In an ideal world, every price you quote would be accurate and your shop would always have a high profit margin. However, that sometimes isn’t the case. Quoting jobs can be difficult to do by hand, and having a quick way to look up previous, similar jobs would make it much easier. This is where cost-estimating software becomes valuable. With cost-estimating software, you can make estimates and quotes that are right where they need to be.
How Does Cost-Estimating Software Help?
Estimating the right price for a job is important, but there’s more to it than that. When you give an accurate quote to your customers, you won’t have to worry about it later. If you estimated too low and realized you wouldn’t make money on the job, there a couple of options. You could either try to change the price for the customer, which would be a huge break of trust, or just take the job as a loss, which doesn’t help your shop. Both options could create problems. Alternatively, if you quote too high, it’s more difficult to get the job in the first place. Then you have potential customers who decide to stop asking for quotes and there are fewer jobs running. With cost-estimating software, your customers are happy because you’re asking a reasonable price for the job, and your shop is happy because you’re making a profit.
What does Cost-Estimating Software Do?
There are several ways to use cost-estimating software. It lets you look up any previous jobs and see how much you estimated for that job compared to how much it actually costs. If you run that exact job again, you know how much to quote it for this time around. Cost-estimating software will also allow you to change the margins for your estimate. Another feature is its ability to calculate the cost to produce each part, leaving no room for error. For example, your margin will be different for a rush job compared to when your shop needs work and you’re willing to be flexible on price to make this happen. Instead of having to calculate any of this manually, you can just click a few buttons and have the answer.
Unless your shop does the same job all the time, you will need to calculate different prices for different jobs. While it’s possible to do this manually, cost-estimating software makes this whole process faster and more accurate. Using software keeps your customers and your shop happy. It also gives you more time to do more important things. Who doesn’t want that?
Looking for some more information about software in the shop? Check out our article about how an ERP system can create value for your business.
