Building Quotes — Fast, Accurate, Professional

How to Price Structural Timbers and Steel Beams

Always use current supplier pricing for structural members; never guess from a previous job. The cost of LVL beams, posi-struts, and universal beams can shift weekly. A quote that sits with a client for 30 days can become unprofitable if steel prices jump. For example, a 200UB22 universal beam from a supplier like OneSteel might be $60 per metre one month and $68 the next. The same applies to engineered timber. Always check the latest price list from Dahlsens or ITI Australia before finalising the quote.

Structuring Progress Claims for Extensions and Renovations

Break your payment schedule into key construction milestones, not arbitrary dates. This links your cash flow directly to project progress. A typical structure for a major reno is: 5% deposit, 25% at base stage completion, 30% at frame stage, 25% at lock-up, and the final 15% at practical completion. QuoteMate's staged invoicing feature lets you build this schedule into the initial quote, so both you and the client know when payments are due. This method is compliant with most state-based Domestic Building Contracts Acts, which cap deposits at 5-10%.

Factoring in Preliminaries and Material Wastage

List preliminary and site costs as a separate section on your quote, not buried in your margin. This includes temp fencing hire from a company like Coates, site toilet hire, skip bins, and sediment control as required by council. These are real costs, not overhead. For materials, always add a wastage factor. On a standard 2.4m ceiling job, you’ll lose timber on stud offcuts. For plasterboard, you should factor in at least 10% wastage for a complex room layout. Forgetting this on a whole-house job can easily cost you a thousand dollars in unbilled CSR Gyprock sheets.

Manage Every Builder Job From Inquiry to Paid

Quoting is only half the work. QuoteMate tracks every building job through a 9-stage pipeline — inquiry, quoted, accepted, scheduled, in progress, completed, paid, closed, or cancelled — with timestamps stamped automatically so you can see where every dollar is sitting and where the bottleneck is. Schedule jobs in two taps with Google Calendar sync, snap and annotate on-site photos against the job (not lost in your camera roll), keep a brain-dump checklist of materials and to-dos for the day, and chase quotes automatically if a customer goes quiet.

See how builders run jobs in QuoteMate →