Industry insights, product updates & customer wins

Your laser cutting hourly rate is one of the most important pricing decisions your shop makes. Get it wrong and you'll either stay busy while bleeding margin, or price yourself out of work you could have won. A laser cutting hourly rate calculator can help you build a more realistic baseline - but only if you understand what actually goes into the number.

Most shops don't. When asked how they arrived at their hourly rate, many owners admit they've never really thought about it. The number worked historically, or someone mentioned it years ago, or it just felt competitive.

Why Your Hourly Rate Matters in Laser Cutting Quotes

The hourly rate sits at the centre of every laser cutting quote. It determines how much you charge for machine time, which directly affects whether your quotes are competitive and whether you're actually making money on jobs you win.

Here's the problem: your win rate on quotes is probably somewhere between 40-60%. That means you're quoting roughly double the work you actually land. If your hourly rate is wrong, you're either:

• Losing margin on every job you win (rate too low), or
• Losing jobs you could have profitably taken (rate too high)

Same-day response can improve your win rate by 20-30%. But speed only helps if the price is right. An accurate hourly rate gives you the confidence to quote fast without second-guessing every number.

What Costs Should Go Into a Laser Cutting Hourly Rate?

Your hourly rate needs to recover two types of costs: fixed costs (things you pay whether the machine runs or not) and variable costs (things you only pay when you're cutting).

Fixed costs typically include:

• Machine purchase, finance, or lease payments
• Depreciation (calculated against actual productive hours, not calendar hours - and remember to subtract residual value: a $250,000 machine worth $50,000 after seven years should depreciate $200,000, not the full purchase price)
• Rent and floor space
• Labour (operators, admin)
• Insurance
• Software and systems

Variable costs include:

• Electricity
• Assist gas (nitrogen, oxygen, air – different rates for different materials)
• Consumables: nozzles, lenses, protective windows
• Service contracts and maintenance
• Unplanned downtime and repairs

A useful rule of thumb from shops that have done the maths: fixed costs outweigh variable costs roughly 2:1. For every dollar in variable costs, expect two dollars in fixed costs.

This ratio has shifted in recent years. A shop running a $750,000 European laser has a very different fixed cost base than one running a $150,000 Chinese machine. For shops that bought in at the lower end, the fixed/variable ratio moves closer to 1:1, which changes the entire hourly rate calculation. Know which camp you're in.

The point is: most of your costs don't change based on whether you're cutting or not. The rent doesn't care if the laser is running. Neither does your machine payment.

The Basic Laser Cutting Hourly Rate Formula

At its simplest:

Hourly Rate = (Total Annual Costs + Target Profit) ÷ Productive Hours Per Year

Break that down:

1. Add up your total annual costs – everything it takes to keep the doors open and the machine operational for a year
2. Add your target profit margin – 15-20% is sustainable, 25%+ gives you breathing room, under 10% is fragile
3. Divide by your actual productive cutting hours – not calendar hours, not shift hours, actual sparks-flying time

The numerator is where most shops go wrong. They leave things out. They forget about consumables, or downtime allowances, or that the machine will need a $15,000 service next year. But the denominator is where everyone goes wrong.

Why Utilisation Changes the Number

Utilisation – the percentage of available time your machine is actually cutting – is the most sensitive variable in your hourly rate calculation. And almost everyone overestimates it.

Shops typically estimate 60% utilisation. Reality is often closer to 40-50%.

What eats your productive time:

• Sheet changes – 2 minutes with a vacuum lifter, 10 minutes if you're loading by forklift
• Setup and file prep – programming, loading files, fixing drawing issues
• Operator availability – the machine stops when your operator is on the phone, moving pallets, or at lunch
• Material handling – a truck arrives, pallets need moving, the machine waits
• Maintenance and calibration – planned and unplanned
• Gas changes and consumable swaps – nozzle touch-offs, protective window changes

One industry veteran puts it bluntly: “If you think you're going to do 60%, you'll struggle to do 50 and probably end up closer to 40.”

If you're calculating your hourly rate based on 2,000 available hours per year (8 hours/work day) but you're only getting 1,200 productive hours (4.8 hours/work day), your rate is 40% too low. That difference – 800 hours at $300, $400, $500 an hour – goes straight off your bottom line.

For smaller shops on a single shift, consider measuring actual utilisation for a week. Set up a camera, or wire up a data logger to the machine's running light. Compare what you thought was happening to what actually happened.

