BOM templates and the cost estimator
Reusable bills of materials, estimating a job's cost, and pricing back from a target margin.
A BOM template is a reusable bill of materials for a kind of work — “A5 flyer, single sided” — that is not a fixed product in your catalogue. The cost estimator prices a quantity against one and can work backwards from a target margin.
This is the older costing path
Most shops are better served by product recipes, which drive real stock deductions when a job finishes. BOM templates estimate but do not consume. The Costing screen is currently not linked in the sidebar, though templates remain available from Inventory and can be attached to quotation lines.
Building a template
In BOM Templates, create a template with a name and a print type, then add material lines. Each takes an inventory item, a quantity per unit, a unit, and a waste allowance — the same shape as a product recipe.
Estimating a cost
Given a template and a quantity, the estimator works out what each material line needs, including waste:
quantity needed = quantity per unit × job quantity × (1 + waste allowance)material cost = Σ (quantity needed × item cost per unit)
Pricing from a target margin
The estimator can also solve for a selling price given the margin you want:
selling price = material cost ÷ (1 − target margin)
Why divide rather than multiply
To keep 30% of the selling price, you divide by 0.7 — not add 30% to the cost. A ₱100 job priced at ₱130 keeps only 23%. Dividing gives ₱142.86, which genuinely leaves 30%. This is the margin-versus-markup trap from Cost, price and margin, and it is why the estimator does the arithmetic for you.
The default target is 30%. Remember this is a material margin — labour, machine time and overheads are not in it. Price above it, not at it.
Estimated against actual
Where a job came from a quotation, the estimate can be compared against what it really cost: variance = actual − estimated, expressed as a percentage of the estimate. Persistent positive variance means your allowances are too generous to yourself — either the waste allowances are low or the material quantities are.
Open BOM Templates
Related guides
Cost, price and margin on a product
How the product page works out unit cost from the recipe, and what the margin figure means.
Building a product recipe
Tell PrintERP what one unit of a product consumes: materials, paper, ink, and waste allowance.
Quotations: quote, approve, convert
Quote a customer, get it approved, and turn the approved quote into a production job.