How does Burdi Calculate Max Labour Costs for a job?

How does Burdi Calculate Max Labour Costs for a job?



 How Burdi Calculates Maximum Labour Costs from Your Revenue


One of the biggest challenges for trade business owners is knowing how much you can afford to spend on labour while still staying profitable. Pay too much and you erode your margins. Pay too little and you risk unhappy staff or poor service.

Burdi solves this by automatically calculating your maximum labour cost on every job, based on revenue, profit target, and other job costs. Here’s how it works with a simple example:


Step 1: Start with Total Revenue
We will be using this job as an example. Here you can see the revenue (ex. GST) is $220.

Here is what the job looks like in ServiceM8. (Click to view).

Here is what the job looks like in the Burdi Job Report. (Click to view).

Step 2: Deduct Your Gross Profit Target
You can set your GP target under your ServiceM8 Add-on section within ​your Burdi Settings. In this example, the GP is set to 45%. 

Every business needs a profit margin. Burdi always locks in your chosen GP% first.

  • GP Target: 45%

  • 45% of $220 = $99

That leaves $121 for all your costs (materials, bonuses, labour).

Step 3: Subtract Materials

Burdi factors in the quoted material costs to ensure there’s enough budget to cover all required materials.

Here is the Quoted Material Cost in the Burdi Job Report. (Click to view).

  • Materials = $31

  • Remaining = $121 – $31 = $90

Step 4: Subtract Allowances or Bonuses

If you pay staff bonuses, Burdi deducts these too. The eligible bonus is taken from the Contingency for the job. 

You can set the job's contingency using the Burdi button and choosing the Contingency Charge option: 


You can set the percentage of contingency as bonus under your ServiceM8 Add-on section within your Burdi Settings.

  • Bonus is 50% of $30  = $15

  • Remaining = $90 – $15 = $75

Step 5: Maximum Labour Costs

After covering GP, materials, and bonuses, the maximum labour spend is what’s left.

  • $75

This ensures you hit your profit target, while paying staff fairly and keeping costs transparent.

Visual Breakdown

Here’s how the $220 divides into profit, materials, bonuses, and labour:

The Bonus Calculator

Burdi takes the maximum labour cost for each job and converts it into the hours a technician can spend on site. This ensures jobs are delivered profitably while keeping technician time accountable. The same calculation also powers Burdi’s bonus calculator, so incentives are always tied back to performance and profitability. For a deeper dive, check out this article, where we’ll explain exactly how hours are calculated.

Got any questions? Call us at 1800 223 532 or send us an email at support@burdi.com.au if you require support.

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