Advanced Custom Fabrication and Cost Management (Standard Pricing)

Quick Overview of Financial Updates and Pricing Changes in Fohlio

Overview

Fohlio’s pricing system is designed to give you flexibility, accuracy, and control across a wide range of workflows, from standardized pricing to fully customized fabrication.

With the latest updates, you can:

Use Standard Pricing to maintain consistent, reusable pricing across projects
Switch to Component-Based Pricing for custom fabrication and build items dynamically from underlying components
Configure tax behavior to match your regional setup (e.g. VAT or Sales Tax)
Override tax settings at the item level and for purchase orders
Apply tax rates directly to client invoices
Clearly understand how taxes impact costs, pricing, and margins

These improvements allow you to:

Adapt pricing to both simple and complex use cases
Ensure accuracy in cost calculations
Maintain consistency across projects
Stay aligned with your margin and financial goals

The Financial Tab

When you open an item's details, you'll find a new Financial tab. This tab contains around 25 pre-built columns with preset formulas and calculations that feed into other parts of Fohlio — including Budget Analysis and procurement documents.

At the top of the tab, you can choose between two pricing methods:

Standard Pricing
Component-Based Pricing

💡 Tip: Hover over any field's formula icon to see exactly how that value is being calculated.

Standard Pricing — Estimated / Planned Budgeting

This section is used for early-stage or placeholder items where exact specifications aren't yet confirmed.

Planned Price — your rough per-unit estimate
Soft Cost Allowance — an optional percentage-based buffer
Extended Planned Price and Total Planned Budget — calculated automatically and available for mapping to Budget Analysis for comparison throughout your project journey

Standard Pricing — Cost Pricing / Purchasing Price

This section captures your real procurement costs once quotes are received.

Retail Price — the supplier's listed or published price (e.g. from their website)
Trade Discount — any discount applied by the supplier
Trade Price — the final quoted price (whether received directly, via a code, or through a rebate agreement)
Customs & Duties (%) — a percentage applied to the total (including quantity) for shipping or import fees
Internal Cost — a flat value added to the total; similar to Customs & Duties but entered as an absolute amount rather than a percentage
Extended Cost — quantity × trade price; this is the figure that appears on your Purchase Order

Tax on Purchasing

Based on your project settings, you can apply tax to purchasing costs. This can be configured at the project level or overridden per item. When tax is set (e.g. 20%) and Retail Prices Include Tax is enabled, the system backs tax out of the trade price during calculation — so when a Purchase Order is generated, tax isn't double-counted. It's excluded from the trade price and reapplied correctly on the document.

Standard Pricing — Client Pricing

Markup%— the percentage added on top of cost for your client price
Actual Margin% — set your target margin at the project level; Fohlio calculates your actual margin based on cost and client price, and flags items that fall short
Client Price— The unit price you will share with client after markup is applied, you can override this value in case you want to reach your margins
Client Soft Costs — additional pass-through costs (freight, installation, etc.) you want to show separately from markup
Client Total — the unit price inclusive of client costs and tax
Extended Client Total — client total × quantity
Client Saving — shows the saving versus retail price; most useful in trade-discount-based workflows where the gap between retail and client price represents your value
Client Sales Tax Amount — the per-unit tax amount shown to the client

Tax Treatment Overview

Tax settings are structured into:

Project level — via Procurement Settings
Item-level Overrides

These settings directly impact:

Cost price
Client price
Margins
Purchase Orders
Client Invoices

Key Updates to Tax Settings

We've updated tax handling in your settings to give you more control over how taxes are applied in cost calculations.

You'll now find two key toggles that determine how taxes impact your pricing and margins.

1. Retail Prices Include Tax

This setting defines whether supplier prices already include tax.

ON → Prices are tax-inclusive (common in Europe / VAT)
OFF → Prices are tax-exclusive (common in the US)

Impact: When enabled, the system removes tax from supplier price to calculate the true cost.

2. Taxable on Purchase

This defines whether your purchases are subject to tax.

ON → Taxes are added to your cost (not tax-exempt)
OFF → No tax applied on purchase (tax-exempt)

Impact: When enabled, taxes are added to the cost price, increasing the total cost and affecting margins and client pricing.

