Do you know if you made money on a job, or just guess?

A

advancedquail

New User
Location
Texas
Occupation
Electrician
Been doing residential service work for about 6 months now (just me and occasionally a helper), and I'm trying to figure out how other small shops handle job costing.

Right now I'm basically guessing whether I made money on a job. I'll know I billed $1,800, but between material runs, my time, helper's time, and stuff I pulled from the van... I have no clue if I netted $900 or $200.

I've tried keeping up with spreadsheets but that lasted about two weeks. The annoying part isn't even the money I might be losing, it's that I'm spending my weekends trying to piece together receipts and figuring out what went where instead of just being done when the job's done.

For those of you running solo or small crew, how do you deal with this? Do you actually track it, or have you just figured out a way that works? Honestly wondering if this is one of those things everyone quietly stresses about or if I'm just bad at the business side of this.
 
I used Jobber software for a couple of years, but they kept going up on price, and had a lot of features I don’t need or use, so I bought a one time app that does everything I need, and no monthly fee. Since it’s on my phone I can add material and labor as needed, and it gives a profit percentage. It’s called “Electrician Invoice & Estimate.
 

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You’re just bad at the business side. 😂😂

That is actually good news though, and I’ll explain why.

First, when you decide to go from being a tradesman employed by a business, to being a tradesman AND a businessman, you need to realize that you are beginning on a new apprenticeship, that of being a businessman.

I mean this as encouragement, because every single one of us, who went from being a welder or an electrician or a framer, and became a welding or electrical or framing CONTRACTOR, has had to do the very same thing.

So nuts and bolts: Get a box of cardboard file folders. Each job you do, open a new job and job folder. As you work, put every single invoice into that folder. Get a basic time card and fill it out, both for you and your helper. At the end of the job, mark on the outside what you charged, minus direct job coats, and that will give you gross profit.

Be careful now, because gross profit doesn’t mean you made any money. In order to know if you made any money, you NEED to know your business costs, also known as overhead. The most common way small businesses fail is failing to know, or to recoup, overhead.

If your over head is $40K/year, and you made $60k gross profit, you won’t be in business next year. And the only way to know this is to KNOW YOUR NUMBERS!

Check out a couple threads I posted about this:

Figuring And Applying Overhead……

This is a little thing I put together for a Contractor's FB group I’m on. FIGURING AND APPLYING OVERHEAD: First thing to understand is, figuring overhead is an ongoing task, and it deals with some projections. As the year progresses, projected figures will become actual figures, and you will...
forums.mikeholt.com

Pricing A Job….

This is my method, and this is the other sort of lengthy post I put together for the FB Group. I am a General Contractor as well as an Electrical Contractor, and as you will see, it was more geared towards the General’s, but I think it would apply equally to any type of Contractor. Many ways...
forums.mikeholt.com

I also highly recommend buying 2 books both by David Gerstel: Running A Successful Construction Company, and Nail Your Numbers.

Both these books were written by a remodeling contractor, and are sort of geared towards general contractors, but the principles are the same for any construction firm.
 
Wait—- should you not have all the rolled over into your hourly rate—- so only thing you need to worry about is billing for correct hours and then just material——

If it’s a bid——
Then just add material deduct and then divide by hours- if it exceeds your hourly you gold if not you better do better next time
 
I am totally self employed with my own interests and some contracting to keep the lights on. Not bound to hours, having to account for time or book keeping hours ect so I try to make sure I do not under estimate expense and see how much I have at the end.
 
Sometimes there is no simple formula for overhead. If you were billing 40 regular it would be somewhat easier. I do nt try to figure it in hourly for this type of purpose. I have a lot of it even if I dont turn an hour so I keep it in mind. I also have a bit of formula for misc. I bill the hi priced with a little markup and I really dont want to be a material seller and deal sales tax,,, so I will let customer buy, I charge some labor vs materials and often hedge little for markup and if I am low on wire nuts or connectors box goes on that bill and add a roll of tape or tube of goo.
A bud was there when I bought some stuff for his sisters job and I get can of glue on her bill. He said something and I said, ok, can bill 2 dollars for the glue she paid 10 for but then add wire nuts and couple locknuts and get it back to 10,,,hahahaha
 
I had auto repair bud with his own garage/shop. It took him a long time to be effecient but the parts store wanted him to get account for delievery and he kept 300 in pocket every morning to buy parts. Paid the sales tyax right then and there in cash and bit the total,,, parts and labor the same as anyone else but
Sberry
difint mark up the parts and adjust the labor to level it. There were a few other details but he never had monthly parts bill etc and could literally count it at the end of the day.
 
As long as you’re happy with what you’re making, shouldn’t matter you’re making tons of bucks or just less than you were working for someone else if you’re happy, you’re happy….

There’s a lot of benefits to be self-employed that people don’t take into account

So I guess the point of having a business if you have employees do the work for you and you’d manage the business. I’m a control freak on the field so hard got me to let go
 
I have them do "some" , have then detail the chores and are really a life support system for me, motivation and a hand makes hard jobs easy.
 
I was estimating something and a former banker type was giving it to me as to how I had to know every penny and I told him I do not. If the burger cost 2$ and the bun 50 cents the cost of ketchup has to be reovered but doesnt need to be to the penny and if it does we are at the wrong scale. We can estimate it as a few cents above actual cost and not lose.
 
I see some suggestion to add to the hourly for small cost. That is fine for bidding but is different than the actual or the 'end of the day" number. I might add 10$ for misc but what did 2 3/8 cable connectors and 3 wire nuts actually cost. So I took in 100,, cost a dollar for that and 20 in fuel and I pay the helper 25 and have 74 left. That does not cover other overhead but a simple daily.
Not the same as an estimate or billing, its going to be 5 or 10 if I got to itemize and 5 or 10 added hourly for an estimate basis.
 
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