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Price List: Production Rates, Taxes, & Templates

This article will provide you with a comprehensive guide to the Production Rate Calculators, Templates and Taxes in the Price List Tab in LMN after you have setup your catalogs with Price List Overview & Setup. For best practices see: Price List | Best Practices.

In this article:

Production Rate Calculators

Work Area / Service Templates

Material Categories

Taxes

 

Production Rate Calculators

Production Rate calculators are used for calculating Labor times for your landscape estimates. Unlike Work Area Templates, they are used only for labor. Simply put, they are a way for you to translate tasks and measurements (e.g. sq. ft, lin ft., yards) into labor time(s). Production rate calculators make it easy, consistent, and trainable for estimators to calculate how much time it should take crews to perform different types of work.

Create a Production Rate Calculator

Before you use your landscape production rate calculators in your estimate, you have to create them first.  Follow these steps to create your first production rate calculator:

  1. In LMN, navigate to Price List > Production Rates
    Here, you will find your list of production rate calculators. If you haven't created one yet, this list will be blank.
  2. Click the + New button (top right) to create a new production rate calculator
  3. Name your Production Rate Calculator
  4. Add Tasks to your Production Rate Calculator by clicking the white + New button.
    💡A Task is an activity that you're going to perform that has a measurement and an installation rate.
    Example: Mowing Calculator:
    1. A production rate (acres/man hr) for mowing with a 60" deck
    2. A production rate (acres/man hr) for mowing with a 48" deck
    3. A production rate (acres/man hr) for mowing with a 36" deck
    4. A production rate (lin. ft/man hr) for trimming
    5. A production rate (acres/man hr) for blowing

      💡Best Practice Tip: You don't have to use every task when you're estimating. To make less production rate calculators, you can put different rates in one single calculator. For instance, when doing an estimate for mowing, we might only use the 60" deck. In that case, leave the other mowing tasks at 0. This saves you from creating a production rate calculator for each type of mower.  Your list of rate calculators will be much simpler and easy-to-use.
  5. Use the Order column to put your tasks in a logical order. 
    💡This will help estimators work through the time(s) in the order they think about them.
  6. When you're finished, click OK to save. Your production rate calculator is now ready to use on an estimate:

Use a Production Rate Calculator on an Estimate

  1. Using a Production Rate Calculator on an estimate is simple, anytime you add a Labor Item to an estimate, you'll see a calculator button displayed beside the quantity. This is your button to launch the production rate calculator:
  2. When you click the Calculator button, you'll be prompted to choose the production rate calculator that you want to use. Choose from the Production Rate Calculators on the left side of the screen.
  3. Fill in the measurements that the calculator requests. 💡Pay careful attention to the units of measure (e.g. sq. ft) displayed immediately to the right of the Measure column.
    ⚠️ Note: If you’re already using Site Measurements, Data from Jobsite Measurements or Beam AI are stored conveniently on the Jobsite record.  Use them directly in the appropriate production rate calculator to determine the labor hours needed for the estimate.
    If you’re not using Jobsite Measurements or Beam AI yet, either option can help save time and improve estimate accuracy.
    Learn more:
    Beam AI Integration for AI Measurements  
    Estimating FAQ: Jobsite Measurements in Estimates
    • You can also edit your production rates for this specific job. For instance, using the example above, if this particular job had a complicated paver pattern, you could override your standard production rate of 25 sq. ft/man hr to a rate of 20 sq. ft/man hr. This will not change your calculator settings, it will only be applied to the calculations on this job.
    • Where applicable, you can also round up to the nearest man hour (or more) by using the Round Up To Nearest (hrs) field. If you have a long list of tasks, you may have to scroll down to see this field.
  4. Click Update Estimate and the final calculation will be inserted into your estimate's labor item where you initially clicked the calculator.

Production Rate Calculators for Tasks Greater Than 1 Hour

When creating a production calculator, you may have jobs that take longer than one hour to complete one unit of work. To enter that time into a production rate calculator takes just a little bit of math, and then you can create production rates for tasks longer than one hour.

*For example, maybe you have a task in mind that takes 2 hours and 35 minutes. You don’t know the times for some of the smaller steps involved in the task, but you know the total from start to finish. That’s more than enough to start.

For the below example we will use tree removal. ⚠️ This is just an example and not a realistic representation of any production rate for tree removal; it’s only mean to show from start to finish how to create production rates for tasks longer than an hour.

