Job costing for plaster and stucco contractors

Stucco is bid by the square yard, but it’s built coat by coat, and each coat has its own labor, material, and scaffold time. JobMargin keeps lath, material, and scaffolding on separate lines so you can see whether each coat is coming in where you bid it.

What plaster and stucco contractors track in JobMargin

• Lath and accessories separately. Lath, corner bead, and weep screed are a big early cost. Tracking them on their own line keeps them from hiding the real material number.
• Scaffolding by job. Every extra move of the scaffold costs money. Seeing scaffold spend next to progress helps you plan the coats.
• Scope by coat and building. Line items like “Scratch and brown, Building C” become the job’s scope, and progress is logged by square yard.
• Weather days in the daily log. The crew logs the weather with each day’s work, which helps explain a schedule slip to a GC.

Set up for plaster and stucco from the first day

When you pick Plaster & Stucco as your trade, JobMargin loads these cost categories for budgets, receipts, and job costs. You can rename or add your own at any time.

• Stucco & Plaster
• Labor
• Lath & Accessories
• Scaffolding
• Supplies
• Equipment Rental
• Fuel
• Subcontractor
• Other

Bid line items use the units stucco actually bid in: square yards (SY), square feet (SF), linear feet (LF), and lump sum (LS).

Example: what a stucco job looks like mid-way

Lath, scratch, brown, and finish coat on 24 townhomes, about 7,600 square yards. The lath is done on every building, and the scratch and brown coats are about halfway.

Lath came in at 98% of budget with all of it installed, right where it should be. Labor at 54% and material at 47% are tracking with the coats about halfway. Scaffolding is a little ahead at 62%, so plan the finish coat to move the scaffold as few times as possible.

Guides and tools for plaster and stucco contractors