Margin, markup, and profitability

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.

1. Open the budget (Projects → a project → the Budget tab).
2. Double-click a line's Margin % cell and type a percentage — or double-click Markup % and type your markup instead. (A single click only selects a cell.) Either way both columns stay in sync, and the client price recalculates.

A line without its own margin uses and displays the budget's default. Editing it sets a line-specific margin; clearing the displayed margin sets it to 0%, not back to the default. Merely opening and leaving an unchanged inherited margin keeps it inherited. The budget default is seeded from Organization → Settings → Budget defaults when the budget is created, so changing the company setting later never reprices a budget that already exists. (A cost type's Default margin %, on the Cost Types tab, is a reference figure for the trade — it is not applied to budget lines.)

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:

• Customer Order Profit — Approved Price minus Budgeted Cost: the profit the signed agreement promised. No value is calculated until one is accepted; the cell displays a dash.
• Budgeted Margin — that profit as a percent of Approved Price: the margin the contract locked in. It reads the agreement, not the margin you typed while estimating — that one stays on Margin % in the estimating band.
• Projected Profit and Projected Margin — Projected Price minus Projected Cost, and that profit as a percent of Projected Price: what you're actually tracking toward as real costs come in.
• Projected Profit Variance — Projected Profit minus Customer Order Profit: better (positive) or worse (negative) than the agreement promised. This is what tints Projected Profit and Projected Margin, which is why a positive profit can still read red — it's landing below plan.

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.

1. In the line's Final column (in the Costing band), click the cell to tick its checkbox.
2. Click Save changes to keep the change, just as you do for price and margin edits.

A ticked box means the line is closed out; an empty box means it's still open. The grand-total row at the foot of the sheet keeps a running count in the Final column — 3/12, hover it for "3 of 12 lines marked final".

Marking a line final changes two things on the sheet:

• Projected Cost becomes Actual Cost — the line is done, so what it cost is what it will cost. Before Final, positive-cost lines use the greatest of Budgeted, Committed and Actual Cost; a negative Budgeted Cost uses the least instead.
• Vendor Bills, Time Cost and Actual Cost can finally read green. Those three columns each judge their own value against Budgeted Cost: they turn red the moment one of them alone goes over, whether or not the line is final, but they only turn green once you mark it final. A cost still accruing under budget isn't good news yet — it just hasn't finished. While Budgeted Cost is blank, none of the three carries a verdict at all.