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[David Kulka]

My wife and I go round and round on this, I'd be interested in what you say.  I wish there was a reasonably easy method of doing it, but I don't know of any.

Our employee timesheets go into a master database so calculating those costs would not be too hard (4 hours to work up totals on a typical job?) but many of the materials are never itemized, not to mention my and my wife's hours.  Oh and insurance, overhead, taxes, blah blah blah.

No doubt that if we really wanted to, we could do a proper autopsy on a project, and come up with some halfway accurate costs but it seems like that would take at least 2 days of pencil pushing, which itself would be a significant cost.  Besides, after wrapping up a project we're usually diving right into the next one.

Clearly the vast majority of jobs turn out about right, some more so than others.  20 years of experience and gut feelings give us fairly good insight, but it's never exact, and we always wonder.

It sure would be nice to have accurate profit studies on some jobs, but I can't think of any way to do it without getting into a big, involved accounting project!  How do others out there approach this?  

[David Buckley]

Many of the materials may not be itemized, but you've bought them, they were stored in the shed / yard / warehouse wherever, and you've installed them "somewhere".

Tot up a years worth of "stuff", and going down in annual cost order, try to apportion it to the jobs.  See if anything fits.  Like, I dunno, XLR connector, one doesnt cost much, but several tens of boxes do.  Or even stuff from the local connectors supplier, if thats as close as you can easily get.  Try to see if your recollection goes with (eg) how much wire, or if thats not itemized, big stuff, how many amplifiers or speakers were on the job.  How many hours the job consumed.  Whatever fits will do to start.

Throw the stuff into excel, and play a bit.  In just a few hours you may be able to knock off the top bunch of stuff, and generate a rough rule that says where the stuff goes, so next time, you can estimate it into costs, rather than hide it as overheads, or worse as profit you dont actually benefit from.  All broad brushstrokes stuff, probably only within 20% of reality, but at least its getting a provisional number on your experience and gut feelings.

As for you and the missus's hours - thats easy- subtract the hours you sleep from 168 hours a week

Employee timesheets can also be made to be useful, by instead of just recording total hours worked, for each employee have him apportion the working hours to job functions, like wiring, comissioning, servicing etc.  It will be pure fabrication (timesheets always are, no-one actually works the productive hours that timesheets say they do), but if the proportions are right it'll be close enough to be useful, once you;'ve got some data to look at.

[Kent Clasen]

I may be wrong here, but you should have a pretty good idea of what your profit is when you bid the job!  Of course, some things change on the job, but if you are bidding it right, it shouldn't change too much.  When you are bidding the job are you estimating the labor?  You should.  Compare the bid labor vs. actual from the time sheets. Compare your bid materials vs. actual. This will give you gross profit.  By starting to do this you can analize the job after the fact to see if you bid it correctly, then adjust your bidding margin if needed.  

Add up all your expenses other than equipment/materials, include your salary, rent, insurance, etc, this is your overhead.  You should be able to get a % of what you need to make above your cost to actually make a profit.  Most people don't realize they need to make X% to make a profit.

Subtract your overhead expense, this gives you a net profit.

Your accountant or accouting program can help itemize this stuff.
There are classes at NSCA that teach this stuff.  It is a real eye opener.

Good luck...