You might be starting to feel the effects of the Brexit plans with ever-increasing materials prices. This is a response to rising commodity prices, currency fluctuations and unavoidable operating costs.
It’s really important to use the very latest prices in quotes to protect your margin. And uniquely we do at the HBXL Estimating Service.
We use an award-winning software EstimatorXpress which helps keep the service up to date with increasing material price rises as it is plugged into live pricing from Price Tracker™ which is regularly updated and tracks national average prices. Plus we can connect your software to HBXL’s merchant partner prices such as TradePoint or Jewson if you order your estimate via your branch so that your estimate is completed with the prices you actually pay your suppliers.
Slightly worrying is that in a recent survey 51% of FMB state of respondents foresee no changes in prices but this is not the reality and if you stick with a spreadsheet of prices you worked out last year, you could end up sadly out of pocket. Make sure you use the HBXL Estimating Service to keep you on the right side of profits.
Joanna Mulgrew, director at HBXL said: “It’s vital building firms stay on top of prices in this climate. The FMB forecasts over the next six months, output prices, wages and salaries are all expected to rise and 79% of construction SMEs are expecting material costs to increase during the next six months.
Builders are very busy at the moment, in fact some frantically so. In fact many of our clients are so successful with their quotes they are booked up for the rest of 2017, but there’s no point in being busy if it’s for zero profit. And that’s where we help.
Using live builders merchant’s price lists via the internet means all estimates produced by the HBXL Estimating Service are the most up-to-date prices and the most current labour rates. This ensures the customer gets a true cost and the builder makes the best profits on any job.”
For further information email us at services@hbxl.co.uk or give us a call on 0117 916 7894.
