Discussion Pricing your print/jobs/installs >>MEGA Thread<<.

[ColorCrest]

Step 2:
On the main sheet:
you add the stock price you're quoting.

Again I'll ask, where does the stock price data come from?

And also...

Step 2:
On the main sheet:
you add the stock price you're quoting.
add your shop rate, usually you don't change it unless your product has huge margins
enter your product size and quantity.

Why is the shop rate not entered only once and saved on the "separate" sheet?

 

[Pauly]

Again I'll ask, where does the stock price data come from?

And also...

Why is the shop rate not entered only once and saved on the "separate" sheet?

Stock price comes is the material you buy.
If your common vinyl costs you $4 per square meter or square foot. thats the price.
If coroplast costs you $20 a sheet. simple math can work our the square meters or square foot.

Only reason i have the shop rate on the main page is if we had trade pricing, we would adjust that. but we only do trade these days so i've just left it there.
???

 

[ColorCrest]

Stock price comes is the material you buy.
If your common vinyl costs you $4 per square meter or square foot. thats the price.
If coroplast costs you $20 a sheet. simple math can work our the square meters or square foot.

Only reason i have the shop rate on the main page is if we had trade pricing, we would adjust that. but we only do trade these days so i've just left it there.
???

For accounting and pricing accuracy one would cost materials as they are expended, such as linear measure for roll stock as opposed to square measure, although one might certainly price per square.

So, since stock price comes from the material purchased, where does the user of your calculator get the material's pricing data and is it manually entered by hand into the calculator?

Also, since the shop rate is sometimes adjusted but the calculations are not saved, how does the user know what has been calculated in the past for what could be the same product?

 

[Pauly]

I appreciate your questions. Please remember, this is a Calculator to create product pricing. To be used how the user wishes to use.
It's something, rather than nothing. Especially for those who don't even know where to start pricing their prints.

I'll do my best to continue to answer your questions,

For accounting and pricing accuracy one would cost materials as they are expended, such as linear measure for roll stock as opposed to square measure, although one might certainly price per square.

You can use the calculator as you wish.
It calculates per square meter. It will not nest out the jobs for you.
It's up to you/the user to come up with the method they want to price the product.
If you want to do it by area. use the calculator.
If you want to do it by Lineal meters, use a nesting calculator, get your total size and then add the total size to the calculator.

So, since stock price comes from the material purchased, where does the user of your calculator get the material's pricing data and is it manually entered by hand into the calculator?

Basic math: Length x Width = Total Area. Material price / Material Aera.

This is upon the user to collect data for their pricing. I would assume most print shops have a spreadsheet with the list of stock the use at minimum.
We have a separate program that we have a list of the stock we use, the code, the vendor we purchase it from, and we input the width, length & price. It'll auto calculate the SQM price for me.

Also, since the shop rate is sometimes adjusted but the calculations are not saved, how does the user know what has been calculated in the past for what could be the same product?

That's up to the users descension on how it's used.

 

[ColorCrest]

I appreciate your questions.

And I appreciate your answers. I'll offer some thoughts tomorrow.

 

[Precision]

Pauly, I appreciate your effort.

Color crest, what do you have that works? Other than poking holes in someone else's efforts?

Go ahead give us your formula for accurate profitable estimate calculation.

We're all watching and listening. Go ahead.

 

[rydods]

Yes please! I'm beginning my journey with FileMaker and would love to implement this formula into it.

 

[Stacey K]

I created an Excel spreadsheet. Mine has a labor spot, square foot, linear and per item price space. I just enter the pricing in one time. Then I just enter the price into my Wave accounting estimate. I wouldn't mine switching over to File Maker now that I have it pretty close to how I want it. I also have one for apparel.

 

[GB2]

I'm not sure why there is a disconnect here but we don't want to corrupt Pauly's good intentioned thread right at the beginning so I'll offer my opinion in the hope we can move forward. Pauly, you seem to be starting out with Excel to create some detailed formulas or pricing tables to cost out various items and you seem to be leaning toward the hope that it will be a one stop place that you can use to price any of the products you sell. Color Crest we know is a proponent of FileMaker Pro, which is an excellent solution to address these same issues if it can be built properly by you or others to do what you want it to do. I think Pauly you are basically trying to create the formulas that one would use in FileMaker to do the same thing. Your stock costs would be a worksheet of just that, a list of current material costs you would enter and update regularly that would be used in formulas on other worksheet pages to come up with the component pricing.