There's also a physical constraint many shops overlook: if your cycle time is shorter than your sheet change time you may have a problem. You often can't get the cut parts off and the next sheet on in this short time span. The machine waits, utilisation drops, and your hourly rate math falls apart. Fast cutting only helps if everything else can keep up.

Common Pricing Mistakes That Affect Hourly Rates

Hope-based pricing

Picking a number that feels competitive without any relationship to your actual cost base. Markets change, costs change, but the rate stays the same because it's always been that number.

Owner-operator bias

“My time doesn't cost anything.” Owners who work 14-hour days, pay themselves the same wage as their operator, and treat the extra six hours as free. Those hours aren't free. They're either worth something or you shouldn't be doing this.

Giving away automation

A shop buys an automatic loader and immediately drops their rate because the machine is “more efficient.” Congratulations – you just handed all the money you spent on automation to your customers. Your hourly rate should reflect what the market will pay and what you need to cover costs, not what your machine can theoretically do.

Filling the machine at any price

“I've covered my overheads on the other jobs, so this one is just cream.” It never is. Shops convince themselves that break-even work is fine because the machine would otherwise sit idle. But break-even work has a way of expanding to fill your capacity, crowding out profitable work. Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity. A busy shop losing money on half its jobs isn't a successful business – it's an expensive hobby.

Cost-plus thinking

Trying to calculate the exact cost of every nozzle, every bit of gas, every kilowatt of electricity on a per-part basis, then adding 20% on top. This approach falls apart in practice. You can't account for the times you ran out of gas, or the machine broke down, or the operator was stuck on a phone call for 15 minutes. Think monthly and yearly costs, not per-part costs.

Confusing feed rates with hourly rates

Your hourly rate is what you charge per hour of machine time. Your feed rates determine how long a part takes to cut. These two numbers work together to produce a part price – and you can't look at one without the other.

Say two shops both quote $150/hour. Shop A uses conservative feed rates from the CO2 era. Shop B uses aggressive rates tuned to a modern fibre laser. The same part might quote at 10 minutes in Shop A and 4 minutes in Shop B. Same hourly rate, completely different part price.

This is where upgrades get dangerous. You buy a faster machine. You update your feed rates to reflect the new speed. Parts now quote in half the time. If you keep the same hourly rate, you've just cut your prices – and handed all the value of your new machine to your customers.

The right move is usually to keep your part prices roughly where they were (or where the market sits) and let the faster machine improve your margins, not your competitiveness. But that means your hourly rate has to go up as your feed rates go up.

For more on how quoting consistency affects your win rate, and why spreadsheet-based quoting can mask these problems, see our related guides.

Using a Laser Cutting Hourly Rate Calculator

A laser cutting hourly rate calculator walks you through the inputs step by step: machine costs, labour, rent, consumables, target utilisation. It forces you to think about costs you might otherwise forget.

Before you use one, have these numbers ready:

• Annual machine payment or depreciation value
• Monthly rent (or your share of factory floor space)
• Labour costs for operators and admin time allocated to the machine
• Electricity costs (your power company can tell you machine consumption)
• Gas costs by type (nitrogen, oxygen, air)
• Annual service and maintenance budget
• Consumables spend (nozzles, lenses, windows)
• Your realistic utilisation estimate

The calculator won't tell you what to charge – that also depends on what your market will bear. But it will tell you what you need to charge to cover costs and make your target margin. If that number is $50/hour above what competitors charge, you've got a decision to make about your cost structure, your efficiency, or whether you should be in this business at all.

How Hourly Rate Fits Into the Full Quote

Your hourly rate is just one component of a laser cutting quote. The others:

• Material cost and margin – what you pay for the sheet plus your markup. How you manage and calculate material costs affects overall quote accuracy.
• Setup charges – pre-production costs for programming and file prep
• Sheet change time – time spent loading and unloading, charged at your rate
• Secondary processes – folding, welding, powder coating, each with their own rates
• Delivery and handling – logistics costs

All of these need to work together. A shop might have a sensible hourly rate but give away margin on material. Or charge properly for cutting but forget to account for the admin time on small orders.

Quoting software keeps these pricing rules consistent across quotes, no matter who in the shop is doing the quoting. The same part, quoted by two different people, should come out at the same price. If it doesn't, you've got a pricing problem that no hourly rate calculator can fix.

