Roofing
Roofer Utilization Calculator
Work out what share of paid crew days turn into billable work.
Result
Not all unbilled time is waste. Travel, restocking, training and warranty calls are necessary and will never be zero. The useful question is whether the share is drifting, not whether it reaches 100%.
Get a Free Business AuditWhat moves the number
- Weather days, which are the dominant factor in roofing utilisation.
- Travel and setup, which for a crew and equipment is substantial.
- Gaps between jobs caused by scheduling or material lead time.
Where this one goes wrong
Treating low utilisation as a crew problem. In roofing it is usually weather and scheduling, and pushing crews harder on the days they can work does not recover the days they cannot.
Questions
About this calculator
What utilisation is realistic in roofing?
Lower than in indoor trades and highly regional. The useful comparison is your own year against your own previous year rather than an industry figure from a different climate.
How do I improve it?
Scheduling that can absorb a lost day without losing the following one, and material delivered before the crew arrives rather than on the morning.
Should crews be booked back to back?
With some slack. A weather day in a fully booked schedule cascades through every job behind it, and the disruption costs more than the gap.
The formula
utilisation = billed hours / paid hours
Put this calculator on your site
Free to embed. Paste this where you want it to appear. It stays up to date automatically because it loads from BDEVY.
Please keep the attribution line. It is the only thing we ask in return.
How to use this calculator
- Paid hours per day. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 8.
- Hours that reach an invoice. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 5.2.
- Number of technicians. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 5.
- Rate charged per hour ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $95.
- Cost per paid hour ($). Wage plus burden.
- Working days per month. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 22.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to billable share of the day, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Paid hours per day | 8 |
| Hours that reach an invoice | 5.2 |
| Number of technicians | 5 |
| Rate charged per hour | $95 |
| Cost per paid hour | $34 |
| Working days per month | 22 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Billable share of the day main result | 65.0% |
| Unbilled hours per month | 308 |
| Revenue those hours would have carried | $29,260 |
| What the unbilled hours cost in wages | $10,472 |
65.0% of the paid day reaches an invoice. The rest is 308 hours a month, costing $10,472 in wages and carrying $29,260 of revenue that never happened.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only rate charged per hour, this is what happens to billable share of the day. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Rate charged per hour ($) | Billable share of the day |
|---|---|
| $48 | 65.0% |
| $71 | 65.0% |
| $95 example above | 65.0% |
| $143 | 65.0% |
| $190 | 65.0% |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Paid hours per day
- A number, between 0 and 24, starting at 8.
- Hours that reach an invoice
- A number, between 0 and 24, starting at 5.2.
- Number of technicians
- A number, between 0 and 500, starting at 5.
- Rate charged per hour ($)
- A money amount, starting at $95.
- Cost per paid hour ($)
- Wage plus burden.
- Working days per month
- A number, between 0 and 31, starting at 22.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Billable share of the day | The headline result. A percentage. |
| Unbilled hours per month | A number. |
| Revenue those hours would have carried | A money figure. |
| What the unbilled hours cost in wages | A money figure. |
What this cannot see
Material quantities assume a clean rectangular plane and the waste factor you enter. Valleys, hips, dormers, penetrations and a steep pitch all raise real waste, and a tear-off frequently uncovers decking that was not in the quote.
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.