Software for roofers from stripped roof to watertight

How to price roofing work: m², linear metres, scaffolding and hours

A roof is priced in several units. Tiles, membrane and battens go by the square metre, ridges, hips, valleys and eaves by the linear metre, flashings around chimneys and roof windows by the item, and anything that only shows once the old covering is off by the hour. Scaffolding is a line of its own, and it is often the one that runs away.

Money disappears where a roof is more complicated than its square metres suggest. A dormer, two roof windows and a chimney in the middle of the slope take far more hours than a plain gable, and cutting at hips and valleys means more waste. So it pays to keep separate lines in your price list for dormers, flashings and cutting, and an hourly rate for whatever cannot be measured beforehand.

In Bidmio you set up the lines once in your own price list with the unit, buying price, selling price and VAT. On the next quote you pick them and change the quantity. Optional lines, such as loft insulation or new guttering, show up separately and the customer decides whether to include them.

• Tiles, membrane and battens in m²
• Ridges, hips and valleys in linear metres
• Scaffolding with weekly hire as its own line
• An hourly rate for rafters and anything unmeasurable

Measured from the ground: slopes, edges and a materials list from one model

The Quantity takeoff tab on the job holds the building model, and the roof has its own panel there. You pick the shape, such as gable, hip, half-hip, mono-pitch, pyramid, mansard, L-shaped or flat, and type the length and width of the building, the eave and verge overhangs and the pitch. Bidmio draws the roof planes and works out the true roof area from the pitch, not just the footprint, along with the lengths of the eaves, ridge, hips, valleys and verges. Chimneys, roof windows, dormers and penetrations go on the plane they sit on, and their area comes off the covering.

If you have a drawing as a PDF, on the Developer plan you can trace the roof planes straight onto it with their pitch and edge types. Every save is a new revision and the calculation belongs to exactly that revision, so any quote can be traced back to the measurements it came from.

Then you choose a roofing system: concrete tile, clay tile, bitumen shingle, profiled metal sheet, standing seam or EPDM on a flat roof. The materials list shows the tiles or sheets, ridge and verge pieces, battens, counter battens, membrane, ventilation strips and valley trough, with the formula behind every figure and how many pallets, rolls or packs to order. For metal sheets you get a cutting list with the sheet lengths for each plane. If a plane sits below the pitch the system allows, you see it at once, and the calculation cannot become a quote until the pitch or the system is changed; on a low pitch Bidmio recommends a higher-class underlay.

Draft quote turns the calculation into a draft quote with the norm items and your firm's prices, and Draft purchase orders gives you one draft order per supplier. Nothing is sent: you check the prices and send them yourself. The roofing systems in Bidmio are sample data, not a manufacturer's tables, so check the quantities against your supplier's figures.

• Eight roof shapes from a template, or planes traced on a PDF drawing (Developer)
• True roof area from the pitch and edges in linear metres
• Materials list with the formula and whole pallets, rolls and packs
• Cutting list for metal roofs
• Draft quote and draft purchase orders, one per supplier

Quotes, contracts and what you find under the old roof

On a roof you only know the state of the rafters and battens once the old covering is off. So keep replacing rotten timber as an hourly line next to the fixed price, and say so clearly in the quote, so the household knows the rule in advance.

A fixed price and hours can sit in one quote and end up on one invoice. The fixed lines stay put while the hourly line for the rafters grows with what the roofers record. Photos of the rot from the site diary explain the hours better than a long email.

When a contract with a homeowner is agreed at their home, the Consumer Contracts Regulations usually give them 14 days to cancel, and you give them the notice yourself. Emergency repairs they asked you to start straight away are treated differently. The contract terms themselves are yours to write; Bidmio keeps the quotes, their versions and the customer's answer with the date.

Deposits and stage payments

A whole roof needs tiles, membrane, battens and scaffolding before the first tile goes on, and that is a lot of money up front for a small firm. So most split the payment: a deposit before ordering, a stage payment once the old roof is off and the balance at handover.

The deposit and the stage invoices are raised from the job. When the money comes in, the payment is matched to the right invoice, and on the final invoice Bidmio offers to deduct what the household has already paid. Nobody is billed twice.

If you work as a subcontractor for a builder, the VAT domestic reverse charge for construction services and CIS deductions stay with your accountant or bookkeeping software; Bidmio does not run them.

Asbestos in old cement slates and sheets

Asbestos cement slates and corrugated sheets are still on many houses, garages and outbuildings built before the 2000s. Most work on asbestos cement is non-licensed, but some jobs must be notified to HSE before they start, the people doing it need the right asbestos training and protection, and the waste is hazardous: it is wrapped and taken to a site that may accept it, with a consignment note.

You follow the rules themselves from HSE's guidance; Bidmio does not decide whether a material contains asbestos and does not submit notifications. What it does is keep the paperwork together: tasks due before the start, the notification receipt, copies of training certificates, waste consignment notes and photos of the sheeting and wrapping sit on the right job.

That pays off when the customer, an insurer or an inspector later asks how the slates were handled. The answer is not a folder in the office but the job, with dates and photos.

Working at height and hot works

Roofing is one of the trades with the most serious accidents. The Work at Height Regulations call for protection against falls, usually scaffolding with edge protection at the eaves or other collective measures, and the scaffold has to be inspected and safe before anyone goes up. Torch-on felt means trained people, a fire watch after the work and extinguishers to hand.

On the Professional plan the health and safety module keeps training with expiry dates, PPE issue and the accident book, so you can see who has valid working at height training and when it runs out. Safety checks before the start can be tasks on the job, ticked off with a name and a date. Risk assessments and method statements can be stored as files on the job.