For shops running multiple cutting technologies – laser plus plasma – each machine should have its own hourly rate reflecting its cost base. The same applies to different materials: cutting thick stainless on nitrogen costs roughly 15% more than mild steel on oxygen. Some shops run separate rates for oxygen cutting, nitrogen cutting, and air cutting. If you're quoting stainless at your mild steel rate, you're giving away margin on every job.

When to Review Your Hourly Rate

Your hourly rate isn't set-and-forget. Review it when:

• Labour costs change – wages, benefits, new hires
• Energy costs change – electricity and gas prices move with markets
• Machine costs change – new finance terms, depreciation schedule changes
• Utilisation changes significantly – new automation, lost a big contract, seasonal shifts
• You're consistently winning or losing – if you're winning everything, you might be leaving money on the table; if you're losing everything, you might be priced out

At minimum, review annually. Better shops review quarterly, comparing what they expected to happen against what actually happened.

One useful check: compare your quoted cutting time on jobs to your CAM system time to your actual cutting time. Most shops have no feedback loop here at all. The CAM system says a nest should take 25 minutes. It actually takes 35. Nobody records the difference, nobody investigates why, and without an update to your quoting software the same error gets baked into every future quote. That 10-minute gap, multiplied across hundreds of jobs, is the difference between a profitable year and a mediocre one. If you're not measuring quoted time versus CAM versus actual time, you're flying blind.

Start With Your Real Numbers

A laser cutting hourly rate only works if it's based on reality – your actual costs, your actual utilisation, your actual market. Pulling a number from a forum post or copying what you heard a competitor charges is a recipe for either leaving money on the table or working hard for nothing.

Use the Tempus Tools hourly rate calculator to check your assumptions. Enter your real costs, be honest about your utilisation, and see where you land. If the number surprises you, that's worth knowing before you send your next quote.

In fabrication, price matters. But getting your quote in front of the customer first often matters more.

Industry veterans who've spent decades running job shops and building quoting software have seen the pattern play out thousands of times: the shop that responds quickly wins work that slower competitors never get a chance to bid on. If you're looking to configure quotes faster, understanding why speed wins is the first step.

This article draws on practical experience working with fabrication shops to explain what drives RFQ response time, what slows shops down, and how faster quoting changes customer relationships.

Why speed matters during the RFQ stage

The customer requesting your quote is usually under time pressure themselves.

A fabricator needs laser-cut parts to complete their own quote for an end client. A maintenance engineer needs a replacement bracket to get equipment running again. A project manager has a deadline and needs to lock in suppliers.

When your quote arrives first, you're solving their problem while they're still actively thinking about it. By the time slower quotes arrive, they may have already committed — or lost interest in chasing the job at all.

This dynamic compounds down the supply chain. Your customer's customer is also under pressure. Everyone wants answers quickly. The shop that delivers clarity fastest earns trust and wins work.

When speed matters most - and when it doesn't

Speed isn't equally important for every job. The relationship between quote turnaround and win rate depends on job size, complexity, and risk.

• Small to medium jobs: Speed dominates. For routine work — standard materials, straightforward geometry, modest quantities — the first clear quote often wins. Customers don't want to wait around comparing prices when the dollars at stake don't justify the delay.
• Large jobs with significant value: Price competition intensifies. A $100,000 order for 10,000 parts is worth shopping around. The customer will wait two or three days to see what multiple vendors offer. Speed still matters for getting into the consideration set, but it won't override a meaningful price difference.
• Complex secondary operations: Rushing can cost money. Jobs involving folding, pressing, powder coating, or outside services need careful pricing. A quick quote that misses a process step or underestimates complexity creates problems downstream. Better to take an extra hour and get it right.
• Exotic materials: Higher risk demands more care. Quoting 3mm titanium isn't the same as quoting 3mm mild steel. The material costs four or five times as much, and the consequences of getting it wrong are proportionally larger. Customers understand that unusual materials may take longer to price accurately.

The pattern: smaller, simpler, more routine work favours speed. Larger, complex, or high-risk work favours accuracy — though responding reasonably quickly still matters for credibility.

Why the cheapest quote doesn't always win

Price sensitivity varies by customer and situation. But across fabrication, a pattern emerges: customers value clarity, confidence, and speed alongside cost.

A quote that arrives fast with clear line items, realistic lead times, and a professional presentation signals competence. The customer learns something about how you operate before they've even placed an order. If the quote is a mess, or takes days to arrive, they wonder what the actual work will be like.

