What is a calculated quotation?

Calculating a quotation means that you do not estimate the price of a job, you build it up. That happens in four steps:

1. Map out all your costs. For each quotation line you list what the work really costs you: material, Labor (hours × hourly cost), equipment and subcontracting.
2. Apply margins. On top of that cost price you put a margin — per line or per cost type, chosen deliberately instead of "roughly".
3. Apply indirect costs. Indirect costs (also called general costs) are an extra percentage you charge in order to recover costs that do not arise on site: your office, administrative staff, investments, and so on.
4. Add the costs to be distributed. Costs that do belong to the project but cannot be assigned to a single quotation line (site set-up, travel, and so on) are spread across the quotation lines, so that they are covered as well.

As a guideline for your indirect costs percentage — this mainly varies with the size of your organisation:

A quotation in which that build-up sits behind every quotation line is what we call a calculated quotation in Robaws. The result is a selling price of which you know exactly how it is built up — and therefore also where you can come down in order to win a job, and where you cannot.

Why calculate a quotation?

Quite a few construction companies still do not draw up calculated quotations today. The reasons are familiar:

• Experience as a price list: the owner or estimator knows that € X is a good price for that job. And often that is correct.
• It always went well: enough was earned, so the need to calculate in more detail never arose.
• The knowledge sits in one head: the build-up of the price does exist, but only in the head of that one person.

That approach worked for a long time. But the circumstances have changed:

• Margins are under pressure. Where the price used to contain some reserve, that buffer is often gone today.
• A single bad project can eat up your annual profit. If you only see at the final account that a site was loss-making, you are too late.
• Material prices fluctuate heavily. A price "from experience" is based on the material cost of back then — not on today's.
• The knowledge has to be transferable. If your estimator is out for a month, or you want to grow with extra estimators, the pricing logic has to sit in a system, not in someone's head.

What a calculated quotation gives you

1. You see where your margin really is

In a calculated quotation you know the cost price, the margin and the selling price of every line. The "Overview" tab immediately shows you the breakdown per cost type (Labor, Material, Equipment, Subcontracting) and per activity. That way you see, before you send the quotation, where you earn, where you are cutting it fine — and where you are shooting yourself in the foot.

2. You get a budget per project

If you win the job, your calculation automatically becomes the budget of the project: per activity (budget code) and per cost type you see predicted against actual. Hours from the work orders, incoming invoices and supply orders are set off against it — that is your recalculation. That way you already know during the works whether you are on schedule, instead of only months later.

3. From material list to supply order in a few clicks

Because your substructure contains all the materials you need, you immediately have a complete material list. From it you create your supply orders with your suppliers directly — without typing everything out again, and without forgotten posts.

4. Faster and more consistent quoting

With posts you build up your knowledge once and reuse it in every quotation. Every estimator in your organisation then calculates with the same substructure — the price no longer depends on who happens to draw up the quotation.

5. A system that learns along with your organisation

A construction project is sensitive to dozens of variables: the weather, the location, how easy the site is to reach, and so on. They can all eat into your margin. And often you could have taken them into account — with hindsight.

An example: you lose a lot of time in a building because there is only one lift, which is also occupied a lot of the time. You see that loss in your recalculation. In Robaws you then capture that experience as a parameter in your post: a question "easy access to the floor?" that automatically adds extra hours when the answer is "no". For the next quotation for a similar building, your post asks that question — and the cost is included.

That is how you build a self-correcting, learning calculation system: every bad experience becomes a rule that protects your margin, instead of an anecdote in the head of one person.

How do you get started?

1. In Robaws you can draw up a quotation in two ways: simple (you only fill in the selling price) or calculated. When you create your quotation (template), choose calculated — a simple quotation cannot be converted afterwards. More about this in the difference between a simple and a calculated quotation.
2. Start small: you do not have to calculate every line down to the last bolt. Start with your most important posts and refine as you go.
3. Follow the steps in Drawing up a quotation: step by step and then build your first smart post with parameters.

Updated on: 04/09/2026