Business Pricing

The margins, labor, warranty and maintenance costs that Calculator mode turns into a homeowner's price, and which systems each one applies to.

Company Settings → Price Book → Business Pricing holds the costs and margins that Calculator mode adds to your equipment to make a price. It only appears in Calculator mode — switch to Flat-rate and it's hidden, with your numbers kept for when you switch back. Homeowners never see any of these numbers, only the prices they produce.

How a price is calculated

(equipment + materials + labor + warranty and additional costs + location surcharge)
  ÷ (1 − your four margins added together)
  + maintenance

Your margins are a share of the selling price, not a markup on cost. The starting margins add up to 53%, so the price is your costs divided by 0.47 — about 2.13 times your costs. Maintenance is added after the margins, so it isn't marked up.

An example

The Good option on a 2.5-ton 95+% gas furnace and AC, using our starter equipment and the starting Business Pricing:

	Amount
Equipment	$5,052
Materials	$1,030
Labor — $45.50 × 24 hours	$1,092
Warranty and additional costs — $75 × 1 year, plus $215	$290
Your costs	$7,464
÷ 0.47, for 53% margins	$15,881
Maintenance — $139 × 2 tune-ups	$278
Price	$16,159

Homeowners see $16,159, with As low as $135/mo underneath. If their furnace is in the attic, the starting $2,000 surcharge takes it to $20,414.

Margin & Profit

Field	Starts at	What it's for
Overhead	22%	The cost of running the business
Commission	9%	Sales commission
Financing	2%	Financing costs you absorb, such as dealer fees — not the monthly payment homeowners see
Profit	20%	What you keep

Enter whole percentages. The four must add up to less than 99%, or you'll see "Overhead, commission, financing, and profit must total less than 99%."

Labor

Labor = Loaded hourly rate ($45.50 to start) × the hours for the system:

Field	Starts at	Used for
Hours (furnace)	16	Gas Furnace Only, Electric Furnace, Oil Furnace
Hours (AC only)	18	AC Only
Hours (package)	20	Package System
Hours (split/HP)	24	Gas Furnace + AC, Gas Furnace + Heat Pump, Electric Heat Pump and mini-splits

The labels don't say so, but Hours (split/HP) is also used for Gas Furnace + AC.

Warranty & Additional Costs

For each option: the warranty cost per year × that option's warranty years, plus that option's additional costs.

Field	Starts at	Used for
Warranty Cost (Heating)	$35 a year	Gas Furnace Only, Electric Furnace, Oil Furnace
Warranty Cost (Heating & Cooling)	$75 a year	Every other system, AC Only included
Warranty yrs (Best / Better / Good)	5 / 2 / 1
Additional costs (Best / Better / Good)	$355 / $250 / $215

Permits and other per-job costs go in Additional costs — there's no separate field for them.
Warranty years only change your cost. The warranty homeowners read about comes from your bullets in Selling Points.

Maintenance

Maintenance = Cost per tune-up ($139 to start) × the number of tune-ups: Tune-ups (Heating) is 1, for Gas Furnace Only, Electric Furnace and Oil Furnace, and Tune-ups (Heating & Cooling) is 2, for every other system. It's added after your margins, so it isn't marked up.

Saving

Save copies these values onto the equipment you've already entered, and you'll see "Business defaults saved. Equipment rows updated." It doesn't add equipment for systems you haven't set up. You can't set different margins or labor for one system. Changes apply to estimates made after you save.

Multi-zone mini-splits use the Best option's warranty and additional costs, and the same labor at every zone count.
Hydronic heating doesn't use Business Pricing — it's always flat-priced.

If Save doesn't work

Percentages, hours, warranty years and tune-ups have to be whole numbers — your browser points out any that aren't. A blank or negative value only shows "Could not save business defaults. Please try again." Check every box has a number, 0 or more.

Business Pricing

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