Pauly, I think you are implying that your workflow would then be to go to your pricing calculator, click in some variable factors, come up with an item price and then go to another program, Quickbooks or whatever, to enter that cost and continue to build your job. Color Crest, I think is working toward suggesting that Filemaker would be able to do all those things in one software and present it in a more suitable way. This is all good however, because it is continuing the discussion and offering different approaches to the never ending search for the perfect way to cost out all of your large variety of work, easily, cost effectively, accurately and consistently, and then follow that up with a good workflow, customer management feature set that seems to be eluding us in the sign industry.

 

[GB2]

Pauly, I have actually been trying to do the very same thing as you although I also have some experience with FileMaker Pro and I do believe that a great solution can be built there that would do everything in one place. None the less, it can be a lot easier and faster to test these things in Excel, which is not a waste because anything you develop in Excel can be used in FileMaker too. Something you mentioned in your opening post is machine time and labor time, which are important factors in accurate pricing and are often overlooked. I use PrintSmith in my printing business and the way that program builds pricing starts out with completing an Excel sheet that calculates overhead, machine time and labor time in something they refer to as a burden rate. Then that is added to the stock cost and other factors to come up with a final cost.

I have separate Excel calculators for Signs, Heat Transfers, Screen Printing, Embroidery, Thermography, Hot Stamp Gold Foil Pressing, CNC Routing, Sheet Metal Fabrication, Installation/Travel, Laser Engraving, Channel Letters and others....if only I could make time to pull it all together in FileMaker...Bingo...perfect solution!

 

[Pauly]

I'm not sure why there is a disconnect here but we don't want to corrupt Pauly's good intentioned thread right at the beginning so I'll offer my opinion in the hope we can move forward. Pauly, you seem to be starting out with Excel to create some detailed formulas or pricing tables to cost out various items and you seem to be leaning toward the hope that it will be a one stop place that you can use to price any of the products you sell. Color Crest we know is a proponent of FileMaker Pro, which is an excellent solution to address these same issues if it can be built properly by you or others to do what you want it to do. I think Pauly you are basically trying to create the formulas that one would use in FileMaker to do the same thing. Your stock costs would be a worksheet of just that, a list of current material costs you would enter and update regularly that would be used in formulas on other worksheet pages to come up with the component pricing.

Pauly, I think you are implying that your workflow would then be to go to your pricing calculator, click in some variable factors, come up with an item price and then go to another program, Quickbooks or whatever, to enter that cost and continue to build your job. Color Crest, I think is working toward suggesting that Filemaker would be able to do all those things in one software and present it in a more suitable way. This is all good however, because it is continuing the discussion and offering different approaches to the never ending search for the perfect way to cost out all of your large variety of work, easily, cost effectively, accurately and consistently, and then follow that up with a good workflow, customer management feature set that seems to be eluding us in the sign industry.

I guess where it comes down to for me is more so helping those who are starting out, using what you have available.
Im sure i could go get a subscription of FileMaker pro, create it all in there, but it's no use to me.
All our business is now online.
All our products, pricing is online.
Our accounting is done though Xero, And its all integrated.

All my spreadsheet did for us was help us create our products for our online store.
I've also used it to quote jobs that we dont have online yet.
Use it for when stock pricing changes and need to update our pricing.

I also use it for when i research new equipment and compare pricing with 1 printer vs another.

And recently, I've noticed a lot of new threads about pricing and i know my little calculator can do wonders for people who really don't know where to begin.
If i had this when is started, i would be over the moon. Especially when you cannot afford subscription software that can calculate printing pricing that can be spend on marketing instead.
Excel was all I had, and I'm sure 99% of people here have it also.

 

[Pauly]

Pauly, I have actually been trying to do the very same thing as you although I also have some experience with FileMaker Pro and I do believe that a great solution can be built there that would do everything in one place. None the less, it can be a lot easier and faster to test these things in Excel, which is not a waste because anything you develop in Excel can be used in FileMaker too. Something you mentioned in your opening post is machine time and labor time, which are important factors in accurate pricing and are often overlooked. I use PrintSmith in my printing business and the way that program builds pricing starts out with completing an Excel sheet that calculates overhead, machine time and labor time in something they refer to as a burden rate. Then that is added to the stock cost and other factors to come up with a final cost.

