# screen print pricing & bookkeeping



## lynnioz (Jun 12, 2008)

Hoping to find some kind of screen printing guidelines. A book that I have been reading suggests to price as follows: sample
t shirt $2.00
100% mark up $2.00
cost of unprinted item=$4.00
printing & set up $3.50
price to customer $7.50
They then take the total of the job
say $150.00 & subtract $30 set up & show the balance $120 as profit. Say this is best way in this business so that you are not trying to figure separate costs for time, ink, supplies...
Do any of you do it this way?
Also best way to do bookkeeping in this business? Thanks.


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## Sheepsalt (Sep 12, 2007)

Actually, when I started I calculated what my hourly overhead cost would be based on a 40-hour week (total monthly fixed costs divided by 4.33 then divided by 40), then did intensive time-studies to determine how much time was involved in each process. I set an hourly shop rate to cover the overhead and meet my margin goal. Then I wrote some software that uses all those figures to determine how to set pricing for each job to meet that hourly rate. Then add in hard costs for materials and mark that up enough to cover contingencies, and that's the price to the customer.

For bookkeeping, we do job costing by having a job number assigned to each new job. Purchases and labor spent on that job number are recorded, along with the gross income from the job, and rough margins are calculated at the end of each job... all done in the computer.

Quickbooks tells us the bottom line and marginal breakdown at the end of each month / quarter / year by recording every transaction and assigning it to an appropriate category.


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## midwaste (Apr 8, 2008)

Sheepsalt said:


> Actually, when I started I calculated what my hourly overhead cost would be based on a 40-hour week (total monthly fixed costs divided by 4.33 then divided by 40), then did intensive time-studies to determine how much time was involved in each process. I set an hourly shop rate to cover the overhead and meet my margin goal. Then I wrote some software that uses all those figures to determine how to set pricing for each job to meet that hourly rate. Then add in hard costs for materials and mark that up enough to cover contingencies, and that's the price to the customer.
> 
> For bookkeeping, we do job costing by having a job number assigned to each new job. Purchases and labor spent on that job number are recorded, along with the gross income from the job, and rough margins are calculated at the end of each job... all done in the computer.
> 
> Quickbooks tells us the bottom line and marginal breakdown at the end of each month / quarter / year by recording every transaction and assigning it to an appropriate category.


Wow, you've got quite an operation there. Nice work. 

Regarding the pricing above, depending on what book you are reading (I could take a wild guess), you might want to update that to current costs. You can get white shirts for around 2 (cheaper in large qty), but unless you are using the cheapest shirt, I would figure 3-4 for a decent shirt in color at a medium quantity.


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## mtmob (Apr 21, 2007)

i also mark up on the shirs 100% then i add $3 to that and thats the price i give my customers from time to time ill give them a small price break so that they can feel like i take care of them. but when it comes down to polos i only mark up 75% because for some reason all the other screen printers in my area want to charge less then they should for polos i have to compete with them.

also i wanted to tell you that the price only pertains to on color printing any extra color i charge $0.50.

hope this was helpful


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## mtmob (Apr 21, 2007)

Sheepsalt said:


> Actually, when I started I calculated what my hourly overhead cost would be based on a 40-hour week (total monthly fixed costs divided by 4.33 then divided by 40), then did intensive time-studies to determine how much time was involved in each process. I set an hourly shop rate to cover the overhead and meet my margin goal. Then I wrote some software that uses all those figures to determine how to set pricing for each job to meet that hourly rate. Then add in hard costs for materials and mark that up enough to cover contingencies, and that's the price to the customer.
> 
> For bookkeeping, we do job costing by having a job number assigned to each new job. Purchases and labor spent on that job number are recorded, along with the gross income from the job, and rough margins are calculated at the end of each job... all done in the computer.
> 
> Quickbooks tells us the bottom line and marginal breakdown at the end of each month / quarter / year by recording every transaction and assigning it to an appropriate category.


 
What do you mean you wrote some software? did you make your own software or did you purchase one and then entered the info?


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## lynnioz (Jun 12, 2008)

Thanks for the responses on my post regarding pricing($2. + $2 mark up + $3.50 set up=$7.50).
In the case above would you consider only the $2 mark up as your profit? or would you add part of the $3.50 set also as profit?
Then in the case of 20 shirts x $7.50=150. would you take a standard $30 off to show set up & consider the balance of $120 as profit? This how "the book" shows it as a standard way to price in screen printing. I would rather do this instead of breaking down the price for time, ink, set up, screens...It sounds like it would be much easier per order & also to show the $30 (or more) per job on the books (instead of the break down). Sounds like the break down on each job & on the books would be a headache. Thanks again.


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## mtmob (Apr 21, 2007)

i bet you that book youre reading is how to screen print for fun and profits...


