Price List | Best Practices

In this article:

Set Taxes

Set Equipment Items

Set Material Items

Production Rates & Work Area Templates

Set Taxes

1. Navigate to: Price List > Taxes

2. Click + Add New 

3. Enter the Name and Description of the Tax. 
   For example - HST as the name and no description necessary. 
   💡Descriptions can be good if more detail is needed such as full County name or municipalities the tax pertains to.

4. Enter the tax name again below and assign the rate (tax %).
   💡Tip: If you get a tax credit back for this, don’t forget to check off the Purchase Credit option. In Ontario, for example, many material purchases are credited back so for an Ontario account, if inputting HST, Purchase Credit should be selected.
   ⚠️ Note: Piggyback taxes are very rare and would only apply if there are multiple tax lines within the one tax item you’re creating. 

5. Click Save when completed. Then click Setup Defaults at the top right to adjust your default taxes account wide.

Key Distinctions when setting Defaults:

⚠️ Note: In (3) Finish, don’t forget to check off to update your catalog with the new default before hitting Finish.

Set Equipment Items

1. Navigate to Price List > Equipment

2. (For example) Click into the Crew Truck (+Maintenance Trailer) item.

3. Under the Item Information section, start by reviewing the basic details:

   • The name of the equipment

   • Its type

   • How you typically bill for it

   • A short description of the item

   • Any internal notes you’d like your team to see

   • And whether it’s taxable when billed

4. Gather some industry average cost-per-hour data for standard equipment. Instead of using the calculator, input those values directly; This will speed things up and give a solid starting point. 
   An average cost for a half ton truck + a maintenance trailer is $21.70 per hour.

5. Next, enter how many hours per day this piece of equipment is typically used. 
   For this example, we’ll leave the standard input as 10 hours but feel free to adjust to what your day is.

6. Once you have entered that, LMN will automatically calculate the Cost Per Day using the price and usage hours.

7. From there, the system applies the equipment overhead markup from your budget to generate a breakeven rate. Then, it layers in the Profit Margin from your budget to calculate your final Hourly Rate and Daily Rate.

8. Click OK to save this equipment item to your system so it’s ready to use in future estimates.

Set Material Items

Part 1: Material Categories

Categories help keep your materials organized and easy to find when estimating. A material, like mulch, can appear in multiple categories (e.g. Garden Beds, Tree Rings, Seasonal Cleanups) without needing to be added to the system more than once.

1. Now that you set up an Equipment item, navigate to Price List > Material Categories 

2. Click the + Add New button and add a Material Category called (example) Seasonal Cleanups. 

   • If materials in this category have a shipping or warranty factor (additional markup percentages to cover assumed shipping and warranty costs), enter those on this screen as well. For our example, leave both set to 0%.

3. If you pay a purchasing tax for materials used in Seasonal Cleanups like mulch, compost, fertilizer, or yard bags, add that here. For this example, we’re going to use your default purchasing tax.

4. Make sure the materials in this category use the profit margin from your budget to determine pricing.

Part 2: Adding Materials

Now that you have the material category added,

1. Navigate to the Price List > Materials. 

2. Add a few sample items that would be used in a Seasonal Cleanup. Confirm that Materials look correct from the material import done on their behalf.

3. Click the + New  button to create a new material item. (Example setup below)

   1. Set the Category to Seasonal Cleanups. 

   2. Add the Material Name, in this case, Topsoil. 

   3. For Size, leave this blank for soil. 

   4. For Units, enter "Yard". 

   5. For Type, select Softscape. 

   6. If you have a SKU from a vendor you regularly purchase from, you can enter it here for quick reference; if left blank, LMN will generate one.

   7. For Round to Nearest, set this to 0 for simplicity. If you did have a material you would prefer to round up to the nearest 1, you just need to enter 1 here.

   8. Min Quantity is the minimum amount you need to purchase—I'll set this to 1. The Description and Internal Notes fields are for internal reference, helpful for your sales team or estimators. It’s a good idea to put your most common Vendor name in the Internal Note. 

   9. Now adjust the Sales Tax if needed.

   10. Next, enter the Unit Cost for this item as $30.00. 
       💡For a material like Soil, a shipping and warranty factor wouldn’t be needed. This would be used more so for plant materials or items that could have defects. This way you’re working those plant defects into your pricing automatically. 

   11. Once all this information is entered, the system will automatically calculate a Breakeven Price, then apply your Profit Margin to generate a Final Price

Part 3: Subcontractors & Other Items

The next two item types are fairly simple to manage.

1. To add one of these items, click + New

2. Enter the details

3. Click OK to save just like a Material.

Production Rates & Work Area Templates

Production Rates and Work Area Templates both play a key role in building efficient estimates. 

Production Rates

Production Rates, simply put, help you estimate labor by converting measurements like square feet or yards, into labor hours. It's important to note that Production Rates can only be applied to Labor items in an Estimate.

1. Navigate to Price List > Production Rates

2. Click + Add From Industry Standard Rates

3. From the list, select Mowing – Residential

4. Click + Add Rate

5. Then click on + Add to My Rates

6. Next, return to your Production Rates list and click into the Mowing – Residential rate. Here you’ll see the various installation rates with different mower deck sizes. 

Work Area Templates

Work Area Templates let you store:

• A checklist of labor, equipment, and materials for specific tasks

• Production Rate calculators to estimate materials

• Client notes for default estimate descriptions

• Crew notes, such as tool checklists and job instructions

Work Area Set Up Example:

1. Navigate to the Price List > Templates

2. Click + Add from Templates Library

3. Find the Fertilization template, click + Add Template, then + Add to My Template

4. Go back to the Work Area Templates screen and open the Fertilization template.

5. If you click into the Fertilizer – Bag [SAMPLE] production rate, you’ll see the suggested installation rate for that material. 

6. From here, you can adjust the rate if known. For example if you use 1 bag for every 1000 sq ft, that can be entered into the boxes.

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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