LK, maybe I am confused by your post.
How can losses add up?
If you consider how many man hours it takes and charge your rate, then figure out material costs plus 35%. How do you lose?
30-35% markup on materials is the norm.
If you forget to stock your truck, you have to move pipe around three or four times, or you forget to add hours for stuff, then yes the losses will add up. However this has nothing to do with picking an off the wall figure. This has to do with management and organization.
In fact this type of T&M work is much simpler to use than any of those flat rate systems out there. As for losses, you can lose on either system.
Dnk...