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## Unik Ink (Nov 21, 2006)

How do you price a shirt that has 6 colors front, 6 colors back, and 2- 1 color sleeve prints, colored shirt, adult and youth screens? 50 pieces total. $7.50 each would probably lose you money on that order.


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## mmagdesigner (Apr 11, 2008)

well there are certainly many different ways to go about pricing your jobs for profit and even more way for no profit at al......it just depends on a few minor details

1) location.....you cannot charge tuxedo prices and leuer in the regular joe schmoe.
2) out put of product.......do you believe your work is not-so-average, average, above average and so on price accordingly.
3) local competition....you have to do some price checking around your area......just call pretending to be a customer interested in a job and get price quotes....then set your pricing around that.

i know that at the shop i work at we have a gradient pricing list.....the more you buy the more your price goes down. we give price breaks for both the amount of shirts you buy and for the amount of prints on shirts....hope this helps good luck!


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## lynnioz (Jun 12, 2008)

I have shopped around to competitiors-did that long ago-I am happy with the $7.50 price in this area. I would add $1 more for colored shirt, add $3.50 for 2nd side 1 color & $1 more for over size XL. Am pretty much sticking with 1 or 2 color & heat transfers right now. Trying to keep the same pricing when it comes to heat transfers.
I pretty much what to know that profit is enough & also what's the best way to show it on the books. Like "the book" says to take the $30 off the job & show the rest as profit...is this the best way? (Yes, that's the book).


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## lynnioz (Jun 12, 2008)

Also, trying to look at other bookkeeping systems & devise my own system that is right for the printing industry, since I cant seem to find one.


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## Sheepsalt (Sep 12, 2007)

mtmob said:


> What do you mean you wrote some software? did you make your own software or did you purchase one and then entered the info?


Yes, I wrote my own quoting software. I tell it what brand shirt, style no. / color / size / quantity and what my cost is for that shirt. Then tell it what type of print will be used - plastisol, discharge, foil, flock, embroidery, heat-transfer, etc. - what size the print is and how many colors are in the print. It allows me to do this for up to 8 print locations per shirt. Based on data I've collected the software determines how many films & screens are needed, how long the job will take to print including setup, adds in the cost of the shirt with markup and other hard costs such as ink and supplies then sets a price that will yield the hourly shop rate and our margins.


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## Sheepsalt (Sep 12, 2007)

lynnioz said:


> I have shopped around to competitiors-did that long ago-I am happy with the $7.50 price in this area. I would add $1 more for colored shirt, add $3.50 for 2nd side 1 color & $1 more for over size XL. Am pretty much sticking with 1 or 2 color & heat transfers right now. Trying to keep the same pricing when it comes to heat transfers.
> I pretty much what to know that profit is enough & also what's the best way to show it on the books. Like "the book" says to take the $30 off the job & show the rest as profit...is this the best way? (Yes, that's the book).


I'm not sure I like your book's method, especially for determining profit. Treat it like a real business and pretend you're having to pay someone by the hour to run the heat press. Regardless of how you set your pricing, 
profit = gross sales - actual costs, so the only way to accurately determine your profit is to know what your costs are.

Here's a very realistic example using current available pricing:

Gildan Ultra-Cotton 2000 white shirt, size M: $1.35
Transfer sheet: $0.65
Ink for printer: $0.27
Total hard cost: $2.27

Overhead (45 shirts/hour @ $25/hour): $0.56
Labor (45 shirts/hour @ $18/hour): $0.40

*Total actual cost of production: $3.23*

The overhead covers your rent, phone bill, electric, insurance, water, gas, etc, etc. You need to figure this number out yourself for your current circumstances. To figure labor cost, take the hourly rate you pay your operator (even if it's you, set an hourly rate and pay yourself) and multiply it by 1.5 to cover social security, medicare, insurance, and payroll expense - this is method is quite accurate.

As for "the books", the only thing the IRS cares about is actual, verifiable numbers. They won't accept "$30.00 per job" as a cost factor. In an audit they'll want to see your receipts. On your tax return you'll need to show your total sales and your itemized expenses.

Track all your income and expenses and categorize them. At the end of the month / quarter / year, your total income minus your total expenses is your profit. If you fully understand your costs it will become easy to determine how to set your pricing to earn the profit you want.

$7.50 per shirt, in my opinion, is simply way too generic. If you want to compete in an existing market you'll need to understand how your price compares with others, how your product compares with your competition's products, and how your market reacts to those price points. I'm afraid you'll find screen printers who will offer 4-color process prints on basic white tees for close to that price, so you'll need to understand your market.

