Underbidding jobs because I'm not charging for a second slab

Question

I am running into problems on the quotes where we are underbidding jobs due to material size constraints. Is there a way to somehow tie in the slab sizes and the cost of the material to better judge profitability on quotes?

Answer

There are a couple of ways that people deal with this – here are some ideas:

1. Add a waste factor and rounding on the quote lines themselves. You can account for some waste and try to charge for a full slab based on a simple formula. Here’s how:
   1. Go to the Quote->Edit Prices page. Find the product you want (for example, Ceasarstone)
   2. Click on the name of the product, and choose “Edit Product..”
   3. Enter a value for the waste factor, and another for “Round Measurement up to”
   4. Based on what I’ve seen, other people add around a 20% waste factor, and choose the slab size for “round up to”
2. Add estimated material. This will give you some analysis in the “Quote Analysis” section. For this to work, you need to put in purchase cost. Ballpark is probably close enough.
   1. Enter costs under Purchasing->Edit Costs
   2. Add estimated material. Go to Quote->Edit Sell Products.
   3. Click on the appropriate row, under the “Est. Resources” column and choose “Add Estimated Material”
   4. When you do a quote, look under the “Estimated Resources” and Quote analysis sections to get an idea what you expect to consume.