Costing exercise

GeoffsWoodwork

for Students of Woodwork

Costing Timber ~ Metric ~ by £ per Cubic Metre

The cost of timber when you are buying a lot of timber or working for a large commercial organisation is usually quoted in Pounds per cubic metre. If you are not trading on such a large scale you will be probably using Linear Rates. However for the purposes of this exercise you should use Cubic Metres which is the recommended Industry technique and the method you should use to quote when comparing prices or tendering for Sub-Contract work.

I will produce similar papers for Linear methods, and the nearly redundant imperial methods.

Print off a copy of my Costing sheet and work through the following exercises:

Prepare a cutting list showing all dimensions, quantities and material types in the original sawn sizes.
The materials need to be costed with up to date prices. These should be obtained from your supplier or for the purposes of instruction, from your assessor/trainer.

Method: Only use one material type at a time i.e. Softwoods then Hardwoods and if you have any boarding, list these last.
List the members by item Number, Description and ‘No off’ (each) in columns (a), (b) and (c), leaving a good space between differing materials or differing Costs per Cu Metre (col h).
In Columns (d), (c) and (f) enter the dimensions but you must make sure that you use the measurement expressed in metres and not mm's. To do this simply divide the amount in mm by 1000 or move the decimal point 3 places to the left i.e. 25 mm becomes .025 Metres or more correctly 0.025 M. A Table is provided to help you convert if you are not sure.

Each line may then be calculated by multiplying together columns (c), (d), (e) and (f). This will give the amount of cu M of each set of members. There is no need to cost each line. This should be done only for each material of the same cost rate.
You can then total the Cu M and enter this amount on the last line of each material type or price rate and enter the Total in column (g) .
You will normally add an amount of timber to the total to allow for wastage and fitting. The amount differs from company to company and reflects the amount wasted in cutting out and to cover selection of timber to avoid defects etc.

It is not profit. Profit is added elsewhere in the tender document. For the purposes of this assessment, you may add 10% to cover ‘wastage and fitting’. Enter this as a separate line and, take 10% of the total Cu M (col (g)) and enter against col (g).

To obtain the Total Cost, simply multiply Cost Cu M (col (h)) by Total Cu M (col (g)) and enter the amount in Total Cost in col (i).
This is repeated for each material type of price rate and the grand totals entered in col (i) on the last line. VAT is not normally requested on Sub-Contracts however, you may need to show this for domestic purposes.

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Last uploaded 21st August 2001
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