Inconsistent pricing damages trust directly. When the same customer orders the same part twice and gets different prices, they stop believing your numbers. Industry veterans have seen customers develop "buddies" inside shops — specific estimators they always request because that person gives them reliable pricing. That's a symptom of a system that doesn't enforce consistency.

The fabricator who responds in hours with an accurate quote often beats the fabricator who responds in days with a slightly lower price. Speed signals capability. It suggests you have your operation under control.

What slows quoting down

Shops that struggle with quote turnaround usually face some combination of these bottlenecks:

The owner is doing everything

In smaller shops, the person who knows pricing best is also running the machine, managing the floor, and handling customer calls. Quotes get done when there's a gap — often after hours or on weekends.

One industry veteran described it this way: many of his customers do all their quoting at night. During the day, they're cutting and folding and loading. The quotes wait until the shop goes quiet.

This works until volume grows. Then quotes backlog, response times stretch, and work goes to competitors who answer faster.

One key person holds all the knowledge

Without documented pricing rules, quoting depends on whoever knows "how we price things." That person becomes a bottleneck. When they're out, busy, or overwhelmed, quotes wait.

Shops with quoting software that enforces rules don't have this problem. Anyone with access can generate a quote because the logic lives in the system, not in someone's head. The owner can review complex quotes without being involved in every routine estimate.

Getting accurate time estimates requires the CAM system

If the only way to get real cut time is to load the drawing into your programming software, you've tied quoting to the same resource that runs production. Every quote done this way is time the machine isn't cutting.

The alternative - eyeballing cut length and guessing - introduces error. Two estimators looking at the same drawing come up with different numbers. Consistency disappears.

Material pricing requires phone calls

Shops that don't carry much inventory have to call suppliers for pricing on larger jobs. That introduces delays - waiting for callbacks, negotiating on quantity breaks, confirming availability.

The delay multiplies for exotic materials or partial sheets. Finding an offcut of 16mm 316 stainless at a reasonable price takes time. Sometimes it's worth it to get the margin right. Sometimes it costs you the job.

Messy drawings need clarification

Customer drawings arrive in all conditions. Clean CAD files quote fast. Hand-sketched paper drawings with illegible dimensions require back-and-forth. Was that 60 or 66? Is this dimension to the edge or the centre?

Every clarification email adds delay. Tools like Drawing Doctor help with geometry problems — overlapping lines, open contours, duplicates — but missing information still requires human communication.

Quotes just pile up

When quoting is manual and time-consuming, the queue grows. This week's rush jobs get priority. Last week's requests sit waiting. By the time you respond, the customer has moved on.

The backlog becomes self-reinforcing. More quotes waiting means more pressure, which means less time per quote, which means lower quality or longer delays.

How shops can configure quotes faster without losing accuracy

Speed and accuracy aren't opposites. The shops that quote fastest are often the most consistent because they've built systems that handle the routine work automatically.

Separate the routine from the complex

Most quotes don't need senior review. Standard materials, straightforward geometry, familiar processes — these can follow established rules. Save the experienced eyes for genuinely difficult jobs: exotic materials, complex assemblies, high-value contracts.

Quoting software with configurable rules lets junior staff handle volume while flagging exceptions for review. The owner stays informed without becoming the bottleneck.

Keep material pricing current

Stale pricing causes two problems: quotes that lose money when costs have risen, and quotes that lose jobs when costs have dropped. Neither is visible until after the fact.

Build a rhythm for updating material costs. Monthly, at minimum. More often during volatile markets. Make it easy to update once and have every quote reflect the change.

Automate geometry interpretation

The biggest time sink in manual quoting is figuring out cut length, pierce count, and material usage from a drawing. Software that reads CAD geometry directly eliminates this step. Upload the file, apply your rates, get accurate numbers in seconds instead of minutes.

This also removes inconsistency. The software measures the same way every time. Different estimators get the same result.

Build a library of repeat work

Some shops see significant repeat business. When a customer reorders a part you've quoted before, finding that previous quote should take seconds, not a dig through file folders.

A part library stores previously quoted geometry with all its attributes — material, thickness, processes, customer pricing. Drop it into a new quote without re-measuring or re-cleaning.

The value compounds over time. The more parts in the library, the faster repeat quotes become.

Let customers self-serve when appropriate

The fastest quote is one you don't have to do at all. A web store that lets customers upload drawings and get instant pricing handles routine work around the clock.

