Six days on a five day job
The house was quoted at five painter days. It took six and a half. The painter says the woodwork was worse than it looked, the stairwell was awkward, and the customer kept moving furniture back. All plausible. Nobody knows which one mattered most, or whether it was a one-off.
The next similar house goes out at five days again.
Why overruns stay a mystery
Decorating time is mostly spent on prep and woodwork, which are the hardest things to judge at the survey. Time is recorded as days on the job, so the quote's breakdown is never compared with reality.
- Time is recorded per day, not per room or task.
- Prep time is lumped with painting.
- Woodwork, doors and spindles are not separated from walls and ceilings.
- Reasons for delays, like furniture or other trades, are not recorded.
- Jobs are reviewed, if at all, after they are finished.
What hidden overruns cost
Every overrun day is a day not billed elsewhere, and the next customer starts later. When quotes keep using the same allowances, the same tasks keep overrunning. And the owner has no evidence when deciding whether to raise prices for woodwork or stairwells.
Overruns also hide inside busy seasons. When the diary is full and painters move straight from one job to the next, a job that took a day longer just pushes everything back, and nobody stops to ask why. The profit disappears quietly, spread across dozens of jobs that each ran a little long.
And without evidence, conversations about pricing go round in circles. The owner feels woodwork is underpriced, the painters agree, but nobody knows by how much, so the rate never changes. A few months of rough records settles the question.
The time tracking we build
- The quote's rooms and tasks are loaded into the job: prep, ceilings, walls, woodwork, doors, stairwell, for each room.
- The painter taps the room and task they are starting, and taps again when they switch. It takes seconds and is rough by design.
- Delays are logged with a tap from a short list: furniture not moved, other trades, extra prep found, waiting to dry.
- The owner sees each live job with time used against the quote per room and task, and a warning when one is running over.
- At the end, a summary compares the whole job with the quote.
- Across jobs, the system shows which tasks usually overrun and by how much, so you can adjust your rates.
| Task | Quote holds | Painter records |
|---|---|---|
| Prep | Allowance per room | Time, extra prep found |
| Ceilings | Time per room | Time |
| Walls | Time per room | Time |
| Woodwork and doors | Time per item | Time |
| Stairwell | Allowance | Time, access notes |
What the numbers tell you
During a job, you see an overrun early enough to talk to the customer about extra prep, or move a painter. After a few months, you know that woodwork on older houses takes consistently longer than you allow, or that stairwells need more time. Those findings go straight into the next quote.
The records also help with customers. When a job is running over because the woodwork needed far more prep than anyone could see at the survey, the owner can have that conversation early, with the time recorded, rather than at the end with only a feeling. Whether to charge for it is still your decision, but it is an informed one.
Does this sound like your jobs?
- Jobs regularly take more days than quoted.
- You do not know which tasks cause overruns.
- Time is recorded per day, not per task.
- Quote allowances have not changed for years.
- Overruns are only discussed after the job.