Rates: how pricing works¶

The idea in one paragraph¶

A rate is one kind of work, priced per unit, built up from what it takes to do it: people, machines and materials. You work each build-up out once, carefully, and then every quote uses it. Bigger pieces of work are made from smaller ones, so "a porcelain patio" is a sub-base rate plus a laying rate plus the slabs, not a fresh calculation on every job. When something changes, such as a supplier's price or how fast a gang lays, you change it in one place and every future quote follows.

This is how a priced bill of quantities works, and how published price books such as Spon's are laid out: measured work priced elementally, with the material as a prime cost you can swap.

What a rate is made of¶

Every rate has a unit (m², m³, lin m, item, tree, plant, day…) and a list of components. Each component says what one unit of the work uses.

The app adds these up into a cost per unit, split into labour, plant and material, and then applies the business's markup and prelims to give the sell rate. With Beesleys' standard 25% markup and 2% prelims, every £100 of cost sells at £127.

Three layers¶

The card is organised so that small rates make bigger ones.

A "supply & lay" rate is just two lines: the method rate at quantity 1, and the product item at quantity 1 with 5% wastage. That's the whole trick. Adding a new slab to the card is one item and one two-line rate. Changing how fast the gang lays porcelain is one edit to the method rate, and every porcelain product follows.

Reading a rate: porcelain on a mortar bed¶

Open Lay porcelain paving on mortar bed and you'll see something like this, per m². The labour is on the General labour type, at £250 a man-day:

Cost about £80 per m², selling at about £102. Porcelain paving, Contornare Riga, supply & lay on mortar bed is that rate plus the Riga slab at £57 with 5% wastage: cost about £140, selling at about £178.

The sub-base is a separate line, because its depth depends on the ground and a patio over an existing slab needs none. MOT Type 1 sub-base 150 mm on Terram is Terram laid plus 0.15 m³ of the per-m³ MOT rate, about £30 per m² sell. Reduce level dig 200 mm, incl. muck away is 0.2 m³ of the dig rate, about £19.58 per m² sell, plus 0.2 m³ of soil to take away. The soil has no price on the rate: it's priced on the quote's muck-away line. So a porcelain patio on a new base comes to about £228 per m², plus its share of the muck-away line, before anything job-specific.

The muck-away line prices the soil of the whole job in whole loads. A 20 m² patio digs 4 m³ of soil. Bulked by 30% that's 5.2 m³, and at 1.5 t/m³ it weighs 7.8 t: one 17 t grab load, at £330 cost.

Outputs: the number that matters most¶

Labour is the biggest cost in most rates and it comes down to one figure: how many units a gang does in a day. The app calls this gang × output per day. Three men laying 12 m² of porcelain a day is 2 man-hours per m². Three men laying 15 m² is 1.6 man-hours. That difference is £10 per m² of cost on every patio.

Outputs on the card came from five real jobs. Where the jobs disagreed, the card took the slower figure, so prices err on the safe side. Each rate's build-up says where its output came from.

To check an output from a job you've done: men on the task × days on it ÷ quantity done. A gang of three that took four days to lay 48 m² is 3 × 4 ÷ 48 = 0.25 man-days, or 2 man-hours, per m². If that's faster or slower than the card, change the card. The app shows man-minutes per unit under every labour line so you can compare like with like.

Items or fixed prices?¶

Use an item when the thing has a supplier price, or turns up in more than one rate: MOT, topsoil, concrete, cement, primer, jointing compound, every slab and sett. Change the price once and every rate that uses it updates. Items can also be scheduled to change from a date, for a new price list.

Use a fixed price for a one-off: a step foundation, a bespoke coping, a subcontract gang's day rate. Choose its cost head so the labour, plant and material split stays honest. Machines, skips and the grab lorry aren't fixed prices: they're in the plant library, priced by the day, load or visit.

Aggregates are bought per tonne, so the card holds them per tonne. A 150 mm layer of MOT is 0.15 m³ × 2.0 t/m³ = 0.3 t per m². Topsoil is 1.5 t/m³, grit sand 1.6.

