For All The Janitors....

[TheCleaningDude]

I've gotten a couple of more janitorial accounts. Along with it the carpet cleaning, etc. but I bill those separately.

Still new at janitorial though and I only have a handful of customers - small potatoes really. I service them all myself at the moment, but if it gets big enough I would like to bring someone on.

I bid these with the mindset of having another person doing the work. This is the formula I use, does it make sense?

Est. Job Time = X Hours

Employee Pay = Y $ Per Hour (incl. associated fees, etc.)

Cost of product used = Z $ Per Job

XYZ X 30% - 40% = X1 $ Add On Per Labor Hour

XYZ + X1 = Billable labor time
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So, say you pay someone $10.00 an hour. Add to it FICA, Comp, etc. and that brings it to $11.50 an hour. Add to it $.50 an hour for product used.

Total $12.00 an hour of labor time (using rounded numbers to keep it simple).

$12.00 X 40% = $4.80

Billable labor time = $16.80

___________

Is this the right approach?

Also, where I am still having trouble is estimating cleaning time. Anyone know of a guide or rule of thumb for estimating time?

Thanks