"I don't know where the hours go"
Chapter 6 of 7 from the guide "Turn Your Shop Into a Business That Can Run Without You"
The Johnson kitchen was quoted at 120 hours.
It took 160. Or 140. Or 190. Nobody knows. It felt long.
So the next kitchen gets quoted at 130, and everybody hopes.
Every shop has a number in somebody's head for how long a kitchen takes. Almost nobody has ever measured it. The number is a feeling, and the feeling is usually low.
Here's the shift.
Hours aren't a feeling. They're a number you write down, on the job, while it's happening.
How you can get there
A clipboard by the time clock. One sheet per week.
Down the side, the crew. Across the top, the days. In each box, the job and the hours. Johnson, 6. Miller, 2.
End of the week, add up Johnson. There's the real number. Not 120. Not a feeling. A number.
Do it for three kitchens and nobody quotes from a feeling again.
The trouble is the clipboard, the adding up, and the Thursday Jose writes "shop" instead of a job name.
The Maestro way
The crew logs time to the task they're on. Start the timer on the phone, or tap in the hours when the task's done. Either way, the hours land on the task, and the task is on the job.
When the job's done, open Estimate vs Actual. The real hours sit next to the ones that were quoted, stage by stage. Next time, quote from that.
Two catches. It only works if the estimate had labor hours in it, so put them in. And it's a report for the owner and the estimator, not the crew.
The result
One job has real hours next to the quote, and you've seen the gap.
Credit card required. Nothing is charged for 14 days. Cancel before then and you owe nothing. On day 15 your plan starts at $199 a month.
Next: "Bookkeeping is a mess"