Wastage is for material that gets cut, broken or spilt: 5% on slabs and bedding, 10% on artificial grass with its joins. It is not for labour, plant, skips or grab loads.

Groundworks and muck away¶

Digging, sub-base, topsoil and concrete are all per m³ on the card, with the common depths built on top (dig 120, 150, 200, 250, 300 mm; MOT 100, 120, 150, 200 mm; topsoil 150, 300, 450 mm). For another depth use the per-m³ rate and enter cubic metres.

Disposal is its own rate, per m³ dug in the ground: Muck away by grab lorry, soil or Muck away by grab lorry, brick & rubble. Each is a spoil line, with no cost of its own, and the "incl. muck away" dig rates include it. The quote adds up the spoil of every line and prices it once, on its muck-away line in Preliminaries, in whole loads of the grab lorry or a skip.

Products¶

A new slab or sett. Add it to the items library with its supplier and price per m². Then make a rate with two components: the matching "Lay …" rate at quantity 1, and the new item at quantity 1 with 5% wastage. Name it the way the client should read it.

The client supplies the material. Use the "Lay …" rate on its own.

Extra material beyond the laid area, such as slabs to be cut into treads and copings: add a "Supply only" line for the extra quantity, with no wastage, since the quantity already allows for it.

A product that isn't on the card yet and you're mid-quote: use a custom line, and tell the estimator. A custom line for something you'll do again is a rate waiting to be built.

Quoting a patio, step by step¶

1. Demolition / Deconstruction: lift the existing surface if there is one, then Reduce level dig … incl. muck away at the depth the build-up needs. Or use Patio base, which is the dig and the sub-base in one line.
2. Import of Soils & Sub-Bases: the MOT rate for the depth, if you didn't use Patio base.
3. Paving & surfacing: the supply & lay rate for the product, at the laid area. Edging per lin m.
4. Construction: steps, walls, copings, drainage. Measure steps in lin m of tread: a flight of four steps 1.5 m wide is 6 lin m. Walls go per lin m of wall, with the coping on the wall rate or its own line.
5. Preliminaries: check the muck-away line. The first line that digs adds it for you. Choose what the spoil is Taken away by, add any Extra m³ that no rate covers, and check the loads look right for the job.
6. Also in Preliminaries: fill in the lines your estimator puts on every new quote, such as welfare. Most start at a quantity of 0, so they add nothing until you enter how many.
7. Give each line a client description if the rate's name isn't how you'd put it to the client. You'll find it under Options. The client sees the description, the quantity, the unit and the sell rate. Never the build-up.
8. Check Review & price for the labour plan: the man-hours the quote carries should look like the number of crew-days you'd expect. If they don't, an output or a quantity is wrong.

Keeping the card honest¶

• After a job, compare what the quote allowed with what happened. The workings page shows the man-hours per line. Where the gang was consistently faster or slower, change the output.
• Rates marked "Estimates — to confirm" have outputs and prices guessed from typical trade figures, not from a job Beesleys has done. Use them, but check them. When one is confirmed, move it to its proper category.
• Prices change: schedule a change from the date the supplier's new list starts. Quotes already sent keep the prices they were sent at.
• Never delete: archive. Old quotes refer to old rates.
• Name rates for the client. The rate's name is what prints on the quote unless you override it. Keep the engineering in the build-up and the notes.

Checklist for building a new rate¶

• [ ] One kind of work, one unit, named the way the client should read it.
• [ ] Every operation has a labour line with a gang size and an output you'd stand behind.
• [ ] Machines the gang needs are plant lines on a machine from the plant library: by the day at the same output, or by the load or visit.
• [ ] Anything the work digs out is a spoil line, with its material and m³ per unit. Don't add muck-away cost to the rate.
• [ ] Materials that recur are items; one-offs are fixed prices with the right cost head.
• [ ] Wastage on materials only.
• [ ] If part of it already exists as a rate, use "Another rate" rather than copying the components.
• [ ] Check the cost split and the man-minutes per unit against a similar rate before saving.