The book is the shop's memory
A price book is the shop's pricing, written down: the jobs you do, what each one takes in materials and labor, and what each one costs the customer. Without one, pricing lives in whoever answered the phone, and every quote is a small improvisation. With one, the price is a decision the shop made once, calmly, instead of a number invented in a driveway.
The anatomy of an entry
Code and name
Short, findable, in the trade's own words. The tech searches it standing in a basement.
The scope
What is included and what is not. The sentence that prevents the argument.
Materials
The parts that actually go on the truck for this job, at what they cost you now.
Labor units
The honest time the job takes, in the shop's chosen unit.
The price
What the customer pays. The output of the entry, not the whole entry.
Check yourself
1 of 2
What belongs in a price book entry besides the price?
Start with the twenty
Do not try to write the whole trade on day one. List the jobs your shop actually does most (for most shops that is a short list) and build those entries first, carefully. Walk each one: what parts leave the shelf, what the visit really takes door to door. Twenty entries you trust beat two hundred you copied. The rare jobs can stay T&M until they earn an entry by recurring.
Labor units are the honest part
The labor unit is where books quietly go wrong. Price it on your best tech's best day and every ordinary day loses money. The honest unit is what the job takes an average tech on an average day, including the part of the visit that is not wrenching: setup, cleanup, the conversation, the paperwork that is now a few taps. Time a few real visits before you write the number down.
Check yourself
2 of 2
How should the labor units in an entry be set?
A stale book gives margin away quietly
Materials prices move; the book must move with them, or every quote slowly donates the difference. Put the review on the calendar (when supplier prices land, when the season turns) instead of waiting for the estimate that feels wrong. In Thorbis you build your own book and estimate from it; a book that is kept current for you is an add-on, not the price of entry. Either way, the discipline is the same: the book is only as honest as its last review.