Quick Bid offers a variety of ways to adjust labor. Labor may be adjusted directly at the Condition Detail Area and may be viewed simultaneously by unit price, production, piece count, time or total money for a given Item. Production and time may be viewed either by the day or by the hour. Production quantities may be modified by entering a percentage of the labor’s default rate. These controls are displayed within the Detail Area. However, labor adjustments can only be entered for one line item at a time.
It is important to know that adjusting production in the Detail Area or Labor Adjust dialog will not affect other conditions in the bid. In order to affect Labor for other conditions, you must go to the Labor tab.
Adjust Production at the Detail Area
When a Labor Item is entered into the condition grid, labor values are automatically displayed. These values are generated on how the Master Item is setup. You may click any labor value and change it directly at the condition Detail Area. Depending on your preference, you may view labor in terms of money, production, or time, but since all these views are inter-related, modifying one value changes the others for the highlighted Item. All of the calculations for labor are based upon the quantity shown for the Item being adjusted. If a material or Labor Item defaults to one, two, or even four layers, Quick Bid still applies the labor to the quantity. The same principle applies to quantities that are entered directly. So time and money are the direct result of production or unit pricing applied to the Item Quantity.
To illustrate this, create a test Condition with a quantity of 100 LF and assign a height of 10’-0”. Enter the Code R1124UFB. This Item defaults with 1 layer and displays a quantity of 1000SF (100 LF X 10’-0 = 1,000 SF). The unit price or the production is used to calculate time and total money and are all based on the quantity of 1000 SF. If the layer entry is changed to 2 layers, the quantity becomes 2000 SF, but the unit labor price and production values remain the same. Only time and total labor money are doubled because the quantity doubled. Production doesn't change when the Quantity is modified, only the amount of labor required is changed.
The % Base column allows you to modify labor production with a percentage entry. As a Labor Item is entered into the Condition Detail grid, the labor values are displayed with their default production settings and this represents 100% of your Base default production rate. Entering a new percentage changes the production rate and subsequently the unit cost and total money. If you want to increase your production rate by 20%, enter 120 at the % Base column. This will be flagged in red to indicate you have exceeded you standard default production rate. When you increase production, your unit price is inversely reduced (you are getting MORE of something done in the same amount of time). If you want to reduce production by 25%, enter 75% as your base rate. Quick Bid will flag any percentage that is under 100% in blue. As the production percentage (rate) is reduced, your cost is increased (you are getting LESS done in the same amount of time).
You may toggle your production view from days to hours by clicking the column headers Qty/Day, Pcs/Day and Crew/days.
Labor Production for material Items that have been assigned sizes can be viewed in the Pcs/Day column. The number of pieces shown in this column is directly related to the Size Lookup column. For example, if a material size is showing 4 X 8 and the Pcs/Day is 20, Quick Bid will show 640 in the Quantity/Day column. Total Labor and time is then calculated by dividing Item material quantity by 640 SF.
The pieces represented in the Pcs/Day column are full sized materials as described in the Size column. So Labor is computed on the full size of the material as illustrated in the above example. In some conditions, Labor can be distorted when production by the piece is based upon full sizes. For example, framing the vertical plane of a soffit that measures 3’-0” high will cause Quick Bid to select a 9’-0” stud length as displayed in the Size column. If you apply Labor by the LF of material (Item codes that begin with the width of the stud), the production shown in the Pcs/Day column will be based on 9’-0” lengths rather that 3’-0” lengths. The discrepancy occurs because the Labor is not applied to the cut length.
If you prefer to apply labor production based upon the cut size (actual installed size), place your mouse in the Pcs/Day column, right-click and select View as Cut Size from the menu. Now the formula for calculating the production in pieces is modified to ignore the Size column and uses the Height column to determine the length of each piece (size). In the above example, your labor per piece will now be based upon a 3' length rather that the 9’ length specified in the Size column.
Another example would be a Drywall Contractor applying a top-out routine to a deck high wall 13 FT high. If the height of the top-out above the ceiling were 3' in length, applying labor by the piece to wallboard would be based upon a piece 3’ high X 4” wide. When View as Cut Size is turned on, the number of pieces shown is still determined by the Quantity default from the Item record and since both production columns are linked together, changing Pcs/Day modifies Quan/Day and vice versa.
There are circumstances when you may want to adjust labor for the whole condition or multiple items rather than adjust individual labor Items. Quick Bid offers an alternate method for modifying labor through the Labor Adjust button. Here, Labor is extracted from a different set of factors and the values displayed can be different from those shown at the Condition Detail.
The Labor Adjust feature allows you to modify the labor on more than one Item Detail using a single entry. This feature offers several controls that are different from those available at the Condition Detail Area. The most important difference is that labor is factored by the Condition Detail quantity and not the Labor Item quantity. This type of calculation allows you to view production for a specific Labor Cost Code that may be tied to one or more materials or labor actives, but more importantly, it allows you to adjust all the labor for the entire condition with one entry.
At the Labor Adjust window, labor is displayed in crew time, production (LF, SF and SY), unit price and total money. These views are controlled by the Items to Use filter and the Height to Use filter.
The Labor Adjust feature is intended for use after all the Items are entered into the Condition.
Using the same test condition described in the previous topic, click the Labor Adjust button. Notice the Items to Use filter displays Selected Labor Items and the Height to Use filter displays the height you assigned to the Condition Detail.
Modifying one labor value in this dialog will update all the others. Time is represented in days plus hours. Entering 20 hours will be reported as 2 days + 4 hours (based on an 8 hour work day). Both daily and hourly production values are shown simultaneously.
The information displayed is based on time and money. Quick Bid calculates the Total Hours value by adding up the hours of each labor Item. The Labor Production is then computed by taking the Condition Quantity and dividing it by the Total Hours.
Because of this calculation method, it is recommended that you not use Labor Adjust for single materials that have more than one layer.
You can use the Items to Use filter in two ways:
You can modify Labor for one or more material Items (that include labor) by simply highlighting the material Items at the condition grid. To highlight more that one Item, press the keyboard Ctrl key and then click the desired Items. Click the Labor Adjust button. Notice Selected Labor Items is shown in the Items to Use filter.
You can adjust Labor for the entire condition. Simply open the Labor Adjust window at any time without highlighting any of the material Items. At the Items to Use filter, select All Labor Items. Now, any adjustments to time, production or money will be applied across the whole condition. These factors will be modified proportionally with the same percentage of change applied to each labor line. For example, consider furnishing and installing a door. At the Condition, enter the Material Items, door frame, extra studs, door slab and hardware. After all materials are entered into the condition grid, click the Labor Adjust, select All Labor Items and apply three hours. A total of three hours will be applied proportionally to each of the Items that have labor associated with them.
Conversely, the Height to Use filter allows you to modify labor for all Items of a specific height.