Knowing your true out-of-pocket costs is a vital consideration when pricing work. Considering the industry's competitive and unpredictable environment, prices that are off just a few dollars can have a substantial impact on winning orders and making a profit.

CostRatesAdvisor gives your organization's greater confidence when pricing jobs by providing a clear understanding of your "true costs". It tells exactly how much you must charge for your equipment and services in order to recover costs, and more importantly, make a profit.

Having better information will sharpen your pricing and significantly increase sales and production with high profit "good sales", and help to avoid the least lucrative work.

Measuring the cost and performance of your organization is a requirement for making good business decisions. If you don't measure it, you can't manage it and you can't improve it.

Cost Rates Advisor performs a detail analysis of your financials, production information, factory costs, labor costs, overhead costs, production equipment, staffing, and other elements. It will help you make decisions about:

Cost Recovery. Are you charging customers for all your out-of-pocket costs? Are there services you're providing that are not being billed? Are your prices recovering all your costs?

Staffing. Are you overstaffed or understaffed in a particular area? How would adding another shift impact costs and rates?

Equipment. Do you have equipment that is underutilized and non-profitable? How would new digital press impact costs and rates?

Your estimating and costing software depends on accurate budgeted hourly rates for estimating, job costing, sales analysis, monthly work-in-process reports, and other essential functions.

Cost Rates Advisor analyzes your financial and production information and calculates budgeted hourly rates for your equipment and services. It gives you the rates needed by your MIS/ERP software for estimating, pricing, and tracking job costs such as Enterprise 32, Avanti, ePace, Monarch, Tharstern, Accura, Printreach, Radius, Microsoft Dynamics, and other software.

If your cost rates are flawed or outdated, so are your estimates and costing reports.

Cost Rates Advisor benchmarks your labor, factory, and overhead costs to thousands of rates from other printing and packaging organizations. Compare individual cost centers or compare your entire plant. Determine why your prices are higher than the competition on certain quotes and lower on others. Are your labor costs driving up prices? Or maybe it's your overhead costs?