[DASERVICES]

  If you have time would like your guys input on this just to highlight something.

  Take your running costs and divide it by the number of houses you clean in a year to give you your overhead cost per house. If you do commercial as well calculate what the % is against your revenue, then take this % away from your running costs so you have a running cost for domestics.

  Running Costs should include the following:-

  Average depreciation of your van over 3 yrs, example I buy a van for £3000 first year I claim 40% then 25% thereafter. So my average depreciation would be £662.

  Average depreciation of equipment, for this I would take the whole cost of your WFP or ladders and devide by 3 as you often end replacing this after 3 yrs. So my total expenditure for WFP was £1000 so average was £333
 
 Cost of fuel for year.
 Cost of resin or GG4 etc.. for year.
 Cost of Van/ Car Insurance
 Cost of Liability Insuarance etc..
 Average yearly repairs to van etc..

 Other expenditures if you pay them are Tax and wages add these.

 I have only used the highest expenditures for this example as below :-

 Depreciation on van     £  662
 Depreciation on equip  £  333
 Cost of fuel                   £2400
 Cost of resin                 £  240
 Van Insurance              £ 400
 Liability Insurance        £   90
 Repairs                         £ 400

 Total Cost                     £4525

 Number of houses cleaned in a year 1500

 Overhead per house £3.01

 The above is just an example, mine came to £5.49

  This has really opened my eyes I am doing houses for nothing, I know need to start treating this more like a business and each house must be a profit not loss.
What other business would operate this way in doing a house for nothing or less then £2.00.

  Each business will have a min charge as they treat it like a business, unfortunately most of us window cleaners do not do this.

  This is an eye opener.

  Doug
   

[niceandclean]

Very interesting!

[Moderator David@stives]

It would be more realistic to break it down to running costs per hour worked to give a true figure.

You cant compare a 10 min £6.00 house to a 2 hour £40 house

[Grafters Cleaning Services]

good and interesting thread doug,
i have often wondered the same
eg my pre paid envelopes work out at 40p each and i get through loads of them.

[mark dew]

Interesting. I haven't looked at my costs this way before but i will do later.

It would be more realistic to break it down to running costs per hour worked to give a true figure.

You cant compare a 10 min £6.00 house to a 2 hour £40 house

Dave, why aren't they a good comparison?

cheers

[Bazzy1999]

Grafter
I use Pre paid envelopes too and ive just worked out its costing me £64.00 every 4 weeks...
i do use 1st class stamps though..

Bazz...........

[NBwcs]

Dave,s right. you need to work out your overheads as a % of each pound earned to get a meaningful figure. You can't apply a standard rate of overhead per property as it doesnt really mean anything, its your overall turnover you have to look at. Worthwhile doing though.

[S_RICHARDSON]

I know! Once you get down to the nitty griity sides of everything it does cost quite a lot to run a W/C ing business especially if you have competitive prices! WOW!!!

[seanmcshane]

Do you know - I have never put a stamp on any of my customere envelopes and they have never said a word. They have all paid. Some even drive and put the envelope through my letterbox!
You can get 1000 envelopes for about £12.00 from Euro-office.

[Bazzy1999]

Hi Seanmcshane
I started like that but i took a while to get my money, but as soon as i started to put stamps on i got my money with in a few days so i stayed with it.

Bazz....

[DASERVICES]

Guys just tryng to make a point if you understand, every business there is a min price because they look at overheads etc.. The problem we have in the window cleaning industry we are still stuck on the 50p per window etc..

We do not treat our round as a business, if we did then we would have a min price set like all businesses. We are in this to make money not to loose money on the low price houses, up north we seem to be stuck in a time warp.

I agree what Davie says but we price on what time it takes us to do the house, not the set up time taking ladder or wfp out of the van. Other businesses do this so what is stopping us from doing this.

Other guys in our industry do this but very few, so trying to give you guys encouragement to price what you are worth.

I've learnt a good leason doing this exercise, I'm going for it setting a min price.
I have nothing to loose, work it out and try it with your 10 low customers. Lets get this industry to what its worth.

Rant over.

Cheers

Doug

[Shine, glasgow!]

 
 Total Cost                     £4525

 Number of houses cleaned in a year 1500

 Overhead per house £3.01

   

David at st ives is right

"number of houses cleaned" should be replace by number of hours worked in a year

say 30hrs/week at 50 weeks(!) = 1500 hrs

therefore overhead per hr is £3.01

put it that way and things are looking up again!   

[DASERVICES]

Hey Shine agree, prob is up in Scotland guys charge £2.50 per house

No business sense in that, so if we all clubbed together like taxis do we could set a min price and live happily ever after 

Until this system ends

[Shine, glasgow!]

Until this system ends

it probably will you know, though depends on area perhaps. in glasgow, the area i'm in, there aren't so many 'old duffers' any more.
What area do you cover? Sterling town/ countryside. Is it quite competative then?

Ben

[Mr. S]

wfp upstairs trad down and started increasing my prices this year but trying not to overdo it.

Most 3 beds now £8, means roughly every upstairs window £1 and most downstairs neaRLY £1. WORKING VERY WELL!

In new year i am going to try a cull of customers! ive been picking up a few £15 to £20 houses lately which seem good earners so going to try to get more. these are good as i dont seem to use much more water after first cleans. My point being overheads on these appear not much more than the 3 beds priced at £6 - £8.

I agree all w/cs should club together and set min prices ie £1 a normal sized window for example.

[DASERVICES]

I cover Stirling mostly as the license is a good earner for me, in Clacks waste of time until license kicks in.

Best thing to date is the licence where I feel all involved can raise the standards.

Glasgow bit of an issue until they enforce it,

Good weather predicted tomorrow, horray.

Doug

[macmac]

just charge 20/25 pound per hour and you'll have none of the above worries.

doug you must have too much spare time

[shammy davis jnr]

i charge a min of five pounds in my head if its a bed sit they get told thats the flat rate we charge even if its a one bed flat and on bigger you just tell them this size is 10 etc this works good try it  esp if its over telephone
you know the one  its a one bed just round the street abit i can tell you now it will be five pounds if i call and most except this

[Paul Coleman]

Guys just tryng to make a point if you understand, every business there is a min price because they look at overheads etc.. The problem we have in the window cleaning industry we are still stuck on the 50p per window etc..

We do not treat our round as a business, if we did then we would have a min price set like all businesses. We are in this to make money not to loose money on the low price houses, up north we seem to be stuck in a time warp.

I agree what Davie says but we price on what time it takes us to do the house, not the set up time taking ladder or wfp out of the van. Other businesses do this so what is stopping us from doing this.

Other guys in our industry do this but very few, so trying to give you guys encouragement to price what you are worth.

I've learnt a good leason doing this exercise, I'm going for it setting a min price.
I have nothing to loose, work it out and try it with your 10 low customers. Lets get this industry to what its worth.

Rant over.

Cheers

Doug

I've never calculated the exact figures but thisa is why I have a minimum charge per job these days.  Obviously a larger property will require more pure water, more wear on batteries  etc  to clean it but the diesel and costs of vehicle are the same for any size job.  Therefore, a minimum charge is needed to reflect this.
I have a minimum charge of £10 - though I do still have a fair bit of work priced lower than this from before I started applying a minimum charge.

[Grafters Cleaning Services]

Grafter
I use Pre paid envelopes too and ive just worked out its costing me £64.00 every 4 weeks...
i do use 1st class stamps though..

Bazz...........

hi bazz, i also use 1st class as i think it looks more pro, and you get them back quicker
jay