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How Do I Use Cost Modification Factors
How Do I Use Cost Modification Factors

Costs in the Craftsman Costbooks can be modified globally.

Dan Fellman avatar
Written by Dan Fellman
Updated over a week ago

The Craftsman Book company does a good job of providing accurate construction costs for the US and Canada. Because of the size of the area, and the shear volume of data involved, it's not possible to research and store a separate set of costs for each geographic location. So the costs are adjusted for each location based on the cost of living index for the local zip code. 

Sometimes it's possible that the cost of living index for the local zip code does not provide an accurate adjustment for construction costs. For that reason, ContractorTools gives you the ability to use "Cost Modification Factors" to globally adjust the costs in your your Craftsman Costbooks.  
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Cost Modification Factors

To adjust the cost modification factors, select "Craftsman Costbooks" from the main menu. This will take you to the Craftsman Costbooks screen...

Here you will find the "Cost Modification Factors" option. Tap it to open the Cost Modification Factors screen:

The Cost Modification Factors screen allows you automatically adjust the costs in the Craftsman Costbooks up or down by a specified percent when cost items are copied into jobs in ContractorTools. 

Here's how cost modification factors work:

  • A cost modification factor of 1 means that costs will not be modified (because they will be multiplied by 1).

  • A cost modification factor of less than 1 (but greater than zero) means that costs will be decreased (multiplied by that amount). For example, a cost modification factor of .97 means that costs will be reduced by 3%.

  • A cost modification factor greater than 1 means that costs will be increased (multiplied by that amount). For example, a cost modification factor of 1.03 means that costs will be increased by 3%.

Note: Cost Modification Factors are applied based on your company zip code (postal code), which you enter in Company Settings > Company Info.

If you do business in multiple areas where you would need to apply different cost modification factors, then you will need to use multiple company profiles. Each company profile can have a different zip code (postal code), which will be used when applying the cost modification factors.

Please see this help article about using multiple company profiles for more information.

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