What is Flat Rate Pricing?

Flat Rate Pricing is simply the act of charging all customers the same price for the same work. This is beneficial for the following reasons:

  • Customers know the exact price of the work up-front. There are no estimates or guessing.
  • Because the rate is task driven rather than time driven, there is no need for the customer to time everything the technician does.
  • Customers can plainly see that the price you are charging them is the same price you charge everyone.
  • It protects your company from price gouging accusations. It is possible to charge customers different amounts for the exact same work when using time and material billing simply because one technician is faster, more efficient or more motivated than another. This cannot happen using Flat Rate Pricing.
  • Because the labor, material, and tax are all combined into a single rate it allows you to charge a fair rate for your labor without having to justify it to the customer.

ESC allows you to import flat rate prices from popular programs or create your own directly in ESC.

Importing Flat Rate Pricing

You can easily import the flat rate price books from these popular vendors:

Creating Your Own Flat Rate Prices

With ESC it’s easy to create your own flat rate pricing system as well. When creating your own flat rate inventory, you have full control over the factors that make up the flat rate pricing calculation.

  • Trip Charge—Decide how much the trip charge or inspection fee will be included in the flat rate price.
  • Labor Per Hour—Choose the labor rate that should be used in the calculation of the flat rate price.
  • Rounding—Round up to the next dollar or keep the change in the pricing.
  • Additional Repairs—Give the customer a discount on the additional repairs, either by removing the trip charge or giving a percent off labor, materials or both.
  • Material Adder—Use this field to set an additional percentage of the material cost or a fixed amount that will be included in the flat rate price.
  • Sales Tax—Select the tax rate, if any, you want to include in your flat rate price books.
  • Agreement Discount—You can also include a discount on labor, materials, or both for customers that have a service agreement with your company.

Once you’ve determined what factors will make up your flat rate price calculation, you can assign flat rate prices to inventory items based on the number of labor hours a particular task takes to complete.