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The rules you have to work to
Plain explanations of the UK regulations, deadlines and pricing decisions that decide whether a construction business makes money. Written for contractors, with the statute cited, and useful whether or not you ever buy anything from us.
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What does construction software actually cost a UK contractor?
Five categories, six billing units and several vendors who publish nothing. The total a ten-person firm pays every month is arithmetic nobody sat down and did.
15 September 202617 min EstimatingWhat are preliminaries, and how do you price them?
The cost of running a site rather than building anything, and the part of a tender most often guessed at, then paid for out of the margin.
7 September 20265 min ContractsVariations in construction: how to record and price them
The commonest reason a job finishes on a loss is not bad pricing. It is work done on a verbal instruction that nobody wrote down.
7 September 20265 min PricingMarkup and margin: the mistake that costs builders money
Adding 20% to your cost gives you a 16.7% margin, not 20%. On a £200,000 turnover that gap is around £6,600 a year, every year.
7 September 20264 min PricingDayworks: when they apply and what the sheet must show
The valuation method of last resort, and the one most often used first. An unsigned sheet is an invoice nobody agreed to.
7 September 20264 min PricingHow to price a job properly: labour, materials, plant and overhead
Most underpriced jobs aren’t underpriced on the trade rate. They’re underpriced because the overhead was never in the number at all.
21 July 20267 min PricingWhat is a Schedule of Rates, and when should you price work with one?
A pre-agreed price list for units of work. It takes the argument out of every small job and shifts the risk onto how accurately you measure.
14 July 20266 minBuilt for the way UK contractors actually work
Estimating, quoting, job management, timesheets, invoicing, CIS and site safety, with an offline field mode that installs to a phone and keeps working with no signal.