Price leakage
You quoted the drawing. You built three revisions.
Fabrication rarely leaks margin at the quotation. It leaks afterwards, through scope added by phone and never priced. Treat every change as a recorded revision with its own price and approval, and the job you costed is the job you get paid for.
In short
Fabrication rarely leaks margin at the quotation. It leaks afterwards, through scope added by phone and never priced. Treat every change as a recorded revision with its own price and approval, and the job you costed is the job you get paid for.
The cost
What the gap takes every month.
5 to 12%
Of job value added after the order, unpriced
Extra members, added fittings, changed finishes, agreed verbally on site.
Zero
Written record in most shops
Which is why the discussion at billing time is always uncomfortable.
One ordinary week
How it actually happens.
The client asks for two additional brackets and a change of finish while your team is at site. Everyone agrees it is minor, and it is, individually.
By completion there are nine such changes. Your fabricator knows the cost; the client remembers agreeing to nothing. The invoice becomes a negotiation you will partly lose.
A revision recorded the same day, with its price and the client's approval, turns nine arguments into nine accepted line items.
The fix
Three steps, in this order.
01
Publish one approved price book
Rates by product, customer class, region, quantity slab and delivery basis, in one place everyone quotes from.
02
Make below-book rates an approval, not a habit
A quotation under the book cannot be issued until a named approver says yes, with the reason recorded.
03
Review deviations monthly
The pattern of approvals shows which products are mispriced and which customers always push.
Straight answers
What owners ask us here.
Clients will not sign for every small change.
They do not need to sign. A recorded revision with a date, a description and a price, sent the same day, is enough to end most disputes.
How do we estimate more accurately next time?
Because revisions are recorded against the job, the pattern of what gets added becomes visible and can be priced into the next estimate.
Does this cover material escalation?
Escalation clauses live in the quotation, and a revision can be raised against a change in material rate the same way.
Questions people ask
Straight answers, no sales talk.
System of Marketing & Sales
Put enquiry to dispatch on one governed line.
Tell us how your plant sells today. We'll show you where the line breaks and what it takes to close it.