material allowance in job bids??

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A question for the business owners. when figuring a job bid, what is the standard for conveyance of material cost. when creating a bid proposal and the potential job will require lengths of steel less than 20' but can only be purchased in 20' lengths do you charge the client per 20' or do you break it into a per ft. price and hope to recover the remaining costs by using left overs in future jobs? Also, do you add a percentage to your cost for materials?Miller TrailBlazer 251Miller HF-250-1Miller MaxStar 150 STLHyperTherm PowerMax 380 plasmaLincoln PowerMig 180Millermatic 252Miller Diversion 180
Reply:I never work for net numbers, always gross numbers plus20%
Reply:Everything you do for a job must be charged for. Left-over pieces may be stored and sorted but often that's more expensive and time wasting than throwing or recycling them. If you can store and sort the left-overs efficiently then it's entirely your profit.Looking at it another way, your customer must buy 20' lengths and there's broker fees...a charge for organizing the purchase and delivery and being responsible for the risk involved in doing this. Use what is needed, and if you're feeling generous you may purchase the scraps at scrap value. You may end up having to charge for disposing of the leftovers!Scrap must be purchased at 1/4 market value so that they can be sold at 1/2 value or more. That's the only incentive for anyone to buy scraps from you instead of new.This is from the perspective of a jeweller who does the same thing with grams as you do with Kg's. Bid for profit and you will be there in the long run. Making a profit is fair and reasonable as long as it's done in a fair and reasonable manner.Orion pulse-arc welderStick an O/A too
Reply:Just another perspective here:As a customer, if i had something that I wanted you to build and the pieces had to be purchased in 20' sticks even though I only needed say 8' I would not have a problem paying for the whole piece.  I would offer them all the leftover pieces once the job was done.  If they did not want them, then if i was you I would either keep them for possible future jobs (where you could then charge them on a per foot basis since you already have the material) if you thought you could use them or sell them as scrap.Anytime I buy stuff from the metal yard it has been available in full or 1/2 sticks but I buy very common stuff, so if its something unusual that the yard must order i dont think its unreasonable to charge for the full stick even if you will only be using a portion of it.  Also dont forget to factor in cost of picking up the pieces (fuel time etc) or you will be cutting into your bottom line.
Reply:I always tell people that custom work costs money, If they could go to a store and get exactly what they want they would not be talking to you. You should be buying your matierial in the length available , charging a mark up on that as well. Drops are now used for the next customers orders if possible , and that customer is paying for the cost of the available lengths as well. Now you will get full lengths paid for kept in your inventory for other projects.  This is not dishonest, it's how money is made. It is also what it takes to get custom products made when you can't just buy them anwhere. Beware of the guy who comes to you for a one of a kind project and wants to tell you what you should charge. I'm not talking about gouging someone , I'm talking about getting paid for you work and skills. Doctors don't have any problem charging 3,4, and 5 hundred for and office visit of 20 minutes do they? But they and other professional people are very educated right, All kinds of ways to get and education, including time served and hard work, Don't sell your self short if your are a good craftsment by nickel and diming the material to the penny."Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum"Lincoln Idealarc 250 AC/DCMillermatic 251   Syncrowave 300   30A spoolgunLincoln MP210Hypertherm 45(2) LN 25(2) Lincoln Weldanpower 225 CV(4) SA200   1 short hood    SA250    SAM 400
Reply:If you gotta buy it, you gotta get paid for it.  I've always been the frugal type, so I'll shop around to save the customer a little money, but at the end of the day, if the project needs 12', and I can only purchase it by the 21, the customer's gonna be eating that cost - no getting around that.  I won't make it very long if my profit gets put right back into material cost of drops being purchased back.  Pretty soon, you aren't being a fabricator, you're being a small quantity metals dealer, and having to float all the material cost, as well as store it, and so on. I do have a couple of exceptions.  For example, I use a lot of .090 5052 aluminum, both for personal projects, and for a large number of things I sell.  Because I keep a bunch of it around, I don't mind selling partials, as long as it is in an increment that it doesn't leave me with a lot of waste.  One part I make, I can make 8 per sheet.  Thus, after making 4 of them, I had a customer here, and needed 1/2 sheet to finish off the job.  I don't mind selling him that half sheet.  It is real handy having a bunch of scraps and drops laying around.  When a small job comes in, I can complete right then, without having to purchase material.  Furthermore, if someone just needs something like an additional gusset to improve on something that broke, I'm not going to charge 200 bucks for a 4 by 8 sheet of aluminum, when the piece used is less than 8 inches on a side.  Also is handy for the occasional small piece that was mistakenly left out of a quote.  At the end of the day, any material left over from customer jobs was paid for already, so even if it had to be used to fill in on a later customer project, I'm not having to account for the mistake directly out of my pocket.  Plus, as my personal projects, and my customer projects are usually the same thing (I'm getting paid to make what I would make anyway - what a life), it makes my personal projects a little cheaper, when I get a stockpile of drops.Who is John Galt?
Reply:Thinks guys for all the experienced info. My business is small but growing at a good pace. Historically I've wasted lots of labor hours nickel and dimming  material costs but now that my time is at more of a premium it's time to charge material costs like the big boys. Thinks again.Miller TrailBlazer 251Miller HF-250-1Miller MaxStar 150 STLHyperTherm PowerMax 380 plasmaLincoln PowerMig 180Millermatic 252Miller Diversion 180
Reply:They buy what i buy pluss mark up.     If they need 4 feet but have to buy 20 than thats what they get charged for.   I have started biding LARGER structural jobs by the pound.Vantage 500's LN-25's, VI-400's, cobramatics, Miller migs, synch 350 LX, Powcon inverters, XMT's, 250 Ton Acurrpress 12' brake, 1/4" 10' Atlantic shear,Koikie plasma table W/ esab plasmas. marvel & hyd-mech saws, pirrana & metal muncher punches.