  1. Navigate to Price List > Production Rates
  2. Click + New
  3. Convert the time it takes to decimal.
    *For our example above, it would be 2.59 hours to remove that tree.
  4. Then divide that number by 1. 
    *When we do this for our tree above, 1/2.59=.3876
  5. Now enter that into the Production Rate Calculator and click OK when finished
    *With "Trees" for the Units of Measure and .3876 for the Installation Rate per hour:
  6. And when you use that Production Rate Calculator in an Estimate, you only need to put in the number of units, *In this case "trees"*, and it will calculate the total time for you:

💡 If you don't want to do the math above by hand, try out this spreadsheet to do the work for you:

Excel Sheet - Find production rate for tasks greater than 1 hour

 

LMN Suggested Production Rate Resources

If you're looking to get started with some "standard" production rates, here are some resources you can look to:

  • Charles Vander Kooi (Book) - Complete Estimating Book with Labor and Equipment Production Times, Written for the Green Industry
  • Jim Huston (Book) - Landscape Production Benchmarks
  • RS Means (Book) - Landscape Estimating Methods (click HERE to view more info)

🎥 View a video tutorial about Production Rates

 

Work Area / Service Templates: Setup & Overview

Work Area Templates make landscape estimating fast, streamlined, and mistake-proof. Templates group labor, equipment, materials, calculators and even client/crew notes so that you can build complete, thorough landscape estimates in minutes, with far less errors and experience required.

Work Area Templates Information

  • Work area templates can save you an enormous amount of time and mistakes when estimating. They can store:
    • A checklist of labor, equipment, materials for estimating tasks
    • Production rate calculators to help calculate labor and materials
    • Client notes (for default estimate descriptions when estimating)
    • Crew notes (for default crew notes like tool checklists and instructions)
  • With templates, you can estimate frequently performed work (like gardens, snow plowing, mowing, and paver driveways in walkways) in 3 minutes or less and with much less risk of mistake or forgotten items.

Create a Work Area Template

  1. Navigate to: Price List > Templates
  2. Click the + New button (top right)
  3. General Tab: Enter the Name of your template and a Description (optional). Click Save.
  4. Click the Items Tab
  5. Click the Add Items button to add Items to your template
    • Navigate through your Labor, Equipment, Materials, Subs and Other catalog by clicking the tabs, adding your Labor, Equipment, Materials, Subs and Other items by clicking the green '+' button.
    • Add any/all items that should be considered, even if you don't need them on every estimate you will use this template for. ⚠️ These items can be removed easily AFTER a template is added to an estimate.
    • If you do not know exactly which material will be added to each estimate you will use this template for, you could add in a placeholder (ie. Paver [Select Paver Here]). This will remind your estimator to add their desired Paver when they select this template.
  6. Once you've added all required items to your template, click the X button
  7. Prod Rate Calculators
    • Green calculators will appear beside all items in your template. 
      ⚠️ Note: these calculators should only be used for materials.
    • These calculators will help you to estimate how much of a certain material you will require, depending on your estimated job's size. 
      💡We strongly recommend setting these up within your templates.
  8. To add a Material Calculator to your estimate, click the green Prod Ratemceclip63.png
  9. Enter in the Quantity of a material and the Units of measurement for that material (ie. Qty: 100 Units: sq. ft, Qty: 1 Units: sq. ft, etc)
  10. Enter the Quantity of material that the above can cover (ie. If 1 ton of sand can cover 100 sq. ft)
  11. Once complete, click Save. And continue with your other Material Calculators.
  12. Click the Notes Tab. here, you can add both Customer and Crew Notes to your templates:
    • Customer Notes: Typically used as work descriptions, will display on your Customer Proposals.
    • Crew Notes: Typically used for checklists and internal notes, will display on your Job Planners.
  13. After adding in your desired notes, click Save Changes
  14. Click the Categories Tab
    • You can add Categories to your templates, making it easier for your estimators to find the templates which are relevant to their divisions.
  15. To add a Category, click the box next to the desired category and click Save.

🎥 View a video tutorial about Templates

 

Material Categories

Categories are a great way of organizing your Materials and Templates and making them faster to find when estimating. Materials and templates can also belong to more than one category. For instance, a material like gravel might be found in a Paver category, a Natural Stone category, and a Drainage category. You can add a single gravel item so that it shows up in all three categories.  

In addition to sorting Materials and Templates, Categories can now apply pricing defaults when adding an item from the Estimating Marketplace.

Create Material Categories

  1. Navigate to Price List > Materials Catalog 
  2. Click the + Add New button to add a new material category.

  3. Add your Category name and setup defaults per Category:

    Shipping Factor Enter a cost percentage factor for shipping.  If shipping charges are typically 5% of the total value of the materials, enter ‘5%’.
    Warranty Factor Enter a warranty cost factor as a percentage.  If you expect to warranty 3% of your installations, enter ‘3%’.
    Purchase Tax If the Purchasing Tax for a Category is different than your defaults taxes, change to appropriate tax.
    Profit Margin If you wish a Category to be assigned a profit margin different than your budget default, enter the desired profit margin % here. Your profit should be expressed as a percentage (e.g. 15%) or as a decimal (.15).  You can skip this column if you wish everything to be priced according to your budget default profit margin.
    Update Materials You can select: 
     -  Do not update existing materials: this information will only carry over to new materials added to this category
     -  Update the materials that are only assigned to this category: this will only update those materials that are only assigned to this one category
     -  Update any/all materials assigned to this category: this will update ALL materials that are in this category

💡 Category Tips

  • LMN can also create material categories when importing items from an import file. Just add a column called "Category" to your import file. If the category doesn't exist at the time of import, LMN will create one for you. 
  • Only one material category can be assigned per item when importing from files.
  • You can Edit or Delete categories using the buttons to the right of that category.  
    ⚠️ Note: This action deletes the category name only.  Materials assigned to this category will not be deleted.

