Stop 3 of 8 · Weekly
Selections and the price PDFs
Cabinet, tile and counter price lists in, a selections sheet with real allowances out, and nothing priced from memory.
What an allowance really is
An allowance is a promise with a settlement rule attached: this is the budget carried for tile, and if you pick over it you pay the difference, if you pick under it you get it back. Remodelers lose money on allowances in exactly two ways. The allowance was set from memory rather than from the current price list, or the sheet the client signed never said which way the difference settles.
Claude fixes the first one if you give it the price PDFs and forbid it from pricing anything else. The second one is wording, and you write it once.
Load the price lists
Lina has three sets of supplier PDFs: cabinets by line and door style, tile by collection, counters by material and slab. They are long, they are laid out for a rep rather than a person, and the prices moved in March.
[upload the three countertop price PDFs] Build one table of every quartz colour that more than one of these suppliers carries. Columns: colour, price per square foot from each supplier, and fabrication and install where the PDF lists it. Cite the page each number came from. Flag any line where the cheapest is more than fifteen percent under the next one so I can check for a different slab size or a discontinued colour. Do not include any colour that appears in only one list.
[upload the cabinet, tile and counter price PDFs] Build the selections sheet for the [Marlow] kitchen from the selections plan below. One row per category. For each row give me a good, a better and a best option that exist in these PDFs, with the supplier cost, the page number, and the allowance at my standard markup of [30] percent. If a category or a product the client asked for is not in these PDFs, write not in the price lists and tell me which rep to call. Price nothing from outside these files. [paste the selections plan]
Three tiers, one page
The reason for three tiers is not upselling. It is that a client who sees only one number argues with the number, and a client who sees three chooses. Keep the tiers to one page and put the allowance, not the cost, in front of the client.
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Category | Cabinets, counters, backsplash, floor, fixtures, lighting, hardware |
| Good, better, best | A real product from the PDFs, with the page |
| Allowance carried | Supplier cost at your markup, rounded |
Take the sheet above and make me the client version: category, the three options by name and finish, and the allowance carried for each. Strip every supplier name, every cost and every page reference. Add one line at the top explaining in two sentences how an allowance settles if they pick over or under it.