
Ext MD lights
etc.

 

[electricalperson]

You create the prices in a flat rate book.
A 100 amp service change out costs whatever price you put into the book.

Most flat rate books aren't really books but software that allows you to create and print the books. You determine the prices that go into the book. The advantage to buying the flat rate software is that there are tasks already set up in them but you'll still spend a lot of time modifying the task times and task materials to meet your needs. It's still quicker and easier than starting from scratch.

You determine the hourly rates and material prices for the tasks in the book.
You can buy pre-printed flat rate books but the prices in these books are based on what you tell the people your buying the book from. If you want to make changes later you have to give them the new information and have the new books printed again. You're better off buying flat rate software, creating and printing your own books.

You can change your hourly rates and material price in the software and all the tasks will automatically be adjusted. Then you can print out new books.

Lately I've been using Wintac Pro to create my flat rate books. It also handles my accounting, dispatching and job scheduling.
The drawback to Wintac Pro is that it didn't come pre loaded with tasks so I've had to create them from scratch but you can create an invoice and simply turn it into a task for future use. This allows you to create tasks as you go if you don't want to sit down and create them all in advance.

Here's the link to their website. http://www.intacinternational.com/

that sounds pretty good ill check into that stuff

 

[peter d]

that sounds pretty good ill check into that stuff

You plan on going out on your own?

 

[RobertH]

Flat Rate Plus Software

Flat Rate Plus Software

We use the Flat Rate Plus software from MrHVAC (or Aptora). We do HVAC, plumbing, and electrical. We had to spend a lot of time setting it up at first. The software is pretty much all done for you it just includes a lot of stuff you will never need. Mainly we just had to spend time inactivating repairs that we don't do. Other than that, it was all easy and straight forward. Our book is only about 100 pages now and we plan to make it much smaller. Adding repairs is fast and easy. The support is fine but we really haven't needed much of that. I would recommend MrHVAC (they call themselves Aptora - www.aptora.com). As far as flat rate pricing is concerned, it's the only way to go. We make more money and have fewer gripes.