Related to the topic of mark up, I am curious as to what extent business owners are charging for equipment. Example: you rent equipment, lift, pullers ect., would you mark up the equipment same as you would job material?
What if you eventually buy the equipment? Does the cost of that increase your hourly rate, or do you charge for that equipment like you are renting it?
we charge out equipment separately. We simply take the monthly cost, determine how many hours/days we can expect to use it, mark it up (still gonna pay taxes on this income) and bill the customer accordingly.
We will sometimes add it in to a flat rate price (but take the same items into account)
Rent or own, basically same deal....charged out as a rental including any additional costs such as transportation costs/handeling costs - which can be higher on a rental (say a JLG boom lift) because they transport it for additional fees and you will have time lost as your men hurry to prep the thing for return so you don't pay for another day (vs. we own it, just park it over there for now).
We mark up all rental equipment just a though it was material used on the job. You still have costs associated with renting equipment. Generally you have 30 days to pay for it, and I'm betting most don't get paid by the customer for 45 days or more. There is virtually nothing we do as EC's that we can just pass along w/o mark up. (at least that I have found)
