Pricing glass cut to size, from small panes to tempering done elsewhere
When pricing glass cut to size starts from the area alone, a glass shop loses money on small panes, finished edges and tempering sent out.
Cutting a small pane takes the same handling as cutting a large one, yet a glass shop sells both by the square metre. Grinding the edges takes longer as the perimeter grows. Each hole is a separate operation. Tempering usually happens somewhere else, at a price the shop pays before it can deliver. When pricing glass cut to size starts from the area alone, all of this is either remembered or given away.
Small panes are the clearest case. A pane of 300 × 400 mm measures 0.12 m². Priced on area alone, it brings in very little, yet it has to be measured, cut, handled and wrapped like any other. Most glass shops answer this with a minimum. Below a certain area, the pane is billed as if it were that area. With a minimum of 0.25 m², the same small pane is billed as 0.25 m². The rule is written once, and nobody argues it at the counter.
Price the work beyond the area
Edges are the next thing to get right. A ground edge is paid by the metre of perimeter. For that same 300 × 400 mm pane, the perimeter is 1.4 m, so the edge work is priced from 1.4 m whatever the area. Holes are counted one by one. When the quote is built from the sizes and these options, a mirror with ground edges and two holes is priced correctly the first time. Nobody has to correct it after the customer has agreed.
Tempering needs two habits. The first is on the quote. Tempered glass cannot be cut again once it comes back, so the quote should say so in plain words, and the sizes should be checked before the order goes out. The second is in the books. For tempering sent out to another company, the step should reach the supplier’s invoice draft without being typed again. Otherwise it is easy to deliver a tempered pane and forget to record what was paid for it.
Round mirrors follow the same logic with a different shape. The price starts from the diameter, the glass is cut from a square, and the ground edge is the circumference. A drawing with the diameter on the quote removes the usual doubt about whether a size was the diameter or the radius.
Every sheet and step followed
On the stock side, every sheet of clear glass or mirror is a numbered piece with its size, and offcuts large enough to keep go back to stock with their own label. Work is followed step by step: cutting, edge grinding and drilling are closed on a phone in the workshop, and the tempering step is marked as sent out.
The shop keeps its way of working. A good glass cutter already applies these rules in their head. Once they are written down, every quote applies them, whether or not it was written on a calm day.
This is how sahmrev Workshop works for glass and mirror workshops. It includes everything in sahmrev Commerce and adds the workshop work. The glass page shows the template for glass cut to size, and the live demo lets you try a workshop end to end.