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I agree with most of the above advice. I have to disagree about the pricing of materials. You can do it two ways. You can charge cost-plus on materials- 15%, 20%, 25% or what ever or you can quote a unit price for each material. If you quote unit prices you should be as specific as possible on all materials. You can't quote $6/ft for pavers when they can cost from $2-$6 depending one which ones you end up using. If you quote it as "pavers will be billed at cost plus +20%" you can leave the specifics open but you still need to get them approved in writing once decisions have been made.
In my opinion all your "hidden costs", overhead, etc. should be incorporated into your labor rate. I guess you can do it either way if you're doing it on a job by job basis but most people distribute those costs over their annual labor estimate so for the sake of being consistent and making apples to apples comparisons easier for potential clients when you're bidding.
I think you need to list each item being billed in detail. On a T&M job the client has a right to see exactly what they are paying for. Also...if you are billing cost-plus the client is entitled to see those costs so keep all the reciepts and don't cheat or round off numbers.
As far as the down payment I would probably ask for 40% down (but don't tell them it's 40%) and apply it to 50% of each billing to be sure it was all applied before the end of the job. Probably a lot of different ways to do it. Definately bill frequently. At least weekly and get payments quickly so you are never too upside down.
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