A small repair can look profitable on the proposal and feel less profitable when the crew has packed up. Extra trips, material shortages, or a longer setup may consume time that never appeared as a visible change in the job.
A repair job cost review helps explain that difference. Use it to improve your own estimating and planning. It is an internal business exercise, not a reason to rewrite a customer’s agreed price after the work is complete.
Compare the same scope on both sides
Start with the accepted proposal and the approved changes. Separate the original work from added work so an expanded scope does not look like poor execution of the original estimate.
Identify which labor hours, materials, and visits were assumed at the time of bidding. Compare those assumptions with the records you actually have. If the records are incomplete, mark that limitation rather than presenting a guess as a measured result.
Count labor in person-hours
A two-person crew working six hours represents twelve person-hours, not six. Use a consistent unit throughout the review. Separate hands-on work from travel, setup, procurement, cleanup, and return visits where your records support it.
For an illustrative job, twelve estimated person-hours become sixteen actual person-hours. At an assumed internal labor cost of $40 per person-hour, the difference represents $160 in additional internal labor cost. These figures are invented for explanation and are not suggested rates.
Explain the variance before changing the next estimate
- Was the work larger than the documented scope?
- Did access or site conditions differ from the assumptions?
- Were materials or equipment ready?
- Did the crew need a return visit that was not planned?
- Was the task unfamiliar or the estimate incomplete?
- Did an approved change account for the additional work?
A variance is a question to investigate, not automatic evidence that the crew worked too slowly. Ask the people who performed the work what happened while their memory is fresh.
Include small costs that disappear between jobs
Record relevant delivery charges, disposal, consumables, and unplanned procurement trips. Distinguish purchases consumed on this job from reusable equipment or materials retained for future work according to your accounting practices.
Keep cost and revenue concepts separate. A labor cost, selling price, markup, and profit margin are different measures. Use your actual accounting definitions rather than labeling every remaining dollar āprofit.ā
Turn one finding into one change
If most extra time came from protecting an occupied room, add a clearer site-visit question and an appropriate setup allowance to the next estimate. If the problem was a missing fitting, improve the materials check. Raising every future bid by an arbitrary percentage may not address the cause.
Write the lesson in a reusable estimating note: the condition, the work it affected, and the information needed before bidding. Avoid creating a standard rule from one unusual job without checking whether the same condition recurs.
Keep the review short enough to repeat
Use a consistent one-page format and review it soon after completion. Over several jobs, look for repeated differences rather than reacting to a single result.
Explore BidCraft for repair contractors and repair project types. Better estimates grow from understanding where time and cost actually went.