What happens: You estimate from memory or ballpark numbers, without building a line-by-line cost budget first.
Why it hurts: You underprice jobs, miss scope, or can’t explain your markup.
Fix: Always build a detailed internal cost budget before sending a client-facing estimate. Tools like Knowify make this fast and repeatable.
Pro tip: Need a quick and easy budget template? Grab our free one here.
What happens: You estimate based on payroll only.
Why it hurts: You lose money on labor-heavy phases because you didn’t account for payroll taxes, insurance, PTO, etc.
Fix: Calculate a fully burdened labor rate and use that to budget labor costs. You can do this per employee or by role (foreman vs. journeyman).
Pro tip: You can set this up with Knowify’s labor tracking and automatically pull in the right costs as you assign employees or roles to a job.
What happens: Small tools, fuel, disposal fees, PPE, and other “non-billables” don’t get captured.
Why it hurts: Profit gets eaten by nickel-and-dime expenses that weren’t in the plan.
Fix: Build budget templates that account for common indirect or hidden costs. Revisit after each job to refine.
Pro tip: Knowify has a Miscellaneous cost category that’s perfect for these costs.
What happens: You build a budget to win the job… and never look at it again.
Why it hurts: You fly blind and can’t catch overruns or adjust mid-project.
Fix: Your budget should be your job roadmap. Track actuals vs. budget daily or weekly, and let your project decisions follow the numbers.
Pro tip: As you log costs against a job in Knowify, your budget vs. actuals will update automatically along with your projected profit margin. You can adjust where needed and stay on track. Learn more about projects budgets in Knowify.
You don’t need to overhaul your whole process overnight. Start by fixing one of these mistakes on your next job—and track the margin lift. Then build from there.
Want to demo Knowify’s almost-effortless project budgeting? Start your free 14-day trial today.
