Customers have reported reasons to change labor rates ranging from examples like "RSMeans carpenter rate of $36.70 is more than the $25.00 we pay our carpenters. How can we change the rate?" to "RSMeans assumes that the installing contractor has annual billing of $4,000,000 and up. We only have billings of $1,500,000. How can I change the carpenter's overhead and profit markup from 55.7% to 45.0% to reflect my markup percentage?"

RSMeans provides the ability within this product to maintain your own custom cost book(s) and change prices within it. We provide security that allows only those end-users designated by the customer with administrative privileges to make changes to the custom cost book(s). However, any end-user regardless of privileges can view and use the contents of the custom cost book(s) for their estimating needs.

The other point to make is that end-users can continue to make changes to single items or groups of items in the estimate without disturbing prices in the custom cost book(s). Conversely, changes made to a custom cost book will not affect existing estimates unless the end-user elects to update the estimate with the most recent prices from a custom cost book. New estimates can be created using a custom cost book, RSMeans cost book, or mix and match between them. The rest of this article gives examples of how to change labor rates or use the changed labor rate when estimating.

1.0 Change Labor Rate Example - The steps below will show you how to change a Labor Rate - in this example we change a Carpenter rate - but you can change any one of the 46 different RSMeans Labor Rates.

1.1 Click My Company tab - Start off by clicking the My Company tab to reach the Manage Customer Account page

1.2 Click Customization link - Within the My Company page click the Customization option to go to the Custom Cost Book(s) screen. The Customization link is for administrator use only.

1.3 Select Custom Cost Book - Customization tools include the ability to: Add Custom Cost Books, Add User-Defined Cost Lines, and Create Custom Labor Rates, Equipment Rates or Markups. Click the Edit button on the Custom Commercial New Construction cost book for "Year 2007 Quarter 3" to create a custom Labor Rate.

1.4 Edit Labor Rate - Change the hourly Carpenter Rate from $36.70 to $25.00 and the Overhead & Profit Markup from 55.70% to 45.00%.

1.5 Click Save Button - Click the Save button to save you new labor rate.

At this point you have created a new Carpenter labor rate that is used within the Custom Commercial New Construction cost book to re-calculate any cost line containing this "CARP" labor rate. To undo this new labor rate you can just blank out the $25.00 and 55.70% amounts on the Labor rate screen and hit the Save button.

2.0 Use New Labor Rate Example - The steps below will show you how to use the custom Labor Rate you just created in a cost estimate.

2.1 Click New Estimate option on the My Home page - Click the link labeled "New Estimate" on the My Home page. Fill out the Preference Page keeping in mind to set the Cost Book preference to "Commercial New Construction" and the Labor Type preference to "Standard Union" and the Data Release preference to the latest quarter (e.g., "Year 2007 Quarter 3" is used in this example). Click the Next button to go to the My Estimate screen. You may want to hide the MasterFormat tree to open up more space on your My Estimate screen for steps 2.2 and 2.3 below.

2.2 Use RSMeans price - Make sure the Commercial New Construction cost book is open. Enter the MasterFormat 2004 line number "092613206000" in the Line Number text box field on the My Estimate screen. Click the Search button to retrieve this line item. Check off this line number within the Search Results pane on the screen to add it to the Estimate Worksheet . Place a quantity of 100 in Quantity column of the the Estimate Worksheet and hit the Save button. Notice that the additive RSMeans price to install 100 S.F. of Blueboard for a high ceiling over 8' using 2 Carpenters is $19.00 and $30.00 respectively.

2.3 Use your Custom price - The first thing you need to do on the My Estimate screen is change the Cost Book pull-down value to "Custom Commercial New Construction" then click on the Go Button to open the Custom cost book. You have just change from using the RSMeans to the custom cost book whenever you add cost lines to your estimate worksheet. Make sure the Labor Type pull-down value is "Standard Union" and the Data Release value is "Year 2007 Quarter 3".

Re-enter the MasterFormat 2004 line number "092613206000" in the Line Number text box field on the My Estimate screen. Click the Search Button to retrieve this custom line item. You will notice that the line item number "092613206000" has a "C" suffix after the line item number to indicate that the original RSMeans price has been changed.

Check off the "092613206000" line number within the Search Results pane. Click the Add Button to insert the custom line item on the Estimate Worksheet. Place a quantity of 100 in Quantity column of the the Estimate Worksheet and hit the Save button.

You can see on the Estimate Worksheet that the custom cost line (e.g.,"C") price has been reduced to $13.00 and $19.00. The original RSMeans cost line price of $19.00 and $30.00 has been reduced by -$6.00 and -$11.00 as a result of using your Carpenter rate of $25.00 versus RSMeans $36.70 and reducing your Overhead Profit Markup percentage to 45.0%.

We hope you will try this powerful feature to help you generate more accurate estimates.