Not every customer wants self-service. Some prefer the personal touch, or have complex jobs that need discussion. But for straightforward repeat orders or simple one-offs, self-serve quoting removes the bottleneck entirely — and delivers the speed that wins jobs.

Where software helps most

The value of quoting software depends on what you're comparing against.

• Against spreadsheets: The advantage is geometry. Calculating cut time, pierce count, and nesting from actual CAD data — rather than eyeballing and estimating — is transformative. Accuracy improves. Speed improves. Consistency improves.
• Against dodgy drawings: Drawing Doctor catches geometry problems before they break quoting. Overlapping lines, open contours, disconnected paths — the issues that cause spreadsheet-based shops to go back and forth with customers get flagged and fixed upfront.
• Against key-person dependency: Rules-based pricing means the logic lives in the system. Material costs, hourly rates, secondary process calculations, customer-specific discounts — all configurable, all consistent, all usable by anyone authorised to quote.
• Against quote backlog: Faster quotes mean shorter queues. The time freed up by automation lets shops respond to more RFQs, or respond to the same RFQs faster.

The customer experience of speed

From the customer's perspective, a fast quote communicates something beyond the price itself.

It says: this shop has their act together. They're not scrambling to figure out how to price my job. They have systems, capacity, and confidence.

A slow quote — or worse, a quote that requires multiple follow-ups — sends the opposite signal. If it takes them three days to tell me what it costs, how long will it take to actually make the parts?

Speed builds trust before the first order ships. It creates a positive first impression that influences everything that follows.

Frequently asked questions

Why does quote speed matter in fabrication?

The customer requesting your quote is usually under time pressure themselves. They need to respond to their own customer, hit a project deadline, or solve an urgent problem. The shop that responds first often wins work that slower competitors never get to bid on.

Does the cheapest quote always win?

Not usually. For small to medium jobs, speed and clarity often outweigh modest price differences. Customers value confidence, professionalism, and responsive communication. Inconsistent pricing damages trust regardless of the numbers.

How can fabrication shops configure quotes faster?

Automate geometry measurement by using software that reads CAD files directly. Keep material pricing current. Establish rules for routine work so it doesn't require senior review. Build a part library for repeat jobs. Let customers self-serve through a web store for simple orders.

What slows RFQ response times?

Common bottlenecks: key person dependency, manual geometry measurement, stale material pricing, messy customer drawings that need clarification, and quote backlog that grows faster than capacity to process it.

Can quoting software help shops respond faster?

Yes. Software that calculates cut time and material usage from actual geometry - rather than estimates - removes the biggest time sink in manual quoting. Rules-based pricing ensures consistency without requiring the owner's involvement in every quote.

How does quote speed affect customer perception and trust?

Fast, accurate quotes signal competence. They suggest the shop has its operation under control. Slow or inconsistent quotes raise doubts about what the actual work will be like. First impressions from the quoting stage influence the entire customer relationship.

If RFQ response time is costing you work, see how Tempus Tools helps fabrication shops configure quotes faster — accurate pricing from CAD geometry, consistent rules, and professional output in minutes instead of hours.

We’re now fully integrated with ECI Software’s M1 ERP system.

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What does that mean for your job shop?

It means you can now send quotes, order details, and production-ready drawings directly from Tempus Tools into your M1 ERP — no more double handling, no more data entry errors, no more jumping between systems.

This integration eliminates any “dead zone” between quoting and production. You get the specialist laser quoting power of Tempus Tools (like lightning-fast nesting, material cost accuracy, and margin control) combined with the operational backbone of M1.

It’s quoting that talks to your shop floor.

We’ve talked about how integrations like Google Drive can supercharge job shop workflows, and this M1 integration is another great example.

Want to learn more or set it up? If you want to avoid the limitations in the generic quoting functions in ERP/MRP software, but still use the rich planning and production features in ERP/MRP software, then get in touch today.

Book a demo or email us at support@tempustools.com and we’ll help you get connected.

Tempus Tools + M1 = quoting to production, finally in sync.

In a fast moving industry such as laser cutting, no-one can afford to be complacent. Laser shops have to ensure they are up to date with the best technologies available to them. Suppliers, in turn, have to ensure they are very closely attuned to the rapidly changing needs of customers large and small.

