Add Pay Items in Contractor Estimate Pro: Crews, Materials, Subs and Misc Lines
A pay item is one line of your bid: what the work is, how much of it, and what it costs you to do it. You don't type a price. You put the crews, materials, subs and fees on the line, and the app figures the cost, adds your markups and gives you the unit price.
In this guide we build one pay item from our running example, City Parking Lot - Lot 89 Improvements: 6 - Aggregate Base, 6", 8900 SY. It has a crew that spreads and compacts the gravel, and the gravel itself, trucked in with our own trucks.
What you'll need
An estimate with its markups and Material Sales Tax set (Create an estimate)
Your libraries and crews set up (Build your libraries, Make crew templates)
The quantities for the job from your takeoff, like the square yards to pave and the tons of gravel to bring in
About the numbers in this guide: every rate, price and quantity below is an example number from our sitework bid. The customer is made up. Use your own.
Adding and editing pay items needs the Pro subscription, the same as creating an estimate.
What goes on a pay item
A pay item has four kinds of cost:
Crews: your people and machines, priced by the hour. The production rate figures the hours.
Materials: priced per unit from your Materials library, with the estimate's sales tax. You can add trucking and a delivery fee.
Subcontracted Tasks: a sub's price for part or all of the work.
Misc. Plugs/Fees/Permits: one-off costs like a permit, a fee or a plug number, with a quantity, units and a unit price.
Use any mix. Our aggregate base uses a crew and a material.
Step 1: Tap the blue + to add a pay item
Open the estimate. On its pay item list, tap the blue + button at the bottom right.
Step 2: Fill in the number, description, quantity and units
At the top of the pay item screen, fill in:
Item Number: the line number on the bid. For our example: 6.
Description: what the customer will read on the PDF. For our example: Aggregate Base, 6".
Quantity and Units: how much work, in the units you bid it in. For our example: 8900 and SY. Pick the units from the list.
The quantity and units are what the customer sees. The unit price is figured from them.
Step 3: Add a crew
In the Crews section, tap + Add Crew and pick a crew template. For our example: Aggregate Spreading.
Resource — Count — Rate
Operator — 2 — $120.00/hr ($60.00 each)
Dozer — 1 — $130.00/hr
Single Drum Compactor — 1 — $75.00/hr
Hourly Rate — $325.00/hr
The crew's production rate is 90 TON/hr. It works in tons, so set its Quantity to the gravel tonnage, 2600 TON, not the pay item's 8900 SY. Tap the crew to open Edit Crew and change the Quantity and Units there.
The app figures the hours and the cost:
Step — Math — Result on screen
Hours — 2600 TON ÷ 90 TON/hr — Hours: 28.89
Crew cost — 28.888… hrs × $325.00/hr — Cost: $9388.89
Crew unit cost — $9,388.89 ÷ 2600 TON — Unit Cost: $3.61
The crew card on the pay item shows Qty 2600.00, Hours 28.89, Hourly Rate $325.00/hr, Unit Cost $3.61 and Cost $9388.89, with 90.00 TON/hr in a blue box. The hours are rounded for display. The cost uses the exact hours.
On Edit Crew you can also change the production rate, override the hours, or change the labor and equipment for this pay item only. That's all in Make crew templates with production rates.
Step 4: Add a material
In the Materials section, tap + Add Material. On the Edit Material screen, pick the Material from your library, then set the Quantity and Units.
If the material is saved in your Materials library, the Unit Price fills in from there. You can change it here for this pay item. You can also change material prices for the whole estimate from the estimate's menu (≡) → Material Pricing. That's covered in a later guide (coming soon).
For our example: Gravel, 2600 TON, Unit Price 16 ($16.00/TON, from our Materials library).
The app adds the estimate's Material Sales Tax (%) for you. You don't enter tax on the material. At 6%:
Step — Math — Result
Base — 2600 TON × $16.00 — $41,600.00
Tax — 6% of $41,600.00 ($0.96/TON) — $2,496.00
If the supplier charges a flat fee to deliver, enter it in Flat Delivery Fee ($). Our gravel has none, because we truck it ourselves. Open Material Calculator helps you get from the pay item quantity to the material quantity. It can add shrink, swell and waste, and convert CY to tons or tons to CY.
Step 5: Add trucking to the material
If you haul the material yourself, turn on Add Trucking on the Edit Material screen. For our gravel:
The trucking resources are Driver ($60.00/hr), Quad Axle Lead Aluminum ($40.00/hr) and Tractor ($85.00/hr), so the Total Hourly Rate is $185.00/hr.
Round Trip (min.) is 30, and TON per Trip is 30.
So the Trucking Cost per Unit is $185.00 × 0.5 hr ÷ 30 TON = $3.08/TON.
Tap Edit Trucking Resources to change the driver or trucks. Tap Save to add the material to the pay item.
On the pay item, the Gravel line adds it all up:
Line — Math — On screen
Base — 2600 TON × $16.00 — $41600.00
Tax — 6% of $41,600.00 — $2496.00
Trucking — 2600 TON ÷ 30 TON per trip = 86.67 trips × 0.5 hr × $185.00 — $8016.67
Total Cost — $41,600.00 + $2,496.00 + $8,016.67 — $52112.67
That's a Unit Cost of $20.04/TON.
