Question for the portable sawyers.

[Dustin]

Magicman I have read about your "till" in several threads. I am already planning to get one to keep in the truck. 

The information you guys share is invaluable to newbies such as myself. Thanks for taking time out of your day to help me. 

[Magicman]

In your case Lynn I usually offer to round up to his nearest $100.00.

;D

This would bring us to another subject; Tip.  I have never asked for nor encouraged getting a tip but I will always enthusiastically accept a tip.  I say enthusiastically because I want to accept a tip in the spirit in which it was given.  Declining a gift would be very bad manners.  The largest tip that I have ever gotten was $180.00.     Most of my tips fall into the $25-$50 range.

[SawyerTed]

Yes a tip is a customer's way of recognizing professionalism, quality and effort.  Tips are more frequent now than early on and often it is the customer "rounding up" even though I am prepared to make change as well.  

It takes a few portable jobs to settle into a business routine and fee structure that you will be comfortable with.  I also provide a written invoice to my customer including the board feet sawn even if it is an hourly job.  I don't provide a copy of the tally sheet but am happy to review it with a customer.  I usually record the number of logs and board feet (lumber dimensions and qty) sawn as I go. 

I did wait in a guy's yard for a little over an hour once to get paid.  He went into the house "to get his money".  Went he came back he started trying to negotiate my price (I'm thinking his wife put him up to it).  I told him to pay what he thought was fair based on our agreement before I started sawing but if what he paid didn't cover the invoice, I had a crew on the way to load enough lumber to make up the difference.  He paid in full.  He won't be a future customer.

[WV Sawmiller]

  I show and will send, by e-mail or snail mail, a copy of my tally sheet if requested since I can't currently print on site. I have no problem with the client double checking the math and confirming our numbers. Usually he measured and counted and I recorded his figures and my spreadsheet with formulas does the math. Once I shorted myself and sent a corrected copy to the customer and he sent me a check for the difference. Another time a customer realized he had double counted several rows on a stack from the day before and I computed the overpayment he had already made and sent him a check the same day. I am confident both will call me again if they need more sawing.

 The best tip I have gotten so far was $70 for a walnut tree I cut Thanksgiving week. The customer and his BIL unloaded the 3 logs off his trailer and we cut the butt log which was about 60% of the order on Tuesday, they could not return the next day so I finished the rest alone Wednesday based on his instructions and my experience and they picked it up Thanksgiving Day and he took it all back to Texas Sunday. We all had a lot of fun, he had some real pretty wood and was very happy with the results.

[OlJarhead]

I have been doing a lot of reading and searching, but have yet to find some answers.  I have a question for the guys that are portable milling and not selling lumber. I'm hoping this summer I can finally get a sawmill and start milling part time. What do you guys use to keep track of expenses, and what things do you keep track of for each job?  I'm thinking of getting an iPad that will have an Excel spreadsheet to take to a job site. Does anyone have a good spreadsheet already made out? Does anyone print a receipt for the customer when the job is complete or hand write a receipt? I think I can also create a check list on the iPad to make sure I pack everything in the truck before a job.

I have seen some of you like to use QuickBooks to keep track of things for the tax man. I don't have any experience with it, but I'm sure I can learn. Is there anything out there that is better than QuickBooks? I'm hoping to get everything set up before I get the mill. Any help anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.

I'm a little late answering but, I use QB2013 (which isn't working at the moment which lead me to do some searching and find this thread) and I print out the estimate for the customer.  When the job is done I write down any changes, initial them and provide that copy to the customer with PAID written across the sheet.  I then email them a paid invoice when I am back on my PC later.

[terrifictimbersllc]

There is not a desktop like quickbooks app for iOS. The apps in the App Store are for establishing an online QuickBooks account.  Last time I looked at this it was about $30 a month to do what I wanted to do, $360 a year. The amount of business I do, and the fact that a desktop version is cheaper and good, that's offensive to me, like the fees id have to start paying to take cards.

I have been purchasing QuickBooks for Mac desktop since 2008. I think I have had four of them and right now it is quickbooks 2020 for mac. They started at about $100 and the last one was about $190. Each lasts until the OSX operating system upgrades won't run it anymore. I think this is a good deal. So it is the fact that the programs will eventually not run on the new operating systems That has caused me to buy a new program, not that the program will not do what I need it to do as far as bookkeeping/accounting.

I take my laptop to jobs and just make out an invoice in the truck when it's over, and then email it to the customer from the truck, via hotspot off my iPhone. If the customer isn't email savvy or there are poor connections, then I will just show him the invoice on the laptop screen to save time. Usually it takes me less than five minutes to make out the invoice.

