Overview
Labor time is the estimated time to install, deliver, or complete a product or service. Dirt Face uses it for crew scheduling and job duration planning. It does not automatically add labor cost to customer-facing prices.
Where in the app: Product/service catalog, quote line items, proposal totals
Open: Costing defaults
How it affects scheduling
When you schedule a job that includes a line item with labor time, that time is added to the job's total estimated duration.
Simple example: 400 ft fence removal at 0.0125 hours per foot adds 5 hours (400 × 0.0125) to the schedule.
Labor time aggregation
Labor times from products and services are added to any labor time from fence quotes (Supply & Install).
Complete example: A fence quote has 10 hours of installation labor. You add optional "400 ft Fence Removal" with 5 hours. If the customer includes removal, the schedule shows 15 hours total (10h installation + 5h removal).
This helps you:
- Accurately schedule crew members
- Plan multi-day jobs
- Avoid overbooking your team
- Set realistic completion dates
- Account for optional services if selected
Important: labor costs and pricing
Labor time does not automatically add labor costs to the quote price.
Labor time is used only for scheduling. It does not affect unit price or total price shown to the customer.
Factor labor into your prices manually:
- Calculate labor cost per hour (wages, benefits, overhead)
- Multiply labor hours × labor cost rate
- Add to materials cost
- Add desired profit margin
- Set the final unit price
Example scenario
Service: Fence removal (per foot)
- Labor time: 0.0125 hours per foot (45 seconds)
- Labor cost: $50/hour → $0.625 per foot
- Equipment/disposal: $0.50 per foot
- Total cost: $1.125 per foot
- 25% markup → Selling price: $1.41 per foot
For scheduling: 400 feet adds 5 hours to the job.
For pricing: Customer sees 400 × $1.41 = $564 total.
Best practices
- Set labor time once in your product/service catalog for consistency
- Review and update labor times based on actual job performance
- Always include labor costs in your pricing calculations
- Use Save to Template to update your catalog with refined labor times
Quick tips
- Direct time — Use when you know exactly how long something takes (e.g. 30 minutes per gate)
- Rate-based — Use when you work at a certain pace (e.g. 60 feet of fence per hour)
- No labor time? — Skip for products that do not require installation or when scheduling is not needed