I know there are allot of books and allot of methods that people use, but the bottom line in business and economics is that pricing is a supply and demand issue. If you can create the demand for your product in such a way that the market perceives better utility-per-dollar from your product over your competitions', then you will earn a strong price point and maintain long-term relationships with your market.


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## Unik Ink (Nov 21, 2006)

You don't sell copies of your software do you? I know pretty close what my actual costs are, but that software sounds very helpful.


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## Sheepsalt (Sep 12, 2007)

Unik Ink said:


> You don't sell copies of your software do you? I know pretty close what my actual costs are, but that software sounds very helpful.


No, not as of yet anyway. Its something I've thought about, but it would have to be modified some to make it more customizable for each shop. For example, I don't think anyone would want to send out quotes with our contact info on the header.


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## lynnioz (Jun 12, 2008)

Thanks.
That's why I'm on here-to get the input & learn more. The small town printers in the surrounding area DO use this price & add even more for colored shirts or an extra color.
I dont want to get outrageous with my price-I want to make sales. Your break down sounds good, I just wanted to find a way of adding set up & such where I could use a set price. If the IRS wont like that then I shouldnt do it. Unless, I can show the IRS that this amount equals the cost of this & this...I hate to have to break everything down on the books also. 27¢ for this & 27¢ for this & so on. I'll keep studying & keep learning til I get it down the way I would like to see it. Thanks again.


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## Sheepsalt (Sep 12, 2007)

I understand. I get allot more detailed than most probably do.

No, you don't need to show $0.27 for labor per shirt to the IRS... that's to help you figure out your actual costs.

At the end of the year you show on your taxes:
Gross Sales: $64,000
Cost of goods sold: $32,453 (blank tees, ink, etc.)
Supplies: $6,574 (chemicals, rags, paper, bags, cleaning supplies, whatever...)
Payroll: $20,000 (total wages paid)
etc...
Your taxable profit is the total gross sales minus all the total expenses.


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## mtmob (Apr 21, 2007)

Sheepsalt said:


> No, not as of yet anyway. Its something I've thought about, but it would have to be modified some to make it more customizable for each shop. For example, I don't think anyone would want to send out quotes with our contact info on the header.


Dude thats awesome i wish i could write my own software. but big props to you what ever works to generate those profits easily and accurate.....


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## joe123 (Mar 20, 2012)

Sheepsalt said:


> I'm not sure I like your book's method, especially for determining profit. Treat it like a real business and pretend you're having to pay someone by the hour to run the heat press. Regardless of how you set your pricing,
> profit = gross sales - actual costs, so the only way to accurately determine your profit is to know what your costs are.
> 
> Here's a very realistic example using current available pricing:
> ...


I know this is an old thread... but where are you buying your shirts from? I can't seem to find Gildan Ultra Cotton 2000 series for anything less than $1.70 (white) 

Any help would be nice


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## forevercamismom (May 18, 2015)

bump so I can find this thread again. I need a lot of help in figuring all this stuff out!


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## ElToro (May 18, 2015)

Doesn't hurt to take a look at the big established contract printer prices. Never assume the competition is better just because of their pricing. Bottom line is most printers charge to little and that's why most end up out of business or always broke.


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## ElToro (May 18, 2015)

Samll jobs like that are not worthy of a sample. If you must for some odd reason (the proof should be all you need) do not discount it. you are doing the work. Charge for it.


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## BidsMaven (Sep 23, 2011)

forevercamismom said:


> bump so I can find this thread again. I need a lot of help in figuring all this stuff out!


Consider checking out our software, if you need help with your pricing. It's quick to set up and easy to use. You can get a 30 day free trial from Free 30-Day Trial - FastAccurateBids.com


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## jeron (Jul 16, 2012)

This is a post I did a few weeks ago, but I think it may help in this thread also.

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There are several aspects to building your price.. The main ones are Screen fees, print fees, and apparel costs. You mark up your apparel to whatever you like to do then add in your screen and print fees, and that should give you your final price. I'll try and break them down for you..

Screen Fees
typically includes all the costs in coating a ready screen in emulsion, film cost, printer ink cost, cost of utilities to burn screen, cost to wash out screen, labor to setup screen on press, cost to reclaim screen and de-grease ready to start all over. Then you also need to add in all your labor time to do all that. It takes your time to print the film, line it up on screen, washout, set up on press and do test prints, and then the time it takes to break the job down and clean the screens to get them ready for the next job. My screen fees are $25 per screen. that covers all my costs and labor to make one screen. Plus has a little bit of markup also.

Apparel Costs
Apparel costs are pretty straight forward. You take the price you pay and mark up the item so you make some money on it. The program I use takes the price I pay and marks everything up 30% as a base markup. Then I can go in and set additional markups based on quantity and apparel type. So for instance for a quantity of 40 shirts it is set to add and additional 70% to the apparel price for a total of 100% markup. The higher the quantity the lower the markup. For example, once you go beyond 660 pieces the additional markup is only 10% for a total markup of only 40%. 

