What do you think a good definition of t&m would be. break it down.
?

coming and going? one way?
trips to the parts store?
starts when you get on the job..ends when you leave?
time on your bill?

need a little thought..looking for yours..

Old boss thought of bids and estimates this way.... As if you were doing it T&M. Your rate, (Covering overhead and profit on labor) which started as soon as you were producing for the job. i.e. picking up material, getting there, doing the work, and even finishing the paperwork for billing. Plus material, and it's mark-up (covering overhead and profit on it).

So his philosophy was this, which later became mine.
Bid=Estimate Estimate synomomous with T&M
T&M = All of your Time + All of the Material = Total billable dollar amount.
The only thing setting a bid apart, was that it was negotiable to a degree.
With T&M, the terms should have been discussed and were negotiated when the contract was signed to do the work. For a comfort level, you could have even added a cap not to exceed.

Really depends on how you've built your rates and mark-up. If you dont bill for sale of the job, travel time that you may be paying someone to do, or billing, then you need to increase your rates to accomadate that loss to yourself. Likewise if you're not billing for time at the supply house, or travel to and from it, you need to raise your mark-up to accomadate that. And those things become part of your overhead. Oh, and permit fees work the same way...

Customers often fear T&M is your Time & thier Money... It is.... Even Lawyers, who may even bill time just daydreaming, and they don't have any problem doing so.

T&M
Coming and going.
Trips for material.
Starts when you leave shop, ends when you
retutn.
Billing time, is part of the job.

I had a boss, that din't pay his men, for their time, going to, and from the jobs, he had to pay big bucks, for back pay, so be careful on this issue, and his insurance dropped him, because, with commercial insurance, the employees workers comp coveres medical, in case of an accident.

T&M is a good way to scare a customer, it leaves them in stress, and when you give them a not to exceed figure, you just saying, here is a not to exceed figure, and i don't care if i make a profit or not.




[This message has been edited by LK (edited 03-21-2006).]