Setting Up Your Glass Price List

Every Flat Glass quote is built from your price list. There's no separate glass catalog to keep in step: each glass type you sell is a price list item with a price per sq ft (what you charge) and a cost per sq ft (what you pay). Edgework, holes, cutouts, labor and hardware are price list items too.

That's good news for your books. Every line on a glass estimate is a real item, so your sales reports, margins, taxes and accounting work the same as for anything else you sell.

It also means the quality of your quotes is exactly the quality of your price list. An hour spent here saves you from a year of under-priced edgework. This article walks through it in the order that works best.

Before you start: Flat Glass is an add-on. If you don't see Flat Glass in your left menu (on its own, or inside Glass when you have more than one glass trade), contact us and we'll check your plan. Everything below happens in Workflows → Flat Glass Settings, one tab at a time.

Step 1: Set up Flat Glass

On the Setup tab, under Which jobs open Flat Glass, choose the job type your glass jobs use (or A new job type…, with a name like "Glass") and press Set up Flat Glass. This:

• points that job type at the Flat Glass screens;
• adds the glass site and install forms and the hold reasons it uses;
• adds a Flat Glass branch to your price list categories: Glass types, Fabrication, Hardware and Labor and services;
• adds the standard items every glass job uses: trip charge, minimum charge, measure visit, after-hours service, emergency board-up, glass disposal, and the two deposit lines.

It only ever adds what's missing, so pressing it again is safe.

Already have a category layout you like? On the Price list tab, under Where things go in the price list, point each kind of item at your own categories instead. Each choice includes everything under it.

Step 2: Start from the starter catalog

Typing in 60 items by hand is how mistakes get made. Create starter catalog (Setup tab) adds the glass, fabrication, labor and shower hardware most flat glass shops sell:

• 24 glass types: clear annealed from 3/32" to 1/4", obscure, mirror and acrylic (marked cut in our shop); clear, low-iron, obscure and gray tempered from 1/8" to 1/2", and 1/4" and 9/16" laminated (all marked safety glass); and five insulated units with their makeup, such as 3mm Low-E #2 / argon / 3mm clear, 3/4 OA.
• 18 fabrication items: four kinds of edgework, holes, notches, hinge and outlet cutouts, corners, grids, tempering, Low-E and argon upcharges, a shape charge and an oversize surcharge.
• 7 labor items and 8 hardware items for shower kits.

Everything comes with no price, and nothing quotes until it has one. That's deliberate: a made-up starter price would end up on a real customer's estimate. Until a glass type is priced, the piece builder shows it as needs a price. Until the edgework you chose is priced, the opening can't be priced at all.

Running it again only adds what's missing and never touches an item you've priced.

Step 3: Price the glass types

The Glass types tab lists every glass type with its Price and Cost per sq ft. Type the numbers straight into the grid and press Save prices. The Needs a price filter shows what's left.

Selling a glass type you don't stock? Leave it. Not selling one at all? Open it and turn off Offer this glass type on quotes. Nothing is deleted, and it stays out of every dropdown.

Enter the cost, too. Without it, the estimate can't show a margin, and you won't see which glass types make you money.

Edit on any glass type opens everything else about it. The parts that matter most are below.

Minimums and rounding

Glass is billed on the size it's cut from, not the exact opening. Two defaults on the Pricing defaults tab handle that, and each glass type can override them:

• Round each side up to: the next inch by default. Options run from Don't round to the next 2".
• Smallest size billed (sq ft): 3 sq ft by default. A smaller piece is charged as this size.

The tab shows a worked example with your own numbers. With the defaults, a 23 7/8 x 35 1/4 window unit is billed as 24 x 36 = 6.00 sq ft. At $16.50 per sq ft, that's $99.00. A 10 x 12 mirror is really 0.83 sq ft, but it bills as 3.00.

Edgework always uses the real size. The polisher runs the real edge, so that's what you charge for.

United-inch pricing

Some shops, and many suppliers, price single-pane glass and units by united inches (width + height) instead of area. Set How it is priced to United-inch brackets and add the brackets:

Sizes are rounded first, then added. A 23 7/8 x 35 1/4 piece is 24 + 36 = 60 united inches, so it's $46.00. A piece bigger than your largest bracket is charged the largest bracket's price, with a warning on the estimate. Add brackets until they cover the biggest piece you'd sell.

You choose how it shows on the estimate, as a default on the Pricing defaults tab or per glass type:

• By the piece: one line at the bracket price ("1 × $46.00"). Clean and easy to read. Most shops use this.
• By the sq ft: the bracket price spread over the billable area ("6.00 sq ft × $7.67"). It lines up with your square-foot glass, but the cents round, so the line can land a few cents off the bracket: $46.02 here.

The third option, One price per piece, is for things sold at a flat price whatever the size.

Oversize

Big glass costs more to make, ship and handle. Under Oversize, set A side longer than (inches) or Or bigger than (sq ft), and what it Adds (% of the glass). The surcharge goes on the estimate by itself. It needs the Oversize surcharge item chosen on the Fabrication tab.

