Your cost, your profit and what the customer pays

Most tradies know what a thing costs them and what they want on top. Typing the customer's price by hand every time is where profit quietly leaks. In Karven you type your cost and let your profit % do the rest.

One rule for every line

• The price box on a line is your cost, per unit. That's what Karven's suggestions and My items show too ("Your cost $150", or "Starting cost" for your trade's common items).
• Your profit % (beside the total) goes on top of every line for the customer. A $150 cost at 20% is $180 to the customer.
• Each line shows what the customer pays for it, with your cost under it in green. The part's Customer price above is the same numbers added up.

If your profit % is 0, your cost and the customer's price are the same number, and Karven just calls it the price.

A different % on one line

Open the line's options (the ⋯ button at the end of the row). Under Profit on this line, type a % to use instead of the quote's for that line only, say 30% on materials when the quote is 20%. The line then shows "this line: +30%". Leave it blank to use the quote's %.

Lines made before this change that used Cost + Markup in that menu keep their price. The menu says they were priced the old way, and Clear the old cost turns the price box into the cost with 0% on top, so nothing the customer pays changes.

Your profit

Karven adds up the difference between your costs and what the customer pays across the quote and shows it as your profit, in dollars and as a %, in green beside the total. Only you see it.

What the customer never sees

Your cost and profit are yours only. They never appear on the customer's quote page, whatever you've set the Customer sees setting to. On a full breakdown the customer sees each line as quantity times their price ("6 × $180.00") and the line total, nothing behind it.

Where your costs come from

As you type a line, Karven suggests items from My items: your saved items, past quotes, templates and supplier prices, then your trade's common items, then other trades' items ("from Plumbing & gas"). One letter is enough. Pick one and the name and cost fill in. Nothing matches? Keep typing and the line is your own.

For how much to put on materials in the first place, see material markup explained.

For your own time, work out what an hour has to cost the customer with the free charge-out rate calculator: your pay, super, ute, insurance and the hours nobody pays for, with your profit on top.