If your charge-out rate is built on what you charged five years ago, you're not recovering labour cost. You're absorbing it. Here's how to fix that, properly.
Labour is the largest controllable cost in every electrical business. It is also the easiest one to under-recover.
Recovery isn't about charging more for the sake of it. It's about making sure every billable hour covers your real cost-to-operate plus the margin your business needs to survive.
Every cost in your business (wages, super, vehicle, insurance, software, overhead) has to come back through your rate. Most sparkies have never sat down and worked out the real number. The Electrical Estimating Course walks you through it.
Cost is what you need to survive. Margin is what makes the business grow. Two different jobs. The course covers both.
Costs change. Your rate has to change with them. Quarterly is enough; annually is too slow.
See it in TradieTally →TradieTally Business Brain shows whether you're actually recovering at the rate you set, before the year ends, not after.
See it in TradieTally →Quarterly is the sweet spot. Annually is too slow. Costs drift. Monthly is overkill unless something significant has changed.
Competitor pricing is irrelevant to your cost recovery. If you can't recover your costs, you don't have a business. If competitors are charging less, they're either bigger, sub-contracting, or going broke quietly.
Start the trial, take the course, or do both. The maths doesn't change either way.