Cut in the shop, kept in stock, or made to order

This is the setting that decides what happens to a piece after the customer says yes, so set it on every glass type:

For glass you cut, also enter the stock sheet width and height ("96 x 130"). The cut list then shows your stock in sheets as well as square feet, and receiving a delivery by the sheet works out the square feet for you. See The shop cut list and remnant rack.

Usually ordered from pre-fills the fabricator when this glass is ordered.

Safety glass and weight

Turn on Safety glass for tempered and laminated types. The piece builder uses it to warn when an opening that needs safety glass (a door, a shower, beside stairs) has something else chosen.

Weight is worked out from the thickness (about 13 lb per sq ft per inch), so leave it empty unless you know better. It's what flags a piece as a two-person lift.

Step 4: Fabrication

The Fabrication tab says which price list item the piece builder uses for each kind of work, with its price and cost:

• Edgework, charged per foot of the real edge: seamed, flat polish, pencil polish, beveled.
• Holes, notches, cutouts and corners, charged each.
• Upcharges, charged per sq ft of the piece: tempering, Low-E, argon, protective coating.
• Added for you: the shape charge (once per shaped piece) and the oversize surcharge.

Remove the item from anything you don't offer, and it disappears from the piece builder. Press Save fabrication when you're done.

Step 5: Labor

On the Labor tab, choose the labor item and price for each kind of work: window glass, insulated units, tempered doors and sidelites, mirrors, shower enclosures, storefront, and by the hour.

With Add the install labor to each piece automatically on, each opening brings its labor with it, chosen by the kind of opening and glass. Labor charged by the hour is never added on its own, and tabletops and shelves don't get labor at all. Add those by hand when you install them.

Two-person lift over (lb) is 60 by default. Heavier pieces are flagged, and scheduling asks for two installers.

Step 6: Hardware, kits and standard items

• Hardware: hinges, clamps, handles, channel, mirror clips. These live in your hardware category and go into shower system kits.
• Quick kits bundle items you sell together, such as a mirror install kit (clips and mastic), so they go on an estimate in one click.
• Standard items on every glass job (Price list tab) should all show Ready. They're created with no price, so price the trip charge, measure visit and the rest in your price list. The deposit lines are worked out on each job.

Choose Taxes on labor, fabrication and services on the Price list tab, too. Many states tax glass but not installation labor. Check yours.

Importing your supplier's price sheet

If your supplier sends a price sheet, use it. Import a price sheet (Glass types tab) takes a CSV file, or text pasted from a spreadsheet, with a header row:

sku,title,family,thickness,rate,cost,min,cut
T38-CLR,3/8" Clear Tempered,tempered,0.375,22.00,11.40,3,no
A18-CLR,1/8" Clear Annealed (double strength),annealed,0.125,7.25,2.10,3,yes

• rate is your price per sq ft, cost your cost per sq ft, min the smallest sq ft billed, cut yes if you cut it in your shop.
• Also read when present: round, pricing (sqft or ui), safety (yes or no) and makeup.
• family is one of: annealed, tempered, laminated, insulated, low_iron, obscure, tinted, mirror, acrylic, other.

A row whose SKU is already in your price list updates that item's price. Any other row is added as a new glass type. The result tells you how many were added, updated and skipped, and lists any row it couldn't read.

Bulk price changes: Download as a spreadsheet gives you every offered glass type in the same columns. Change the prices, save it as CSV, and import it back. It's the fastest way to handle a supplier's 6% increase.

Common mistakes

Forgetting to price edgework. The starter catalog adds fabrication with no price, and an opening with a flat polish edge can't be priced until the polish is. Price the whole Fabrication tab before your first quote, not during it.

Leaving the minimum at 0. Then a 10 x 12 mirror bills as 0.83 sq ft, about $8 of glass, for a trip, a cut and an install. Keep a minimum, and add a Minimum charge on small jobs.

Marking made-to-order glass as kept in stock. Tempered and insulated glass is made for one opening. If it's marked as stocked, the piece builder shows it as From stock, no deposit is asked for, and the Glass step offers to take it off a shelf that doesn't have it.

Pricing per sq ft but costing per sheet. Both numbers are per square foot. A $310 sheet of 96 x 130 is 86.67 sq ft, so the cost is $3.58, not $310.

Letting a spreadsheet change your thicknesses. Spreadsheets turn "1/4" into a date. Write thicknesses as decimals (0.25), which is how the download already gives them to you.

Expecting a price change to update approved estimates. It doesn't, and shouldn't: the customer approved a price. Open drafts can be brought up to date with Re-price from the price list on the Estimate step.

Related

• From first call to paid: a flat glass job
• Deposits on made-to-order glass
• The shop cut list and remnant rack
• Designing a shower enclosure
• Organizing price list categories
• Billing accounts: fleets and other payers