You should also set garment type markups. So for Ogio bags the additional markup on 40 bags may only be 15% for a total of 45% total markup. Because you can markup a $1.50 shirt by 100%, but you can't really be competitive marking up a $100 bag by the same amount. If that makes sense.

Print Fees
Print fees include all your costs to actually print the image. The best way I have found to do this is create a price matrix. I have taken a screen shot of the price matrix that is used in the pricing program I use. Basically you need to figure out how much it costs you to open up the shirts, count them, stack them, load them on press, print them, how much ink did you use, how much other chemicals did you use on press during the print run, unload onto drier, then stack, count again and box for customer. You also need to add in your overhead also. You have to pay rent, utilities, etc. to keep your doors open. All that should be in your print fees.

To make your Price matrix is kind of daunting but I'll try and explain it as easy as possible. First decide on your quantity breaks. Looking at my price matrix you will see what I mean. once you have that figured out you need to figure out how much it will cost you to print one shirt with one color. You need to take into count labor to unbox, count, stack, load, print, ink cost, chemical cost(screen wash, pallet adhesive, etc.), unload onto drier, stack, count and rebox for customer. Also, you need to include your labor and overhead for all this also. The easiest way to do this is to do like 24 shirts and time everything. weigh your ink before and after, etc. then dived by 24 and that will give you a pretty close number per shirt for 1 color.

once you have your price for one color that is in the top left corner of your price matrix. Then you need to decide how much of a discount you want to give for more quantity. It shouldn't be to much because you still have most of the labor still in there to do more. you will fill in all the remaining prices going down the one color collum. 

Next you will need to decide how much you need to add to do a second color. Keep in mind the cost to count, stack, load, unload, count again, and box are already included in the 1 color cost. So the only thing you need to add is the cost for the second color. Which would include ink cost, labor to print, and maybe some chemicals. That's it. that's why my price jumps $1 from one color to 2 on my price matrix. Then adds another $1 for 3 colors and so on. Once you find that additional price you just keep adding it to the previous price to make the other color prices. (the shirt is already loaded and waiting to be printed with a second color. How much will it cost you to print that second color? The unloading onto the drier is already accounted for in the first color remember. ONLY add costs that are needed for the second color that aren't in the single color price, this includes your labor and overhead for the small amount of time you're actually printing the second color..)

Once you have those 2 costs you can fill in the rest of your matrix using the same ratios... look at the pic to see what I mean.

Finally, you need one additional price matrix for additional locations. You set this one up in the same exact way as your normal matrix. However, there are things you won't need to include. Keep in mind that the price to unbox, count, stack, restack, and rebox for the customer is already counted in the original price matrix for the 1st color. This matrix is only for secondary locations. For that, you need to just price in the cost to load, print, ink cost, chemical cost, labor, overhead, time to unload onto the drier and re-stack. everything else should be covered by the first locations print cost. If that makes sense. (The shirts are already stacked from the first print location waiting for the second location. So you need to price it to just load, print, unload and re-stack. With all the ink costs, overhead, labor, etc include of course. BOXING is already accounted for in the original location print pricing.)

Then it doesn't matter if you have 6 locations you just use these 2 matrix for all of them. The first location, using the first locations matrix, usually the one with the most colors, and then 5 additional locations using the additional locations matrix. All of the additional locations start in the same place. The shirts stacked and waiting to be loaded. The screens for the different locations have already been set up and paid for by the screen fees. So the price matrix is just for printing fees..

Let's do an example using the matrix I posted a pic of. We will assume that the shirts with our markup came to $10 each and we have 100 of them. They will have 3 locations; 4 color front, 2 color back, and a 1 color sleeve.

So 100 shirts at $10 each
plus $5.70 for the front print fees (using the first print location matrix)
$3.51 for the back print fees (using the additional location matrix)
$2.70 for the sleeve print fees (using the additional location matrix)

That comes to a total of $21.91 each for all the printing fees and the garment markup.

Then we need to add 7 screen fees at $25 each for a total of $175

so $21.91 X 100 shirts: $2191 plus the screen fees of $175:

$2366 total or $23.66 each for 100 shirts.

I hope this helps you get it all figured out. And remember this will take you a while to figure out and get dialed in. Just keep very detailed notes on everything. How many screens did you coat with one bucket of emulsion?? that will help figure out your screen costs. Also, how much chemicals did you use to clean the screens etc... How much ink per shirts??? chemicals used per print run??? You can see that the more detailed you can be the better you can pin your prices down. but it will take you a while to get that all figured out.

Let me know if all this makes any sense lol..


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