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  Phil Voice February 20, 2014 at 10:23pm

  Hi Kev

  You have to either make an assessment or treat fuels costs as an overhead rather than a direct cost.

  If fuel is worked out as an overhead it's possible to drill down and attribute it as a percentage of your hourly or daily costs. Once you've worked out the time split over the sixteen properties you have to attribute costs to each location appropriately.
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  Exeter garden maintenance February 20, 2014 at 11:13pm

  Hi Phil
  Thanks
  So, If I visit the 16 properties over two days and the total hours in the van is 3.5 x 2 men at £10 per hour =£70 man time plus £25 fuel =£95 cost
  Should I just devide that by 16 and add the cost to each property. £5.93 per house.
  The house which is 50 miles away from base could not be given a much higher cost?
  Thanks again for your input.
• PRO

  Phil Voice February 21, 2014 at 8:52am

  Yes, the way you've worked it out turns your overhead cost into a direct cost so you now know what it's costing YOU to travel.

  But for you, the time your employees spend in vans has to be charged to your clients at your normal rate. You have to add your fuel cost to your normal chargeout rate and divide by the sixteen properties.
• PRO

  Gary RK February 21, 2014 at 9:55am

  This thread may also be useful as we were discussing recovering direct and non direct costs (mainly relating to machinery, but still valid):http://www.landscapejuicenetwork.com/group/the-hub/forum/topics/get...

  For contract work, we tend to recover as a general overhead (after working out likely yearly travelling costs - windscreen time can be a killer...)

  For one-off/specific/additional jobs, we tend to recover as a direct cost.
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  Graeme @ BGS February 21, 2014 at 11:13am

  My concern would be what happens if at some point you lost the 15 other propeties and only had to service the one 50 miles away? Logic would suggest ditching the property but sometimes that isn't always possible due to contractual issues etc.

  Assuming you are quoting a fixed price, £5.93 travel expenses for that one property would be a big hit - maybe prudent to build in an average travel expense per house and and state in the contract that the prices are based on servicing all properties and an additional service charge will be applied if applicable should the number of clients propeties being service reduce?
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  Brendan McHale February 23, 2014 at 7:47pm

  as people seem to get anal about costings your missing van/public/employers insurance, road tax and wear and tear of van
  could you not base each property at a milage cost and discount the others for being on the same round?
  that way if you lose a property the expenses are still covered by the price
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  Exeter garden maintenance February 23, 2014 at 10:32pm

  Thanks guys. I do appreciate your input.
  Hi Brendan. Thanks for your reply but Im not sure what you mean.
  At this stage Im looking at 20 plus houses. I have to quote as though I will get them all. The distance from property A to B might be 15 miles but then B to C maybe 5 miles and property C to D and E only 2 miles.
  Graeme said:
  My concern would be what happens if at some point you lost the 15 other propeties and only had to service the one 50 miles away? Logic would suggest ditching the property but sometimes that isn't always possible due to contractual issues etc.

  Assuming you are quoting a fixed price, £5.93 travel expenses for that one property would be a big hit - maybe prudent to build in an average travel expense per house and and state in the contract that the prices are based on servicing all properties and an additional service charge will be applied if applicable should the number of clients propeties being service reduce?

  Maybe this is the best way. Quote maybe £6-£8 per property and write in the SLA contract that this is subject to change dependant on the amount of propeties awarded to me.!
• PRO

  Tony Goodridge February 28, 2014 at 6:50pm

  I have similar issues as we are based in the country in the middle of nowhere so travel time is a big issue in my pricing. My advice to you would be to write a statement in your quote to say something along the lines of "this quote is based on the assumption that we will be maintaining all of the stated properties. If we are unsuccessful with some of the properties the price will have to increase due to keep the contract viable. I conceed that this may be an issue but it's worth considering something like this. I hope I've made sense.!