Help with costs

[radu33]

Sorry if this is not the appropriate place for this kind of question. So I'm a newcomer/hire in a printing company, tasked with the creation of price offers for various clients (no previous experience); While I've been learning to use the software the company is using, I wanted to go deeper into the topic of how operators are actually calculating printing costs and come up with prices for various jobs; do you know of any forum posts, books, online courses, articles whatever that would help me learn more the topic?

 

[Magnus59]

Sorry if this is not the appropriate place for this kind of question. So I'm a newcomer/hire in a printing company, tasked with the creation of price offers for various clients (no previous experience); While I've been learning to use the software the company is using, I wanted to go deeper into the topic of how operators are actually calculating printing costs and come up with prices for various jobs; do you know of any forum posts, books, online courses, articles whatever that would help me learn more the topic?

https://www.amazon.com/Printing-Estimating-Costing-Pricing-Digital/dp/0883626217

 

[Ynot_UK]

Another way to come about this, if are you competent on Excel...
What we do - maintain an Excel sheet listing all your substrates, pack sizes, current cost pricing, etc.
Then when quoting a job, apply a desired target % margin to the various costs elements (in our case, design, production, packaging, fulfilment)
Doing this will ensure absolutely everything touched and used is included, we also factor in a wastage % on certain processes, e.g. 5% of film length on laminating.
Not taking anything away from the study angle and I'm sure there's loads of good books on the subject, however working the detail of the numbers with your own jobs in your shop keeps it very real and you'll focus on aspects that may otherwise get overlooked (e.g. not charging for banding film, packaging tape, labels, etc.)