You have to have an ear to the group continuously. This is a dynamic business. The global laser cutting machine market size is current more than a staggering USD 5.59 billion and predicted to a phenomenal growth trajectory. By 2030, the market is expected to reach a monumental USD 11.32 billion, exhibiting a remarkable Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9.6%. With that amount of money out on the shop floor, no businesses can afford not to be at the head of the field.

So, is our industry evolving and automating as fast as our customers? In the 50 years I’ve worked in the laser cutting industry, customers and vendors alike have been racing to out-compete each other with faster and superior technologies.

Laser cutting vendors are now automating throughout their operations, from manufacturing to invoicing, and everything in between.

So it comes as no surprise that these highly automated organisations are seeking an automated quoting experience when they need to request a laser cutting job. Getting an instant online quote is far more efficient than having to request information, which comes back hours, or days later. By that point, the end customer may have gone elsewhere.

Customers want faster times

A trend that’s ubiquitous across all industries is the demand for faster service, faster deliveries, and faster turnaround times. As technology has improved, services have become faster, and the consumer has developed a taste for “instant” service – and they want more. This has been a major driver for companies to invest in automation to keep up with demand.

This is just as true in the laser cutting industry as may be for groceries or retail products. A vendor that can return a quote faster, and subsequently deliver a laser cutting job faster, is more likely to win the work, because this gets the final product to the end customer faster. And with the end customer wanting the product increasingly quickly, faster quoting is going to go from being desirable, to being necessary for business growth.

Instant laser cutting quotes with Web Store

With the trends towards automation and faster service in mind, Tempus Tools has introduced its Web Store feature to Tempus Tools, its cloud-based laser cutting quoting software.

Web Store is an online quoting portal that Tempus Tools subscribers can use on their own website, with their own branding, to allow customers to receive instant online quotes and instant pricing 24/7.

This is a game-changer for laser cutting companies. A customer working different hours might put a request in on a Sunday afternoon. Previously, this would have to wait until normal business hours on Monday, but now that customer gets an instant quote and can choose whether they are ready to proceed to an order.

It’s a win-win scenario. The customer gets information quicker, and the laser cutting business can win more orders with quoting available around the clock. It even frees up staff who would previously have been preparing quotes to work in other vital areas of the business to further add to growth and expansion.

Fast setup

A major barrier to entry for new automated technologies has been long or complicated setups, where the business has to suffer while the transition occurs.

But with Tempus Tools, the setup takes minutes, not weeks or months, so laser cutting job shops can get back to doing what they do best. And the Tempus Tools team can assist right through the setup process (at no extra charge), using their decades of experience from the job shop floor, through to management of large laser cutting enterprises.

With a low monthly subscription fee and fast setup, Tempus Tools has been designed to give even the smallest job shops the same advantages as the major players in boosting efficiency and responsiveness to customer quotes.

About the author

Bruce Thomas is Product Executive at Tempus Tools. He began his career in the laser industry in 1971, and has worked for a major laser machine manufacturer, then helped set up and run new job shops, before becoming CEO of a major Laser job shop with multiple sites throughout Australia, a company with 11 laser cutting machines. Bruce’s practical, hands-on experience in the industry has helped guide his contributions to Tempus Tools, as he steers product development to ensure the laser cutting quoting software provides features that job shops will gain the most benefit from

Small laser cutting and metal fabrication job shops face big challenges. With a limited number of staff on the roster, each person is performing multiple roles, from estimator, to customer service, to accountant, to production manager, and more.

According to the World Bank, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) “represent about 90% of businesses and more than 50% of employment worldwide,” so it’s a significant proportion of the market.

In demanding industries like laser cutting and metal fabrication, SMEs need to capitalise on available tools, resources, and software, to make their jobs more efficient and productive, and to stay ahead of the competition.

To further enhance the efficiency of small-to-medium job shops, Tempus Tools has introduced accounting integrations with Xero and QuickBooks to its Tempus Tools multi-functional laser cutting quoting software.

“Tempus Tools is designed to provide fast, accurate, and consistent laser cutting quotes that are professionally presented, ready to send back to the customer. It was a logical next step to integrate this process with common accounting systems, to provide job shops with additional capability and efficiency,” says Bart Jesman, CEO, Tempus Tools.

“Additionally, by using a Software as a Service (SaaS) model with a monthly subscription, SMEs aren’t lumped with large up-front set-up costs and annual fees,” he adds.