I have separate Excel calculators for Signs, Heat Transfers, Screen Printing, Embroidery, Thermography, Hot Stamp Gold Foil Pressing, CNC Routing, Sheet Metal Fabrication, Installation/Travel, Laser Engraving, Channel Letters and others....if only I could make time to pull it all together in FileMaker...Bingo...perfect solution!

I've heard of printsmith, by EFI?

There's a lot of variables people tend to forget, or lose track on how to adapt a formula to their pricing structure.
It's easy to follow someone else's method, but coming up with the method takes a lot of time.

If i wanted to use excel for quoting. I could easily allow for line items under the calculator then for another page to pull in that data that saves as a PDF that looks like a quote form.

I can also get that data on another page that will save as a CSV to import into any accounting software like Xero. From there you can send the quote off to your customer.

 

[Gino]

Do these calculations or formulas work for onesies and twosies as well as for multiples of 1,000s or 10s of 1,000's ?? How accurate will this thing be, if someone has growing pains ??

Personally, I can see the need for having some things cataloged or figured out ahead of time, but with so many variables in so many situations, I don't see how a one-size-fits-all will always be accurate, let alone profitable.... both ways. ??

 

[Pauly]

Do these calculations or formulas work for onesies and twosies as well as for multiples of 1,000s or 10s of 1,000's ?? How accurate will this thing be, if someone has growing pains ??

Personally, I can see the need for having some things cataloged or figured out ahead of time, but with so many variables in so many situations, I don't see how a one-size-fits-all will always be accurate, let alone profitable.... both ways. ??

I wish there was a one size fits all.
I do my best for a 1 size fits all, but even we need to use our calc + additional formulas for other specific products.

But to answer your question, yeah it works for 1 offs or 2x., Or even 1000x
As calculator allows for a minimum charge. I can even set a minimum of 1 sqm of stock so can be covered for that also.

 

[Pauly]

Update:
Today/Tomorrow
I'll upload a lite version of our calculator.
I'll dress it up etc so it's pretty.

Have a play and post feedback.
Features you'd like to see
etc
And i'll see how far im willing to take it. As this stuff obviously takes a lot of time.

 

[Stacey K]

OK - that would be nice if you posted it. I was a little confused as to where the post was going and didn't see a link for anything. I always enjoy looking at other spreadsheets so I can update mine with the bells and whistles.

 

[Billct2]

I got a headache reading this. I still do my quotes on paper. For a small shop doing custom work simple still works.

 

[Geneva Olson]

Go google what you are looking for. there are a ton of templates out there for it.

 

[Humble PM]

Pauly, thank you.
When I started at my current place (15 years ago), everything was done on Excel sheets, or printed sheets, with (kid you not) red ledger books. Quotes and invoices written from scratch (occasionaly from template), and calculators on every desk. I moved here from a commercial photographic studio with an access database, built and maintened by the owners (ex) girlfriend. First thing I said was we need a database, and it's either me, or $A who'll build it, as he greps Excel, and likes to code webstuffs. $A picked up the challenge and got us going.

$A moved on to pastures greener a decade ago, and I wish that I'd paid more attention to the database development. I don't have any of the granularity that Pauly is suggesting, but being able to spit out a quote in a couple of minutes is an amazing thing. I do have an option in our current FM solution to import tables of products and prices, so I look forward to seeing what comes from your efforts.

 

[Scotchbrite]

I got a headache reading this. I still do my quotes on paper. For a small shop doing custom work simple still works.

I was thinking the same thing. I print a drawing of the sign and start listing out the material and labor needed on the drawing. I've toyed with doing it on spreadsheets and the like, but I always end up coming back to pen and paper.

Do you all do a profit/loss on all of your jobs? If not, you should seriously consider it. I frequently refer back to ours, especially to figure out how much time might be needed for a particular project. Sometimes the jobs are similar enough I can just plug in updated material prices and have good, current pricing.

The only thing I have on a plug n' chug worksheet is bulk stickers. I was able to base the formulas for that spreadsheet on some profit/loss we had done for previous sticker orders. Having that information gave me a good idea of the labor hours needed for a given quantity as well as an idea of how much actual material was consumed for a given sticker size so that margins and drop were included.