How To Build A Pricing Catalogue For Trade Work

Most trades do not waste time quoting because they do not know the work. They waste time because they keep rebuilding the same pricing again and again. Same materials. Same fittings. Same labour. Same type of job. Different customer. Different address. Different quantity. So the quote starts from scratch again. That is what I call the Quote Rebuild Trap. You are not really pricing a brand-new job every time. You are rebuilding old decisions. And if you are quoting from memory, spreadsheets, copied quotes, or notes in different places, this is where mistakes start creeping in. One quote misses a material. Another has the wrong labour allowance. Another uses an old price. Another copies a job that had completely different site conditions. And before long, two similar jobs have two different margins. By the end of this video, you will know how to build a simple pricing catalogue for trade work. Not a complicated database. Not something that takes weeks to set up. Just a practical catalogue that stores the informatio n you keep using again and again. So future quotes become faster. Clearer. And more consistent. And the important bit is this: A pricing catalogue is not just a list of materials. It is the memory of how your business prices repeat work. If you are an electrician, plumber, builder, HVAC engineer, landscaper, maintenance business, or small trade business quoting similar work again and again, this is for you. Because most trade businesses already have a pricing catalogue. It is just usually in the worst possible place. In someone's head. You know what you normally fit. You know what you usually charge. You know roughly how long things take. You know which materials you prefer. You know which jobs need more time. But if all of that lives in memory, it is very easy to lose consistency. Especially when the business gets busier. Let's say you are an electrician quoting a small lighting job. You might have LED panels. Connectors. A switch. Consumables. And some control gear. If you are pricing from scratch, you need to remember a lot. What is the material cost? What markup do we normally apply? What sell price should we use? How long does each item take to fit? What quantity is needed? What uplift should apply? That is a lot to rebuild every time. And this is where most people do the quick thing. They open an old quote. Copy it. Change the customer name. Change the address. Change a few quantities. Delete a few lines. Add a few new ones. And hope nothing important has carried over from the old job. That feels quick. But it is risky. Because an old quote was not just a list of items. It was built around a specific job. A specific customer. A specific site. A specific access issue. A specific labour allowance. And a specific set of conditions. So when you copy an old quote, you might also copy old assumptions. That is the Quote Rebuild Trap. You think you are saving time. But you may be dragging old mistakes into the next job. A better way is to build reusable catalogue items. A proper catalogue item should normally include: A clear description. A manufacturer part number. A material cost. A markup. A sell price. And a fit time. Then, when you build a quote, you add the quantity needed for that specific job. This is where the catalogue becomes useful. Because you are not just saving the name of the item. You are saving the pricing logic behind the item. Let's use the lighting example. Imagine one LED panel has a 30-minute fit time. If you add one LED panel to the quote, you add one material item… and 30 minutes of productive fit time. If you add four LED panels, you are not just adding four materials. You are also adding two hours of productive fit time. Four lots of 30 minutes. That is the difference. The quote is not just listing what you are fitting. It is starting to build the labour base. That is where a pricing catalogue becomes more useful than a material list. A material list tells you what is going into the job. A pricing catalogue helps you understand what the job creates. Material cost. Sell price. Labour time. Quantity. Markup. That gives you a much clearer starting point. Now let's make that more practical. In the real example we spoke about, the catalogue items added up to around 4.70 hours of estimated productive fit time. That was the base. Not the final billable labour. The base. Then the uplift was applied. And this bit matters. You should always apply an uplift. Because no job happens in perfect conditions. The fit time measures the task. The uplift measures the world around the task. If the work is on a clean open site, the uplift may be lower. If it is a commercial fit-out, it may be higher. If it is a live building, a school, a hospital, an industrial site, or a restricted access job, it may need more. The guide percentages we use are: New build or open site: 10 to 15 percent. Commercial fit-out: 20 to 25 percent. Schools, hospitals, or live buildings: 25 to 35 percent. Industrial sites: 30 to 40 percent. Difficult access or highly restricted sites: 40 to 50 percent. So in that real example, the catalogue built the base fit time. Around 4.70 hours. Then the uplift was applied. And the billed labour became 7 hours. That is not random. That is the process. Catalogue items build the base. The uplift adjusts the base. The billable labour comes from there. This is a much better way to quote than just saying: "Yeah, call it a day." Now, sometimes calling it a day is commercially right. If that job is the only job you are doing… and it blocks the whole day… you may need to price it as a full day. Because by the time you travel… park… unload… set up… complete the work… pack away… invoice it… and lose the chance to fit anything else in… it has commercially taken the day. But if that same section is part of a bigger job, like ten rooms in the same building, the pricing may behave differently. You are already there. You can move from one room to the next. The setup is spread across the larger job. You still apply the uplift. But the job context matters. That is the key. A catalogue does not replace