Margin, markup, and profitability
Price your work with Margin % or Markup %, read the profit columns, and mark lines final when their costs are closed out.
Foreman prices every line from your cost plus a percentage — and it gives you that percentage two ways, because contractors think in both. Margin % is profit as a share of price; Markup % is profit as a share of cost. They describe the same dollars from two angles.
Margin % and Markup % — same profit, two views
Both columns sit in the Estimating band, and editing either one updates the other:
- Margin % — profit as a percent of the client price. This is the value Foreman stores on the line.
- Markup % — profit as a percent of your cost. Foreman derives it from the margin.
- Open the budget (Projects → a project → the Budget tab).
- Click a line's Margin % cell and type a percentage — or click Markup % and type your markup instead. Either way both columns stay in sync, and the client price recalculates.
Leave Margin % blank to fall back to the budget's default margin (which itself comes from the line's cost type, set on the Cost Types tab).
The price and profit columns
As you set cost and margin, these compute automatically:
- Unit Price — your unit cost grossed up by the margin.
- Extended Price — Quantity × Unit Price; what the client is charged for the line.
- Profit — Extended Price minus Extended Cost; the planned profit dollars.
Further right, the Profit band tracks how you're actually doing:
- Budgeted Margin — the margin you planned.
- Projected Margin and Projected Profit — your margin and profit against projected cost, so you can see slippage as real costs come in.
Mark a line final
When a line's costs are settled and no more spend is expected, mark it final so your projections stop assuming more cost to come.
- In the line's Final column (in the Costing band), click the cell to toggle the checkmark on.
A checkmark means the line is closed out; a dash means it's still open.