I just gave them an invoice that simply stated truck interior $125 and gave a list of what I do for interiors with nothing specific to each truck and they were fine with it. But after reading some of the above comments I do not believe I'm charging enough.
I think the way you did the invoice is perfect- a price quote and a break down of everything that's done. Make sure you list every detail. More steps on paper makes the job look harder to do and more complicated, and it really is hard and sometimes complicated work. Instead of just listing "shampoo carpets" list 2 separate steps- "stain treatment and removal" and then list "shampoo carpets with a commercial carpet extractor." Adding the phrase "commercial carpet extractor" looks like a professional business with high grade, professional equipment (although I actually just sold my carpet extractor because I love my Rigid wet/dry vac so much).
As far as not charging enough, it depends. Prices for everything, including detailing, vary based on what part of the country you're in. I would suspect that $100-$150 would be a price range that would work in 80% of the country (with the upper range being expensive areas like NYC and Los Angeles), but that's a guess. I'm in the south, and $100 is a good number for a high quality interior detail in my area.
Also, remember that this fleet is bringing you volume, so they're going to want a discounted rate. I would think that 25% off of your standard rate would be a great deal for them, and I wouldn't cut any more off my prices than 25%. Whether you're actually giving them 25% off or not is irrelevant. What is important is that they think they're getting 25% off, so if you have a website, make sure you don't have an interior detail listed for $125, unless you can tell the fleet account that the interior detail on the website doesn't include upsells, like stain removal and carpet shampooing, which are included in the detail package that the fleet account is getting.
Someone earlier talked about figuring out your bring home pay versus your gross, and estimated a 50% loss. I have to respectfully disagree with how they came up with their numbers. They included taxes, meals, and fuel/travel. IMO, these shouldn't be included, because these are the exact same expenses EVERYONE has, regardless of their job. Everybody pays income tax. It is true that as a business owner you will pay an extra 5.65% in taxes, though, so that part should be counted as a business expense. I've always eaten at least 1 meal per day at work, whether it's a packed lunch or McDonald's. Fuel and travel should be included if you're driving to 3 different locations per day, but if you're driving to 1 location and working all day on site, your fuel and travel costs are no different from some guy who works in an office and drives to and from work every day.
IMO, expenses should be figured like this-
Take off-
-taxes take 5.65% after you've deducted all other business expenses
-business insurance (if you have it)
-chemicals used (easiest way is to keep track of how much you spend per month on chemicals over a 3 month span, then divide that out by the number of hours you worked in that 3 month period. You've gotta keep a log of how many hours you work each day. Estimating won't cut it.
-uniforms (5 t shirts every six months with your company name/logo. $200/year?
-equipment extractors break, pressure washers die. Hopefully not all at the same time, but equipment does eventually have to be replaced. Still, if you set $100/month aside for equipment replacement, you could buy an extractor, a DA, and a pressure washer every year, so your equipment replacement cost is a tiny fraction of your budget.
-fuel/travel to get a true representation of fuel/travel cost, let's say you drive to your first job of the day. You don't count that in your fuel expenses, but for the rest of the day, you now keep track of your mileage, and every mile after you leave the first drive is counted as an additional business expense, but when you leave the last job of the day to go home, you don't count the miles from the last job back to your house. This means that you drove to work in the morning and drove home in the afternoon, just like everybody else, but all the extra driving that you did in the middle of the day (the fuel expenses that the normal person doesn't have), this driving is counted as an extra business expense. If you're driving from house to house doing a lot of quick $40 wash and vacuum jobs, you'll have a lot of travel expenses. If you're going to 1 or 2 locations per day, you travel expenses are the same as someone with a normal job.
-advertising If you're paying for any form of advertising, you gotta factor that in
-business cell phone
So here's what it's gonna look like in the end. Let's say you're grossing $27/hour. You don't have any business insurance. No employees (so no worker's comp insurance). You're doing 2 details per day, both at the same location, and you're working 8 hour days. You made $216, minus $20 for chemicals ($10 per car), minus $1 per day for uniforms, minus $10 per day for Google Adwords, minus $0.30 per day for business cards, minus $2 per day for your business cell phone, minus $4 per day for your equipment replacement fund. That leaves $178.70 and we take off 5.65% for the extra taxes that business owners pay. That gives us $168.60, so in 8 hours you made $168.60, or $21.08 per hour.
Now this is the same as a guy who makes $21.08 per hour at an office, before income taxes, health insurance, and other deductions are taken out. And actually, I just thought about something. An awful lot of people don't wear company uniforms to work. They wear their own clothes, that they have to purchase, so really we shouldn't count uniforms as a business expense, but I'm not going to go back through all that and do the math again.
BTW- how did you get your first fleet account? I'd like to get a fleet or 2.
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