Since the percentage of hours an installer’s hours that can be billed is a critical factor in determining profitability I would be interested anyone’s thoughts about it. Does anyone else adjust bids based on the percentage of billable and non billable hours for the job in question. For example if we have a job that will keep a crew busy full time for 3 days, our hourly bill rate will be lower than for a one hour service call which really ties up a crew or tech for 2 hours (drive time, talking to the customer, etc.) Second, is anyone willing to share information about what the industry average is for “percent billable hours” for different types of shops. My supplier says he saw a study once that claimed that the average time an electrician spent actually installing parts was about 40%. We are a service shop and we net out at about 60% and are always looking for ways to improve it. Is there any way I can get an idea of how we compare to others? Many Thanks.
