Most joinery businesses don't know if a job was profitable until months later. Job costing gives you the answer within days of finishing.
Job costing means tracking what a job actually cost — materials, labour, hardware, subcontractors — and comparing it to what you quoted. The gap between the two is the difference between estimated margin and actual margin.
The honest reason is time. After a job finishes, the next one is already on the bench. A fifteen-minute costing recap at job completion doesn't feel urgent. But it's the single most effective thing a workshop owner can do to improve pricing accuracy over time.
At minimum: materials cost (actual invoices, not estimates), labour hours (actual vs quoted), hardware, and any subcontractor costs. Compare to your original quote. Calculate actual gross margin.
After 20–30 costed jobs, patterns emerge. You'll see which job types consistently run over on labour. Which material calls are closest to reality. Which clients generate variations that eat margin. This is the data that makes your next round of quotes more accurate — not gut feel.
Get this principle applied to your local market — wages, currency and benchmarks.
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