Weather, the site diary and planning

Wind and rain run roofing work. In strong wind it is dangerous to handle sheets and membrane, and an open roof in the rain means water damage inside. The site diary is where it says when the roof was open, how it was sheeted and why work stopped one afternoon.

The diary is written from a phone up on the scaffold: what went on, how many were up there, the hours, the gusts, the showers and whether the roof was sheeted over. Whatever turns up under the old covering is photographed before it is replaced. The site diary belongs to the job from the Solo plan up, and it can be approved and printed.

Set a task on the job to Roofing (wind, rain and frost) under Weather check, and Bidmio checks the forecast for the site 72 and 24 hours before it starts. If the forecast breaks a limit for wind, rain or frost, you get a notification and the task shows a Weather warning. You then note the measure planned, such as sheeting and extra edge protection, or move the task and say why. The job needs a location on the map.

When the weather turns, you move tasks in the calendar. On the Professional plan you share the crews between roofs, everyone sees on their phone where to start the next morning, and storm call-outs slot in between the big jobs.

• Crew and hours for every day
• Wind, rain and sheeting
• Photos of rot and damage before replacement
• Changes from the quote and who agreed them
• Weather check 72 and 24 hours before a roofing task

Materials: tiles, membrane, battens and waste

Tiles, membrane, battens, counter battens, ridge tiles, lead and fixings are the biggest cost on a roofing job after wages. At the quote you work out the quantity per square metre and add an allowance for cutting at hips, dormers and valleys. Up on the roof you find out whether the sums held.

Spare tiles from a new roof often end up on a storm repair two days later, and nobody writes it down. Returnable pallets stay behind the garage. On the Professional plan each item has a minimum level, goods are booked in from the delivery note, issued to a particular job or moved between addresses, and the buying price goes with them, so the roof's figures stay right as the job runs.

Invoices from the roofing merchant can also go straight onto the job as a cost, without going through stock.

Storm damage and insurance claims

After a storm the phone rings all day. Tiles are off, flashings are hanging loose and there is water in the loft. The first job is to make the roof watertight; the second is the evidence the customer's insurer wants to see before it pays: photos before and after, what was done and what it cost.

In Bidmio every call-out becomes its own small job. The roofer photographs the damage before sheeting it and again after the repair, and records hours and materials on the spot. The invoice can go the same day, and the photos sit on the job, so the customer or the loss adjuster gets them together.

For the claim itself you make a photo report of the type Storm damage. Under Damage for the insurer you fill in the date of damage, the cause (storm, hail, snow load, lightning or fallen tree), the damaged area in m² and the damaged length in metres, the insurer, the claim number and the weather that day. Photos with notes go with it, and the report becomes a PDF for the customer or the loss adjuster.

Bidmio is not connected to insurers' claims systems and does not judge what the policy covers. But when the loss adjuster rings three weeks later, you find the job with its photos and diary in seconds.

Handover, callbacks and annual inspections

Typical callbacks on roofing work are leaks at flashings, a slipped tile after the winter and damp in the underlay. Not all of them are the roofer's fault: condensation can come from a loft without ventilation, and a leaking gutter fitted by someone else can wet the eaves. Under the Consumer Rights Act a homeowner can ask you to put right work that was not done with reasonable care and skill.

With the old job to hand, half the answer is ready: the site diary shows which day the slope and the flashing were done, and the photos show how it looked. The callback becomes a new job with a visit and a repair as tasks, and the first invoice is left alone.

For surveys, handovers and inspections, Quality Control comes with four checklists: Roof survey before the quote, covering access, the covering, battens, rafters and suspected asbestos among other points, Roof handover together with the customer, Annual inspection of a pitched roof and Annual inspection of a flat roof. Each point can carry a photo and a note, and the checklist can be signed on the spot.

Add the annual inspection as a dated task on the roof job, and it comes up by itself when it is due, with the checklist filled in on the roof. Re-roofing can also need Building Regulations approval; your building control route or competent person scheme decides, and Bidmio keeps the certificates on the job.

Getting started in a week

Day one: your company details, logo and bank account, then your standard roofing lines in the price list, from scaffolding and stripping to ridges and flashings. Customers come in from a spreadsheet or one by one as they ring.

The rest of the week: measure one roof from a template, send one real quote and let the customer answer from the link, give one roofer access to the Work zone for hours, photos and the diary, and end Friday with a deposit and a look at what the roof has cost so far.

What else roofers get in Bidmio

A spoken work report records the whole day in one go. In the Work zone, or from the job's options menu, you record up to three minutes: which job, who worked how long, what was done and what material went in. If you would rather not talk, type it. Bidmio turns it into hours, material from the van, from the price list or as a one-off item, and a site diary note. You check every line, and nothing reaches the job until you tap Save to project. Whoever may create invoices then gets a draft partial invoice with exactly those hours and that material; nothing is issued or sent. It needs AI switched on and uses AI credits.

• Scaffold towers, access platforms and torches with QR labels and service dates (Developer)
• Health and safety: training expiry, accident book, PPE (Professional)
• Mileage log (Professional)
• Company website and enquiry forms (all plans)
• Spoken work report: hours, material and a diary note from one recording, then an invoice draft

What Bidmio does not do for roofers

Bidmio is software for jobs, people, materials and money. Some things it deliberately does not do, and it is fair to say so up front.

Bidmio is not a UK accounting package. It does not file VAT returns with HMRC, it is not Making Tax Digital software and it does not replace Xero, QuickBooks or Sage for your books. It does not run the Construction Industry Scheme either.

• No roof measuring from aerial photos or drones
• No manufacturer's tables: the roofing systems are sample data to check against your supplier
• No structural calculation of the roof
• No asbestos notifications and no decision on whether a material contains asbestos
• No link to insurers' claims systems
• No HMRC filing, MTD or CIS