How Small Joinery Shops Lose Money on Quoting

The problem isn't the work — it's the quote

Most joinery businesses that are struggling aren't struggling because the quality of their work is poor. They're struggling because jobs are consistently priced below what they actually cost. The gap between estimated and actual cost is where margin goes missing.

Mistake 1: Using markup instead of margin

If you quote by adding 30% to your cost, your gross margin is actually 23.1%. On a $50,000 month of billings, that's a $3,500 gap between what you expected and what you earned. Applied consistently over a year: $42,000 in missed margin from one formula error.

Mistake 2: Estimating from memory, not invoices

Material costs estimated from memory rather than current supplier pricing drift over time. A 10% material cost increase over 12 months that isn't captured in quotes means you're absorbing the inflation rather than passing it on.

Mistake 3: Omitting overhead allocation

Direct labour and materials are visible. Workshop rent, electricity, equipment repayments, insurance, software — these are invisible in most job estimates. They're real costs. If they're not in the quote, they're in the margin.

Mistake 4: Not issuing variations

Scope creep is perhaps the most expensive single habit in joinery. The cost of doing extra work without a signed variation isn't just the cost of that work — it's the negotiation time, the relationship stress, and the precedent it sets. Every job where variations aren't issued teaches the client that extra work is free.

Mistake 5: No job costing

If you don't know what a job actually cost, you can't learn from it. Job costing takes 15 minutes per job and builds the database that makes every future estimate more accurate. After 20 costed jobs, your estimates will be materially better than they are today.