Markups

The Bill of Quantities holds cost. Markups turn cost into the price you quote. Keeping the two apart is what lets you change your margin without touching a single rate.

Markups are set per estimate: open it on the Estimates tab and go to Price and contract, with the estimate you want open.

Overheads and margin, set once and applied down the estimate.

The two methods

Each markup is one of:

Method	What it does	Typical use
Percentage of the costs	Adds a percentage of what the job costs you	Overheads, margin
Fixed amount	Adds a flat dollar amount, ex GST	A one-off allowance or fee

Each markup has a switch. Switch one off to leave it out of the price without deleting it — handy for trying the price with and without a contingency.

Add creates a markup; the ⋮ menu has Copy from another estimate (add them to what is there, or replace it) and Delete all markups.

Worked example

The Hendricks extension comes out at $182,400 of cost in the BOQ. You want overheads and margin on top, plus a fixed allowance for the council bond.

Markup	Method	Value	Adds
Overheads	Percentage of the costs	8%	$14,592
Margin	Percentage of the costs	12%	$21,888
Council bond	Fixed amount	$2,500	$2,500

Cost $182,400 + $38,980 = $221,380 before GST.

Change the margin line to 14% and every number moves at once. You have not touched a rate, and the cost side of the estimate is still an honest record of what the job costs you.

How a fixed amount is worked out

A fixed amount is added to the price exactly as you typed it, ex GST. Behind the scenes SmarteBuild also spreads it across the items that take the estimate’s markups, in proportion to their cost, so each item’s sell price carries its share — but the shares always add back up to the amount you typed, however the items change.

Its GST follows the items it is spread over: if some of them are GST-free, that part of the fixed amount carries no GST either.

If you see a red note under the markups

SmarteBuild used to work a fixed amount out as a percentage of the estimate’s total as it was last saved, so after items changed it could land a little more or less than typed. If the markups table ever shows a red note saying a fixed amount does not reach the price in full, the database update that fixes this has not been applied to your server yet — contact support.

Item markup

Individual BOQ items can carry their own Item Markup. An item with its own markup takes only that markup — the estimate’s markups, fixed amounts included, are not added to it. Use it sparingly: for a trade you price differently from the rest of the job, or a supply-only item you do not want full margin on.

When any items have their own markup, the calculation shows them on a line of their own, so the lines still add up to the price.

Reading the calculation

Under the markups table, the calculation builds the price line by line:

Line	What it is
Costs	What the job costs you, from the BOQ
Markups	What the estimate’s markups add
Items with their own markup	Only shown when there are some
Costs with markups (ex GST)	The price before GST
GST	Worked out item by item — GST-free items carry none, so it is not always exactly 10%
Price inc GST	The built-up price
Contract price on the estimate	What you typed on the estimate, and how far it is from the built-up price

The Metrics panel on the Estimates tab then shows how the contract price, the budget and the cost codes combine into your margin — the quickest sanity check on an estimate.

Where markups go next

Once the job is won, the contract price you agreed becomes the figure that progress claims measure against, and the difference between committed cost and the marked-up sell price is what the estimate metrics track as the job runs.