Most tradies do not lose money on the big jobs. They lose it on the small extras nobody charged for.
You are repainting a lounge. While you are there, the client asks you to do the passage too. Just quickly. You are on a roll, so you do it. You never put it on the bill.
Or the bathroom you are retiling turns out to have walls that are not square. That is an extra hour of prep on every wall. The client never sees it. You just absorb it.
Then at the end you wonder why a job that should have made R4 000 only made R1 500.
Why extras slip through
It is rarely one big thing. It is lots of small ones, and they all happen while you are busy with your hands full.
The pattern is always the same:
- The client asks for something extra while you are on site
- You say yes because you do not want to seem difficult
- You start the work before talking about price
- You mean to mention it later, then forget
- The invoice goes out at the original quote
- You quietly carry the cost
What this really adds up to
One free passage does not break you. A year of free passages does.
- Hours of labour given away across every job
- Materials you paid for but never billed
- Jobs that look profitable but barely break even
- A nagging feeling you are working hard for not much
- Clients who now expect the extras for free
You did the work. You just did not get paid for it. The work was never the problem. The record was.
How to charge for every extra without the awkward conversation
The trick is to make the extra official the moment it comes up, not at the end when it feels like a surprise.
With BuilderBuddi you can:
- Add the extra to the job the second the client asks
- Send a quick updated price so they approve before you start
- Keep a record of what was agreed, so there is no debate later
- Roll every approved extra straight into the final invoice
- See the true profit on the job once everything is counted
Doing the work is only half the job
Doing good work is the easy part. Getting paid the full value of it is where tradies lose out.
If your extras live in your memory or a WhatsApp message, you will keep giving them away. Capture them as they happen, get a quick yes, and put them on the bill. That is the difference between a busy year and a profitable one.