These are items that must be known before starting an estimate on any job.
Your overhead - this is the amount of everything that has to do with your business that isn't neccessarily job specific (office supplies) or that is a recurring price (insurance and FICA) that is always present. Some of these are as follows:
Truck expenses including gas, insurance, maintenance, repairs etc.
Office expenses including rent, property taxes, office supplies, utilities etc.
Training, uniforms, trade journals, advertising, memberships and dues etc.
Wages and salaries fur management employees, secretaries, bookkeeping expnses etc.
Taxes whether it be property taxes paid or the employers side of FICA or any other employer paid taxes.
This is not a complete list but hopefully will help you to understand the importance of ALL of these items. Each and everything that has to be paid for by your business needs to be covered in your job estimates. This is the source funding for your business. If each and every business expense is not covered here then you are in a negative pricing situation and this cost is coming directly out of your pocket. Neglecting this all important information in your pricing is not good for your business.
Do this one time, put it in a list form and it will be there for future reference. It is always a good idea to keep this list up to date every so often to be sure that you are charging correctly for for your overhead. A good source of information to help you figure out all of your non direct job related expenses.is your business checkbook register and your tax returns.
Once you have this number it needs to be tied to your labor cost in some way or another. Example, if you have 100 dollars worth of non job related business expense each day and 100 dollars worth of labor each day that would be a 100 % overhead. That means for every dollar that you spend on labor you spend another dollar on trucks and gas and electricity and stuff. If you have $15,000 worth of non job related expenses each year and $20,000 worth of job related labor for the year your overhead would be 75%
The calculation is simple, non job related expenses divided by job related labor. This number is specific to your own business and is one of the most important keys to a successful estimate.
Sales tax information for your state - the sales tax rate varies from state to state as do the laws on how to apply the tax to your job. Some states require sales tax on materials only unless it is a government building like a school or a courthouse. Some states require sales tax on the labor. If this isn't confusing enough for you, some states require sales tax on labor for maintenance and "redo" work but no sales tax on new construction. You have to know the tax laws for your state. Be sure and keep up to date because states will change these laws from time to time.
Profit - the percentage of profit you want to make on a job.
Once you have this specific information about your business and the job you are estimating, then you can actually look at a job for pricing. This information has to be known before a good estimate that pertains to YOUR specific business can be obtained.
There is nothing "simple" about an estimate if it one that is actually reflecting how much YOU should charge.
Material
Once you have this information then it is then simple to figure that 1 4 X 8 sheet of gyp will cover 32 SF (4 X 8 = 32) so your total SF divided by 32 will give you the number of sheet required.
Example - your room that is 14 X 9
Assuming these walls to be 8' high then 14 + 9 + 14 + 9 = 46 X 8 or 368 SF
The ceiling will be 14 X 9 or 126 SF
368 SF + 126 SF = 494 SF
494 / 32 (SF per sheet of gyp) = 15.4375 or 16 sheets
Multiple 16 X your price per sheet plus your markup
Use this same formula for your drywall mud, screws, paint etc. for the complete job.
Labor
Let's say a man can hang 3 sheets per manhour. 16/3 = 5.333 or 6 manours
Do the same thing with the screws, mud paint etc. to get the full labor requirements in manhours.
Multiply manhours plus your cost per hour INCLUDING overhead (see above)
Add your material and labor together, add taxes where required for your state and the job type and you will have your total bid.
If you really need to "get it right" then this is the way to do it.
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