How We Price Jobs

A significant amount of our projects are negotiated in an “open-book fashion” with our clients, which affords us the opportunity to bring “value add” to the process. While we are capable of working with a number of contract formats to accommodate our clients, we often find that they prefer to work within an “open-book format”.  What exactly is an “open-book format”?  It refers to a format in which all costs for materials, equipment, labor, and subcontractors are transparent to both the contractor and the client. Our fees for supervision, overhead and profit are negotiated; however, the actual costs of construction are always available and known. This format, in particular, allows the client to have extensive input into the developed cost of the project, and allows us the opportunity to suggest “value-added options” to the process to maximize the client’s investment dollar. Furthermore, it simplifies the negotiation process and adds an additional layer of cost control which enures to the benefit of the client. Providing preliminary pricing exercises for proposed projects is something we do constantly. Clients have engaged us specifically for preliminary pricing efforts, with the intention of hiring us for the construction of the project when its time.