What is the best way to track costs for cabinet installation?
Cabinet installation has cost tracking needs that differ from other trades. The cabinets themselves often represent 50-70% of the job cost, which means you need to separate material costs from install labor to see where your margin actually comes from.
Start by creating cost categories that match how you estimate jobs. Most cabinet installers should track at minimum cabinet cost, hardware, fillers and trim pieces, labor hours, and miscellaneous supplies like shims and screws. Every job gets all these categories whether you use them or not. When you quote a kitchen, you estimate each of these. When you complete the job, you need actuals in the same categories to see where you hit your numbers and where you missed.
Track labor hours from the first site visit. The template and measure appointment costs you time and gas. Pickup or delivery coordination costs time. Unloading and staging costs time. Then the install itself. Then the punch walk. Add it all up and compare to what you estimated. Most cabinet installers underestimate total labor because they only think about the install day, not everything around it.
Material tracking starts with your purchase orders or supplier invoices. If you order cabinets for a job, that PO amount goes to that job’s cabinet cost immediately as a committed cost. Hardware and trim pieces often get purchased from multiple suppliers or added mid-job. Capture all of it or your job cost report is incomplete.
Compare actual to estimate while the job is fresh. Waiting until month-end means you’ve done three more kitchens and can’t remember why that one bathroom ran over. A quick review after each job takes ten minutes and tells you whether your pricing is accurate.
The goal is knowing your gross profit per job. If you bid a $12,000 kitchen install with $7,500 in cabinets, $600 in hardware, and 16 labor hours at $50 per hour loaded cost, you estimated $1,100 in profit. Did you actually get it? If the install took 22 hours and you threw in extra filler pieces, you might have made $300. Knowing that changes how you bid the next one.
Construction job costing works the same for cabinet installers as it does for general contractors. The categories mirror your estimates, purchase orders get assigned to jobs automatically, and you see actual versus budget without chasing spreadsheets. A construction bookkeeper in American Fork can configure QuickBooks to match how you actually run your business. When you know which job types make money and which ones erode your margin, you start saying yes to the right work and pricing the difficult jobs appropriately.
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