Articles For Improving Printing Organizations Profectus Printing Industry Business Management Consultants
Articles from our experts
for improving your printing organization.
The Estimator with Rose Colored Glasses

The Estimator with Rose Colored Glasses


This article is about the typical printing or packaging company whose pricing strategy is heavily influenced, and in some cases controlled by the estimating department.

Estimating is a critical part of the sales process. When a customer requests a price quote, a cost estimate is created by an estimator to help determine the price. If your company is fortunate enough to have one of the few remaining experienced estimators, then you’re confidence they will create an accurate time, material, and cost estimate that can be used to competitively price the job. Or are you?

A seasoned estimator will have an understanding of production processes and how long it should take to produce a job. But an estimator is only as good as the tools and information they are given.

Most printing companies use some form of estimating software to create estimates. These estimating programs rely on databases of production equipment standards and budgeted hourly cost rates (BHRs) to generate time, material, and cost estimates. If your equipment standards and cost rates are outdated or inaccurate, so are your estimates.

A business’ costs and standards are constantly changing as production equipment is added or replaced, new processes and procedures are implemented, personnel change, and expenses increase or decrease. Nevertheless, many companies fail to keep their standards and cost rates up-to-date and indiscriminately churn out inaccurate estimates potentially resulting in losing over-priced work and winning below-margin orders.

True Cost Estimates

To ensure you’re producing accurate true cost estimates and competitively pricing jobs, your equipment standards and hourly cost rates should be regularly updated to reflect your plant productivity and actual costs.

 Production standards can be monitored and updated with the help of shop floor data collection and job costing software. Meetings should be facilitated at least every 6 months with the estimators, production, and cost analyst to review and synchronize the estimating standards with actual production makeready, setup, and running speeds and waste.

Additional meetings should be facilitated at least semi-annually with accounting to align the estimating equipment budgeted hourly cost rates with actual company expenses including operating costs, wages, rent, utilities, depreciation, insurance, overhead, and other costs.

BHR software such as CostRatesAdvisor.com makes it easy to calculate your equipment cost rates so you’re always recovering costs. Cost Rates Advisor automatically calculates the break-even costs of your equipment based on your expenses, employee wages, assets, and costs. Financial information can be imported making it easy to keep your rates updated and saving hours of manual entry.

Conclusion

Take off those rose colored glasses and produce accurate and trustworthy estimates that clearly reflect your true costs. You’ll be able to confidently and strategically estimate and price jobs, improve your competitiveness, and increase sales and profits. .


By: Craig L Press
President
Profectus, Inc.



Related Items


- CostRatesAdvisor.com - Budgeted hourly rates and cost analysis software...


- FinancialRatiosAdvisor.com - Financial analysis and industry ratios software...


- Business management consulting solutions that boost sales and profits...


- More Articles...



Profectus, Inc. · Sarasota, Florida · United States · Phone: 1-888-868-8662
Business management consultants specializing in the printing & packaging industry since 1993.
100% Secure Site Site Lock 100% PCI Compliance 99.9% Uptime


© 2013-2024 Profectus Inc. All Rights Reserved. CostRatesAdvisor.com and FinancialRatiosAdvisor.com are trademarks of Profectus, Inc.