3. Separate Tax Rates

You can define:

Client Sales Tax → Applied to client invoices
Tax on Purchase → Applied to procurement (optional)

Options:

Use the same rate for both
Or define separate rates for more complex scenarios

How Tax Affects Pricing

Tax settings directly impact calculations:

Cost Price is affected by:

Tax inclusion (retail prices toggle)
Tax on purchase
Customs & duties
Internal costs

Example Logic:

Tax-inclusive price → tax is deducted → lower cost basis
Tax applied on purchase → tax added → higher cost basis

Item-Level Overrides

You can override tax settings per item:

Open item settings
Switch to Item-level settings
Adjust:
- Tax toggles
- Tax rates

Use case: Different suppliers or regions within the same project.

You can also:

Reset individual fields to project defaults
Reset all settings at once

Margin Target Setup

You can define a target margin at the project level to guide your pricing decisions and ensure profitability.

Set your margin when creating a project, or update it anytime in Project Settings
Fohlio automatically calculates your actual margin based on cost and client price

When your target isn't met

If your pricing falls below the target margin:

A warning indicator will appear
Fohlio will suggest a recommended client price to help you reach your goal. You can apply it by hovering over the icon and pressing "Apply Recommended Price."

When your target is met

A check indicator will appear confirming the condition

How to respond

You have full flexibility in how you handle this:

Accept the recommended price and apply it directly
Adjust pricing manually
Reduce your costs — either by:
- Negotiating better supplier discounts
- Optimizing internal costs

Once you reach a suitable price, you can confidently use it when communicating with your client.

Purchase Orders & Client Invoices

Tax settings are automatically applied to:

Purchase tax → applied to Purchase Orders
Client tax → applied to Client Invoices

Item-Level Overrides & Document Behavior

You can override tax settings at the item level, as well as when creating a Purchase Order or Client Invoice.

Behaviour when selecting multiple items in case of tax override:

A single tax rate will be applied across all selected items
If any item has a custom (overridden) tax setting, that rate will be prioritized
Otherwise, the project default tax will be used

This ensures consistency within each document while still allowing flexibility at the item level.

Column Customization

Tax fields can be added as columns in tables and renamed.

Example:

Rename "Sales Tax" → "VAT" for European workflows

Additional Cost Inputs

You can also include:

Customs & Duties (%)
Internal Costs

These:

Apply across item quantities
Increase cost basis
Affect final pricing and margins

Best Practices

Use project defaults for consistency
Override only when necessary
Align tax setup with your region (VAT vs Sales Tax)
Regularly review margin impact after tax changes

Component-Based Pricing (Custom Fabrication)

In addition to Standard Pricing, Fohlio also supports Component-Based Pricing, designed specifically for custom fabrication and customer-owned materials.

This allows you to build item pricing dynamically based on its underlying components.

When to Use Component-Based Pricing

Use this method when:

Items are custom-built or fabricated
Pricing depends on multiple components or materials
You need more accurate cost calculations based on real inputs (materials + labor)

How It Works

At the item level, you can switch between:

Standard Pricing
Component-Based Pricing

Once you switch to Component-Based Pricing, the pricing structure changes.

What Changes in Component-Based Mode

You'll notice additional fields such as:

Fabrication & Labor
Component Build Cost

Instead of entering a fixed price, the system calculates pricing based on components.

Component Build Cost Calculation

The Component Build Cost is automatically calculated using:

The cost price of each component
The quantity of each component used in the main item

In simple terms:

Component Build Cost = Σ (Component Cost Price × Quantity per Item)

This means:

Any updates to component pricing will automatically update the total item cost
You get a dynamic and accurate cost breakdown

Note: In Budget Analysis, only the parent item's value is counted — components are excluded to avoid double-counting.

Adding Fabrication & Labor Costs

In addition to component costs, you can manually add:

Fabrication & Labor costs

These values are included in the final pricing calculation, giving you a complete view of:

Material costs (from components)
Production costs (fabrication + labor)

Key Benefits

Accurate pricing for custom items
Automatic cost updates from components
Better control over fabrication and labor costs
Ideal for complex or built-to-order items

Summary

Component-Based Pricing is best suited for scenarios where pricing is not fixed, but built from multiple elements. It ensures that your item costs always reflect the latest component and production inputs.