Day three, and the MOT has run out
The crew has dug out, laid the membrane and started compacting the sub-base when it becomes clear there is not enough Type 1 on the drive. Someone rings the merchant. The next grab lorry is Thursday. Meanwhile the sandstone arrived as the wrong calibrated thickness, and there are forty slabs more than the patio needs sitting on pallets the customer wants off their lawn.
Most landscaping businesses know this day well. The quote was priced properly, but the order was put together on the morning of the delivery by someone looking at the drawing and doing the sums in their head.
Why the order and the quote disagree
The price and the order are usually worked out separately. The quote holds a total for the patio. The order needs tonnes of sub-base at a given depth, bags of cement, jointing compound by coverage, the number of slabs in each size for a random pattern, and edge restraints. None of that was written down when the job was sold.
- Quotes hold prices per element, not the quantities behind them.
- Waste allowances for cuts, breakages and random laying patterns are guessed each time.
- Changes agreed with the customer after the quote never reach the order.
- Deliveries are booked by phone, so nobody can see what is coming to which site on which day.
- Leftover stock from the last job is not counted, so it gets bought again.
Where the money leaks
A short order costs crew days: people standing on site waiting for a lorry, or driving to a builders' merchant for bags in the van. An over order costs cash tied up in slabs that sit in the yard until they are written off, and return charges when the merchant will take them back at all. Wrong items cause both. Then there are the customer conversations about why the pallets are still on the lawn.
How we build the takeoff
- Each quoted element carries its dimensions and specification: patio area and depth of dig, sub-base depth, bedding type, paving product and size mix, edging, walling courses.
- A takeoff engine converts those into quantities using your own rules: compacted depth per tonne, bags per square metre of bedding, jointing coverage, and your waste percentage for each product type.
- When a variation is agreed on site, the element is updated and the takeoff recalculates, showing what extra needs to be ordered.
- The order is grouped by supplier, with product codes from your merchants, and sent by email or through a supplier portal if they offer one.
- Deliveries are placed on a calendar against the job start date and the order in which the crew will need them, so aggregates arrive before slabs.
- Returns and leftovers are logged against the yard stock list, which the next takeoff checks first.
| Element | What the takeoff works out |
|---|---|
| Patio | Excavation volume, sub-base tonnage, bedding, slabs by size, jointing |
| Paths and edging | Linear metres of edging, haunching, bedding |
| Walls | Blocks or stone per course, coping, mortar |
| Turf | Rolls, topsoil depth and volume |
| Fencing | Posts, panels or boards, postcrete, gravel boards |
The rules are yours. If your team always lays 150mm of sub-base on clay, or adds more waste for a random pattern than for a single size, that is what the takeoff uses.
A normal first morning on site
The order for next week's job is produced from the job itself, checked by the person who priced it, and sent days ahead. The crew leader sees on their phone what is being delivered and when. When the customer adds a step down to the lawn, the extra blocks and coping are ordered that afternoon instead of on the day the crew runs out. Over a season, you also get a record of how the actual materials used compared with the takeoff, which lets you tune your waste figures from evidence rather than feel.
Signs the ordering needs fixing
- Crews regularly wait for a second delivery.
- Your yard has pallets of slabs nobody can match to a job.
- Orders are worked out on the day by whoever is free.
- Variations agreed on site are ordered late or not at all.
- You cannot say what materials are due at which site this week.