Adding extra value to your estimating service with a reprice option
There’s often not a lot of difference between different estimating service options, and merchant offerings in particular can be viewed a little cynically from the builders perspective. It’s not uncommon for them to think “they’re only after my materials spend” believing that their builders merchant supplier will only do the minimum to secure their £££.
Offer more
But what if you could do more for your builder customer? What if you could be their advocate? On their side? The supplier who can help the builder walk into profit-making jobs, not losing money as they hadn’t accounted for inflation (when quoting for jobs that either start some time off or are long projects when the impact of inflation is likely to impact most) are sure to be the winners.
“The impact of inflation on builder’s margins can be really significant. It risks neutralising their profit or worse, losing them money. That’s why an estimate that protects – by locking in their profit – is key. A healthy building company is a healthy materials buyer”, says Joanna Mulgrew, HBXL Managing Director.
With rising inflation, a bag of aggregate is unlikely to cost the same in six, nine or 12 months time when your builder breaks ground. Times that by a wide range of building materials and you can see how their profit margin could disappear.
Given that construction cost inflation is the highest it’s been for a generation, you could really do with helping your builder out. Increasing prices mean that even if you price their job using today’s prices, it won’t be the same when they kick the project off. It could be out of date in a matter of days or weeks.
So how can you help when you don’t even know what prices will be in a month or 6?
With EstimatorXpress you can give your client options. You can help them protect their profit.
The basic service
Most estimating services simply offer a service which prices up jobs using today’s price no matter when the job starts. You can offer this with EstimatorXpress no problem, integrating with your live ERP systems…but there’s much more you can offer for very little extra effort.
The gold standard
A premium estimating service can manifest in a couple of ways. What about…
1) Provide him with a today price AND an inflated price for whenever the job starts which the builder can supply to their client OR
2) Offer to reprice the job for the builder (for a fee or a fixed amount) when the job is about to start to provide him with the latest prices at that point
Or better still…both!
EstimatorXpress allows you to provide an inflated price and customer quote for the job that the builder can provide his client, safely knowing that the quotation has inflation applied to materials, labour, plant and subcontract on the job. You and the team can define the inflation rate on each of these cost centres and it will automatically apply it to the customer quotation including inflation. Office for Budget Responsibility is forecasting an inflation peak of 9% this year. Financial experts are expecting the rise to continue for the foreseeable so the pressure is on. How does EstimatorXpress do this? You enter the inflation per cost centre above, enter the builders anticipated start date, and the software does the complex calcs working out when each resource is needed and the likely inflation that will have been experienced by that point in the job. So a bag of sand needed say at footings, will be a difference price when the patio is going in at the end of the job. Clever huh.
EstimatorXpress also allows you to reprice a job in one click with the latest prices. All you have to do is hit print or email it to the client. No faff. No fuss. Same job repriced in seconds. What’s not to like? And really not labour intensive at all.
When to factor in inflation
1) On lengthy projects – the price of paint, say, could increase over the period of the build itself
2) Projects starting further into the future – say six, nine, 12 months and beyond.
See EstimatorXpress in action
Want to see EstimatorXpress or the Take-off & Estimate Kit in action?
Take a trial now, or call us on 0117 916 7898 to book a demo.