How do you charge out jobs?

[trueman]

This question is for the techs out there that work for themselves.

I am wondering how you go about charging out jobs. For instance do you use a job card to write down the details and then transfer this info to an accounting program on your computer such as MYOB or Quick Books?

I would like to know what works and what doesnt work for keeping track of jobs and invoicing jobs.

[Bovon]

Its been a long time since I have done work like this, but when I did, I kept a ledger for myself. Each job was entered by month date and year. Anything I used for that job was included in the ledger plus the retail cost of the item plus 10%. Then I added $30 bucks labor (this has been about 30 years ago).

The invioce to the customer was simply parts = $$$ and labor + $$$ and the total. If the customer wanted a breakdown for the parts, I could get the ledger and write them down for them.

The ledger was setup to account for my cost and profit and was the main source for the income tax people.

10% above retail may not be enough today, and labor will be at least $50 +.