Do you charge for clean up time?

[legendboy]

This might be a dumb question but I am going to ask it anyways

I am just curious if anybody builds in clean up time to quoting jobs.

Since I have a home shop I need to be diligent with chip cleanup otherwise I end up tracking it into the house. I end up spending alot of time cleaning up.

Now I understand this is not a customers problem, I am just curious

[TGTool]

I'd only figure it in if it was an unusual situation. Normally cleanup, paperwork, all the other shop stuff not work directly on the job would be overhead and should be part of the shop rate. If a particular job required something unusual and I anticipated that, I'd figure some shop time to do it.

OTOH, if you're just a lone operator and are deciding how to quote a job it's perfectly fine to say, "Well, it will take 4-1/2 hours to machine, 20 minutes to sweep up, 30 minutes round trip to the UPS office and another 15 minutes to pick up the fasteners required. I'd like to make at least $15/hour for my time so that, lets see, 5 hours, 35 minutes @ 15/hr so I'll quote $83.75 for the job." The customer doesn't need to know how you arrived at that. He either accepts the price or argues with you, or goes somewhere else.

[RussZHC]

Put a time to it and charge.

Not precisely your situation but for some reason what sprung to my mind was disposal fees.
More and more trash locally is being charged at a given rate, so, as example I would expect a service station to charge for not only servicing the air conditioner but to pass on all disposal fees to the customer. Part of doing business...?

[Rich Carlstedt]

Any work done for a product is acceptable.
Large companies call it fixed overhead.

Obviously , If your shop needs a new roof installed, it doesn't go on that 80 dollar part !

So, Yes, it's OK
Consider it the same as setup.
Actual machining time is always less than the time spent for the whole job.

As one of my trainees said years ago... " Wow, all my time was in setup, the cutting time was nothing !"

Rich

[lane]

When I do a job for some one Yes I charge for the clean up . May be another 10 -15 minutes . Then write my time down and figure out how much to charge the guy. Even at work i do not punch the clock and get off the job until my machine is cleaned up and my tools are put away. There was no mess when I started and no mess when I am done. Customer pays for all. He dont like it he can go else where.

[john11668]

With My ratefixers hat on !
Set-up is part of the job!
Clean-up is part of the job!
Paperwork is part of overheads so is not!

(But you can reduce your overheads significantly if you book your paperwork too )

[KiddZimaHater]

Be careful what you charge. You might quote yourself right outta work.

[datsun280zxt]

Be careful what you charge. You might quote yourself right outta work.

On the other hand you might actually make money!

[lwalker]

Be careful what you charge. You might quote yourself right outta work.

I have mentioned here before that I really liked Ellen Rohr's book How Much Should I Charge? http://www.amazon.com/How-Much-Shoul.../dp/0966571916 I think it's recommended reading for anyone without business background who wants to start a business. One excellent point she made in the book is that a lot of small businesses are slowly going out of business without realizing it because they don't charge enough to cover all their costs long-term. Charging what the competition does won't work if you're all going out of business.

If you can find a copy for less than the $177 that the scalpers are asking (I guess it's out of print after just 4 years!) it's a damn good book. Maybe a local library can get a copy.

[donf]

I have mentioned here before that I really liked Ellen Rohr's book How Much Should I Charge? http://www.amazon.com/How-Much-Shoul.../dp/0966571916 I think it's recommended reading for anyone without business background who wants to start a business. One excellent point she made in the book is that a lot of small businesses are slowly going out of business without realizing it because they don't charge enough to cover all their costs long-term. Charging what the competition does won't work if you're all going out of business.

If you can find a copy for less than the $177 that the scalpers are asking (I guess it's out of print after just 4 years!) it's a damn good book. Maybe a local library can get a copy.

eBay has them new for cheap.