As the screen notes, "Trucking labor/equipment uses base OH/Profit (crew markup), not materials markup." Trucking is your own driver and trucks, so it's marked up like a crew.
Step 6: Add a subcontracted task (if a sub does the work)
When a sub does part or all of the work, use the add button in the Subcontracted Tasks section and enter the sub's price for the work, with any notes. Our aggregate base has no sub, so this section shows "No subcontractors added."
Step 7: Add plugs, fees and permits
Some costs aren't labor, equipment, materials or a sub, like a permit, a fee or a plug number you haven't broken down yet. Use the add button in the Misc. Plugs/Fees/Permits section and give the line a name, quantity, units and unit price. Our aggregate base has none.
Step 8: Check the Pay Item Pricing and tap Save
The Pay Item Pricing box near the top of the pay item updates as you add lines. For our aggregate base:
Line — Cost
Aggregate Spreading crew — $9,388.89
Gravel (with tax and trucking) — $52,112.67
Total Cost — $61,501.56
On screen, Pay Item Pricing shows:
Unit Cost: $6.91 ($61,501.56 ÷ 8900 SY)
Total Cost: $61501.56
Unit Price: $7.80
Total Price: $69420.00
The unit price comes from the cost plus the estimate's markups. The app rounds the unit price to the cent first, then multiplies by the quantity, so the total always matches what the customer sees: 8900 × $7.80 = $69,420.00. The markup math is in the next guide.
Tap Save at the bottom of the pay item. Cancel backs out without saving, and Delete removes the pay item.
Step 9: See it on the pay item list
Back on the estimate, each pay item shows as a card. The quantity and units are at the top right, then the costs by type. On 6 - Aggregate Base, 6":
LABOR: $6,066.67
EQUIPMENT: $11,338.89
MATERIALS: $44,096.00
SUBS/MISC.: $0.00
UNIT COST: $6.91 and TOTAL COST: $61,501.56
UNIT PRICE: $7.80 and TOTAL PRICE: $69,420.00
OH: $6,150.16, PROFIT: $1,740.56 and BOND: $0.00
Why is MATERIALS less than the gravel's cost? Because the trucking counts as labor and equipment. MATERIALS is the gravel and its tax: $41,600.00 + $2,496.00 = $44,096.00. The $8,016.67 of trucking splits into the driver and the trucks. (86.67 trips × 0.5 hr = 43.33 truck hours.)
LABOR $6,066.67 is the crew's labor, 28.89 hrs × $120.00 for the 2 operators = $3,466.67, plus the truck driver, 43.33 truck hours × $60.00 = $2,600.00.
EQUIPMENT $11,338.89 is the crew's equipment, 28.89 hrs × $205.00 for the dozer and compactor = $5,922.22, plus the trucks, 43.33 truck hours × $125.00 for the quad axle and tractor = $5,416.67.
The blue bar at the top of the list shows the bid total for every pay item on the estimate: $386,171.50 for our seven.
Change a pay item later
Open a pay item from the list to change it, then tap Save.
If you change the pay item's Quantity, the app asks whether to scale the crew and material quantities to match, in proportion. For example, if the area grows from 8900 SY to 9790 SY (10% more) and you choose to scale, the crew and gravel quantities go from 2600 TON to 2860 TON (also 10% more). If the material doesn't scale straight across, use Open Material Calculator on the material to work it out from the new pay item quantity, with shrink, swell and waste.
If you change the markups or tax on General Info, every pay item recalculates right away. If you change a rate in your libraries, existing pay items keep the old rate until you tap Update Rates or Update Crews in the estimate's menu (≡).
Photos on pay items, and pricing the whole estimate's materials and subs at once, are covered in the bid wrap-up guides (coming soon).
Tips
Bid in the customer's units, cost in yours. The pay item can be SY while the crew and gravel count in TON.
Check the hours, not just the dollars. If 2600 TON of gravel shows 290 hours, the production rate is off.
Truck it yourself? Turn on Add Trucking. Then the haul is priced from your own driver and trucks and gets your crew markup.
Use Misc. Plugs/Fees/Permits for one-off costs. Then a permit or fee doesn't get lost in a material price.
Use the same line on every job? Save it as a pay item template and pull it into the next bid. See Save time with pay item and job templates (guide coming soon).
FAQ
Do I enter a unit price for the pay item? No. The app figures it from the crews, materials, subs, and plugs, fees and permits, plus the estimate's markups.
Where does the material tax come from? From Material Sales Tax (%) on the estimate's General Information screen. It goes on materials only, not on trucking.
Why is my trucking under LABOR and EQUIPMENT? Trucking is your own driver and trucks, so the app counts it as labor and equipment and puts the crew markup on it, not the materials markup.
Why doesn't Total Price equal cost plus markups exactly? The unit price is rounded to the cent first, then multiplied by the quantity. On our aggregate base, cost plus markups is about $69,392, and 8900 × $7.80 is $69,420.00.
I changed a rate in my library. Do my pay items change? Not on their own. Tap Update Rates or Update Crews in the estimate's menu (≡) to pull in the new rates.
Next guide: How markups work: profit, overhead, bond, and separate sub and material markups (guide coming soon) · Back to all Contractor Estimate Pro guides →