Since I have started charging by board foot some of the time, I have an iPad with numbers spreadsheets where I enter length and then the dimensions across the top, then the quantity of each of those combinations. Calculate board feet easily as i enter this after each log. I've gotten to the point where it is not a distraction from Sawing but that wouldn't be for everyone. I have also added the formula to this for calculating international log scale so I can charge either by log scale or by board dimensions, and track  yield vs scale by log if i wish.

I have thought several times about how to make spreadsheets which would do the same thing as QuickBooks but I came to the conclusion of just forget it. I don't do any employee payroll stuff but I do have sales tax for every job, as well as capital assets with depreciation and on and on. It looks to me like building my own QuickBooks equivalent would be like building my own sawmill.

[WV Sawmiller]

TT,

   You have me beat of several counts such as the hotspot and sending an invoice on the spot. I can do so when I get home or could download it to a thumb drive for him if he had one. Maybe I should keep several cheap ones and let him pay for them if he wanted but I have never had a customer who needed one that urgently. I guess I could print and carry a few pre-printed forms and complete them in minutes on the job if needed. (In fact, now that I think about it I believe I will do that. ;))

   I just made up the spreadsheet on Excel with the formulas built in and fields for delivery, mileage, rate, sales tax, band fees for metal strikes, etc. The formulas are simple and straightforward. I build them to compute the BF and copy the total into the appropriate field. I am just a pretty basic user and not a data dink but it is not that hard to do. I take my laptop on every job and when I do the tally I have the customer call off the sizes and quantities and I record them then we both verify them.

   When a potential customer calls or e-mails to buy or have lumber sawed, if he has his cut list/buy list ready I just open a new copy of the spreadsheet, enter his numbers and give it to him as an estimate immediately over the phone or by e-mail. I record his name and phone number and if he does have me come saw or buy from me I open the same sheet and put in the actual numbers (Which are nearly always different :D) then move it to a completed folder. If he never calls back I eventually just delete the sheet from my pending list. 

   I find the customers like and are impressed with how quickly they can get a cost estimate for their work/purchase and it gets me some business. 

[Magicman]

I do it the old fashion way with two-part carbonless invoices.  All of the lumber is counted, scaled, tallied, and priced.  The customer gets the original and I keep a copy. 
 
The figures are then added to my spreadsheet, along with my expenses, which goes to my Accountant at tax time.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I prefer my Excel spreadsheets with built on formulas to do the math as I find they are much faster and more accurate than my "stubby pencil" drill. Also I tend to use a small solar calculator and often tally in the fading light and it does not work well in the dark.

  So far I have had two mistakes when copying my spreadsheets. Once it shorted me and when I sent a corrected copy to the customer he sent me a check for the difference. The last time I overcharged and notified the customer as soon as I found out and asked if he wanted to write me a different check or have me cash that one and send him one for the overcharge. He sent back a reply to just hold it and we'd apply it on the next job.

  One change I did this year for taxes was just download my files to a $5 flash drive and mailed to my tax accountant. He said he was very happy with my system.

  I'd say our spreadsheets and accounting need to be set up to capture the info we need in the format we and the tax gurus need. I used to do the unit budgets while I was in the USMC and we'd set up all these different cost codes and even have a separate credit card for each vehicle and such. It was time consuming at the start of the year but come year end closeout or budget time we'd just push a button and get an instant recap of all the cost for that vehicle or category for the year to date. The problem was people would run out of money in one account and instead of transferring more money into the account they would bill the charge to something else where they still had money and they'd screw up their accounting and budget records.

  Business accounting is like sawing a log - you have to have a plan before you start.

[KenMac]

Just in case anyone is a bit put off by QuickBooks, my CPA only requires that I fill out the check register for his use at tax time. All of the other "complicated" stuff I've never tried to figure out.

[OlJarhead]

That's part of the reason I just don't worry about updating it ;)  Besides that I'm cheap ;)  (well not really but I did just quit my job!).

I like the estimates and invoices -- I just use them after printing to PDF -- and customer database etc....

and I like the reports.

[Dustin]

I have found what works best for me, is taking a laptop and printer to the job site. At the end of a job, I create an invoice and print/email it to the customer. Then each night mileage, receipts, and payments are entered into Quickbooks. 

So far I have not received a bad check and my CPA has been happy with my bookkeeping. I credit everyone for their advice and wisdom given for my success. Thanks guys!