Labor is a fee you charge your customers in addition to the price of the products supplied as part of the project, to install, program, or service the products. Labor is not limited to products. You can define and add labor for any other project requirements, such as prewiring and site supervision.
Cloud is built for businesses of all sizes, so we have taken exceptional care in designing our labor addition and estimation capabilities. All products in our product library (D-Tools Library) come with our curated labor recommendations.
Businesses that want to set their own labor can suppress our recommendations, add their own labor estimates, or combine their estimates on top of our recommendations.
Labor Type
"Labor Type" is the fundamental unit of labor on Cloud. Labor type represents the nature of labor (work) that a Field user performs on projects and service calls, based on their skillset and expertise.
For example, a labor type "Installation" that is meant for product installers, and a labor type "Service Technician" that is meant for technicians who troubleshoot product issues and fulfill service requests.
A labor type is a definition of a specific type of labor with labor cost, labor price, project phase, and a product system type tagged to it. When you add a labor type to a quote, the labor type inherits the cost, price, phase, and system with it, saving you time and effort.
Learn more about labor types.
Add labor to the quote
On Cloud, there are four ways to add labor:
By factoring labor into the estimated costs of products using category rules,
By adding labor packages with multiple labor types directly to the quotes,
By adding relevant pre-created labor types directly to the quotes,
By adding a new labor requirement as a labor type in a quote.
You can use all four ways of adding labor to the quote, two or three, or just one way, depending on the size of the project and your business requirements.
#1 Factor labor into the estimated costs of products
Here, labor for a product is bundled into the estimated cost of the product using the "Category Rules" functionality.
A category rule is a combination of a pre-created labor type and the time needed to complete the labor that can be assigned to some or all products of a specific category in the catalog.
Category rules are global and reflect the relevant labor estimates of the products when they are added to the quotes. A product can have multiple category rules.
For example, a Television with a labor rule of 30 minutes for Installation and another rule of 30 minutes for Programming.
Start with your preference for whether to use category rules.
Go to "Settings > Catalog > Categories" in the left navigation menu.
You can set the category rule option in one of three ways:
Category Option set to Suggest
Use our labor recommendation as a benchmark, apply it to the product, and add more labor rules or edit the ones that came with the recommendation.
Category Option set to ON
This is the quickest and best way to add labor to the quotes. You accept our labor recommendations, and all products in all categories use our curated labor estimates.
Check out this article for more details.
Category Option set to OFF
Switch off labor recommendations for all products in the catalog and add labor using labor packages and labor types.
Once you have set Category rules settings, you can change them anytime. However, there are some implications for labor items that have already been added to the quotes using the rules settings.
Always see and understand the impact of the change we show in the UI.
Check out this article for more details.
Category rules are meant to display itemized labor costs in the quotes. Even with category rules set to ON or Suggest, you have complete control over whether to use itemized labor in the quotes. You can disable itemized labor at the level of a quote and add your own labor packages or labor types.
Check out this article for more details.
#2 Add labor as packages
On Cloud, a package is a combination of one or more products and all associated labor (Products + Labor package) or a group of multiple labor requirements (Labor Package).
To create a package:
1/ Go to "Catalog > Packages" in the left navigation menu.
2/ Click "Add package," and select the type of package.
3/ Add the products and/or labor to the package and click "Create.'
As an app entity, packages are like products on Cloud. You can add a package the way you add a product as an item to a quote.
Learn more about packages.
#3 Add labor via pre-created labor types
Irrespective of whether you are using category rules, you can still add pre-created labor types as labor requirements for a project.
If you are using labor rules, all labor requirements are listed in the Labor Summary section of the quote by Location, System, Phase, and Category views.
Pick a view, add labor types as line items in the Items part of the quote, and specify the labor duration needed for each type.
#4 Add a new labor type in a quote
Some projects may require a new labor requirement.
In such cases, you can add a new labor type as a line item in the Labor Summary section of the quote. At the time of creating the labor type, specify the duration of labor needed.
#5 Add labor as adjustments
Labor can also be added as a price adjustment to quotes.
Learn more about price adjustments.
#6 Add labor to Won opportunities
Although the best practice is to estimate labor costs accurately when sharing the proposal for acceptance, you may sometimes miss adding all required labor.
For Won opportunities that are currently projects, you can add a labor package or a labor type as a change order.
Learn more about change orders.