Material Category Defaults

Category Defaults will assist with pricing consistency among categorized items added to your Material Catalog from the Estimating Marketplace. The default pricing which can be set up per category will apply a Shipping & Warranty Factor, Purchase Tax, and Profit Margin (if different than budget) per category.  

To create or edit an existing category to apply defaults, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Price List > Material Categories
  2. Click the + New button to add a new material category. To edit existing, click Edit.

  3. Add your Category name and setup defaults if applicable per Category.

    Shipping Factor - defaults to '0' Enter a cost percentage factor for shipping.  If shipping charges are typically 5% of the total value of the materials, enter ‘5%’.
    Warranty Factor - defaults to '0' Enter a warranty cost factor as a percentage.  If you expect to warranty 3% of your installations, enter ‘3%’.
    Purchase Tax - defaults to Purchasing Tax setup If the Purchasing Tax for a Category is different than your defaults taxes, change to appropriate tax.
    Profit Margin - defaults to Profit Margin from Budget If you wish a Category to be assigned a profit margin different than your budget default, enter the desired profit margin % here. Your profit should be expressed as a percentage (e.g. 15%) or as a decimal (.15).  You can skip this column if you wish everything to be priced according to your budget default profit margin.

💡 Category Tip

  • The Category defaults can be overridden when adding Material Item from Estimating Marketplace, by editing the individual material, or when exporting materials to update pricing in bulk.

 

Taxes

Even if you don't charge your customers sales tax, you will still need to setup sales taxes. If you pay tax to vendors when you buy materials etc., you will need to make sure the costs of the taxes are built into your estimating. Follow the instructions below to setup taxes in LMN.

Setup Taxes in LMN

  1. Navigate to Price List > Taxes
  2. Click the + Add New to add a new tax.

  3. Add in the following information and click OK

    Tax Name A short abbreviation for your tax name.
    Description (optional)  A description of the tax rate you are adding.
    Active Select this box so the tax to be used on estimates.

    Rates

    Name  Add a name for the rate (can be the same as the tax name).
    Rate The tax rate (e.g. 7.5%).
    Purchase Credit Select this box if you are rebated the tax when you make purchases (used in Canada and other countries that use a Value-Added Tax system).
    Piggybacked Select this box ONLY if you're entering 2 tax rates and the 2nd rate is charged on top of the 1st rate (used only in very rare tax scenarios).

⚠️ Note: every LMN user will need at least one tax called EXMT. This EXMT tax should be a tax with a 0% rate, used anytime you do not charge tax (to your customers) or do not pay tax (to your vendors).

See the screenshots below for an example of an EXMT tax, and an example of how to enter a STATE tax.

mceclip3__1_.png

Setup Default Taxes

Every estimate can have its own specific tax settings, especially useful for states where taxes are unique to each city or county. But you can also save time and mistakes by setting up default taxes. Default tax settings should be your most common tax settings. You will be able to override these settings on any estimate.

To setup your default tax settings:

  1. Click the Price List > Taxes menu on the left.
  2. Click the Setup Defaults button.

  3. Setup Purchasing Tax
    Default purchasing taxes are the default taxes you pay your vendors when buying materials, paying subcontractors, and renting equipment.

    If you pay tax when buying hardscapes: Set the Default Purchasing Tax to the sales tax that you most often pay on hardscape purchases
    If you pay tax when buying softscapes: Set the Default Purchasing Tax to the sales tax that you most often pay on softscape purchases
    If you pay tax on subcontractor invoices: Set the Default Purchasing Tax to the sales tax that you most often pay on subcontractor invoices
    If you pay tax on other items (equipment rentals) Set the Default Purchasing Tax to the sales tax that you most often pay when renting equipment

  4. Setup your Default Sales Taxes
    Default sales taxes are the default taxes you charge your customers when buying materials, subcontractors, and renting equipment

    If you charge tax on labor rates: Set the Default Sales Tax to the sales tax that you most often charge for labor
    If you charge tax on equipment rates: Set the Default Sales Tax to the sales tax that you most often charge for equipment
    If you charge tax on hardscape materials: Set the Default Sales Tax to the sales tax that you most often charge for hardscape materials
    If you charge tax on softscape materials: Set the Default Sales Tax to the sales tax that you most often charge for softscape materials
    If you charge tax on subcontracted work: Set the Default Sales Tax to the sales tax that you most often charge for subcontracted services
    If you charge tax on equipment rental rates: Set the Default Sales Tax to the sales tax that you most often charge for equipment rental charges passed on to customers
  5. Update your Estimate Catalog. To update your estimating catalog, make sure you select the option to Update my catalog items to use these defaults.
    💡Before saving your tax settings, you can update your estimating catalog. This is a fast way of re-setting/updating your tax settings for all the items in your estimating catalog at once.
  6. Click Finish to apply your default tax settings.

🎥 View a video tutorial about Taxes

 

Need more help?  Contact our Support Team by email at lmn-support@granum.com, through Live Chat, or by phone at (888) 347-9864

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