judgement. It gives your judgement a proper starting point. Because without the catalogue, you are often judging from memory. With the catalogue, you are judging from a measured base. That is a big difference. Let's use a plumber example. You regularly quote radiator valves. Basin taps. Isolation valves. And pipework. If every quote starts from memory, you keep asking yourself the same questions. What valve do I normally use? What is the cost? What markup do I add? How long do I allow? Do I need consumables? What happens if access is poor? But if those common items are saved in a catalogue, the next quote starts quicker. You are not trying to rebuild the whole price. You are selecting the right items. Setting the quantities. Applying the correct uplift. And checking the job conditions. That is a better use of your time. Same for a builder. If you regularly quote internal doors, skirting, stud wall sections, or making-good work, those common activities should not be built from scratch every time. The catalogue gives you the base. The site and scope tell you what needs adjusting. Same for a landscaper. Fence panels. Concrete posts. Gravel boards. Patio slabs. Edging. These are repeat items. The garden changes. The access changes. The quantity changes. The ground conditions change. But the core pricing items should not need rebuilding every time. And for HVAC, the same idea applies. Units. Brackets. Pipe runs. Drain pumps. Isolators. Commissioning time. A lot of the work repeats. But the site conditions decide the uplift. This is why a pricing catalogue helps across trades. It does not matter whether the item is a socket, a tap, a door, a fence panel, or an air conditioning unit. The principle is the same. If you quote it repeatedly, it should become reusable. Here is a simple rule. If you have typed the same item into three quotes, it probably belongs in the catalogue. Because every time you type it manually, you are making the same decisions again. Description. Cost. Markup. Sell price. Fit time. Reference number. And when you repeat those decisions manually, mistakes are more likely. A catalogue reduces repeated thinking. It does not remove skill. It stops wasting skill on the same admin. Now, do not make the mistake of trying to build a perfect catalogue before you use it. That is where people overcomplicate this. You do not need every possible item on day one. You need the common items first. The ones you use every week. The ones that keep showing up in quotes. The ones you have already priced again and again. Start there. Then build the catalogue while you quote. Every time you notice yourself typing the same item again, save it properly. Add the description. Add the part number. Add the material cost. Add the markup. Add the fit time. Then review it later when real jobs are completed. That is how the catalogue improves. Not by being perfect at the start. By being used. And this is where completed jobs become valuable. If an item has a 30-minute fit time but keeps taking 45 minutes, update it. If a job type keeps needing more allowance, review the uplift. If a material cost changes, update the item. If one supplier product keeps causing confusion, improve the description or part number. The catalogue becomes the business learning from its own jobs. That is why this matters as you grow. When everything lives in one person's head, the business is fragile. If you are the only one quoting, that may work for a while. But eventually, you either get busier… or someone else needs to help. And then the cracks show. One person prices sockets one way. Another person prices them slightly differently. One person remembers consumables. Another forgets. One person applies the uplift properly. Another just guesses a day rate. That is how pricing becomes inconsistent. A catalogue gives the business a shared starting point. Not a script. Not a rigid rule that ignores trade judgement. A shared base. That is what lets pricing become more consistent without making the business feel overcomplicated. The goal is not to turn quoting into a corporate process. The goal is to stop doing the same job twice. Once on site. And once again in your paperwork. Because rebuilding prices over and over is still work. It just does not feel like site work. But it eats evenings. It delays quotes. It creates mistakes. And it makes the business harder to control. This is exactly where FieldHive fits. Not because FieldHive tells you what to charge. It does not. You still need to know your costs. You still need to understand the job. You still need trade judgement. But FieldHive is built around reusable pricing items and connected quoting. You can save common items with material information, labour times, pricing details, and product references. Then reuse them across future quotes. So instead of rebuilding the same pricing every time, the quote starts from the way your business already prices repeat work. And because FieldHive keeps the workflow connected, that information can move forward. Customer. Quote. Booking. Job. Invoice. The quote does not have to die when the customer says yes. It becomes part of the job record. That is the difference. So if you take one thing from this video, take this: A pricing catalogue is not just a list of materials. It is the memory of how your business prices repeat work. It helps you build quotes from reusable items. It helps you calculate base fit time. It helps you apply the right uplift. It helps you keep pricing more consistent. And it helps future quotes get better because completed jobs teach you what to change. So start simple. Pick the items you quote all the time. Add the material cost. Add the markup. Add the fit time. Add the part number. Use the item in real quotes. Review what happened. Improve it. That is how you get out of the Quote Rebuild Trap. Now the next problem is this. Even with a catalogue, a lot of trade businesses still underquote labour because they only count the labour they can see. The bigger cost is often hidden around the job. That is exactly what we will cover in the next video: How To Stop Underquoting Labour On Trade Jobs.