With more than 100 years of combined experience in its leadership team – extending from the job shop floor to the formation of entire laser cutting enterprises – Tempus Tools designed Tempus Tools to not only increase laser cutting quoting efficiency, but to integrate with other software programs, and to perform a range of functions in one, saving the need to purchase multiple subscriptions or programs.

New features help SMEs

In addition to simple, fast, and accurate quoting, Tempus Tools has a large range of useful features for SMEs, and the development team is consistently adding more features to meet market needs.

Secondary processes

Tempus Tools uses simplified folding and custom secondary process algorithms, to make quoting these processes straightforward and user-friendly for fabrication job shops.

Production documents

Where larger job shops often utilise dedicated floor management software, Tempus Tools has a production documentation feature that allows small to medium job shops to print work orders, part labels, and delivery dockets to better manage the shop floor. The production documents provide useful and relevant information and include a thumbnail for an easy visual reference to the part.

Web Store

“And we’ve got a growing Web Store feature for online orders,” says Jesman.

“Web Store allows SMEs to run their own online shop without having to build it themselves. It connects directly to their existing Tempus Tools settings, with additional options related to an online ordering experience, such as branding and shipping. With Web Store, a job shop’s customers can log in and get instant pricing or place orders 24/7, opening up the opportunity to win work around the clock.”

Quote miscellaneous items

In response to customer feedback, Tempus Tools has also introduced an option to quote miscellaneous items, not just sheet metal parts.

“Sometimes jobs have non-sheet metal parts that you’d like to include in the quote. It could be things like CAD drawing time, delivery, assembly charges, nuts and bolts, or a huge range of items – now you can simply enter a price and a description, to include it in the overall quote,” says Jesman.

Fixed price parts

Another new feature is the ability to optionally lock the unit price of parts for a customer, in that customer’s part library.

“Fixed price parts is great for returning customers, where you have agreed on a set price for parts. Rather than the price varying each time with changes in quantity or settings, it can be locked in, to ensure the consistency the customer is expecting,” says Jesman.

Features that benefit all laser cutting companies

The features of Tempus Tools are not just for SMEs, though, and the software has a range of advanced features to help larger job shops streamline their laser cutting quoting processes, too.

For companies with multiple software solutions in place, Tempus Tools offers exports of quote data and cleaned drawing files for importing into other systems.

“Our Tempus Tools customers serve a hugely diverse range of industries, and the demand for fast quotes and responsive service is what drives success,” says Jesman. “Our customers have found innovative ways to streamline their operations with Tempus Tools, and that’s giving them a competitive edge in the marketplace.”

To learn more about Tempus Tools, please click here.

Author: Bruce Thomas, Executive (Product)

The only time a laser cutting job shop is earning revenue is when that red light is on, sparks are flying, and the laser is in use. Everything else is done to support this activity, and to maximise the utilisation of the laser machine.

This is one of the major reasons why using a laser machine to estimate run times for quotes can impede job shop efficiency and profitability.

When quoting manually – that is, not using dedicated software – a typical workflow looks like this:

1. A request for quote is received from a customer for a laser cutting job that could be a few parts, up to multiple thousands of parts.
2. The customer service representative passes the task to the laser operator or a staff member with CAM software on their computer. They then request an estimate of the job’s run time through the laser’s software. This process diverts the laser from revenue-generating tasks, making it time-consuming and potentially prone to errors if busy staff overlook details.
3. Once an estimated time is determined, this is multiplied by an hourly rate.
4. This data is then usually entered into a spreadsheet to form a final calculation.
5. The final calculation is then used to prepare a quote for the customer.

This process might look accurate, because a machine has been used to calculate time, but there are inconsistencies to watch out for. Items that may be left out of the final quote price could include:

• Sheet change time
• Setup time
• Material handling
• Gas needed for cutting (such as nitrogen)

These inconsistencies may eat into profit, or may provide a customer with different prices each time, which can erode trust and cause frustration.

To reduce human error, remove inconsistencies, and improve the overall efficiency of the process, dedicated laser cutting quoting software can be a major asset to job shops.

Dedicated quoting software

Dedicated quoting software, such as Tempus Tools, can turn the process detailed above into a faster task, that only requires one person and one software program.

Every element of a quote can be set in a calculations-based system that uses a Software as a Service (SaaS) model to save job shops the large upfront setup costs often associated with quoting software.

When job shops look at their win/loss ratios, they’ll find that on average they win 30-40% of jobs they quote for, making it even more important to respond to quotes faster, with consistent pricing, and professional presentation.

Tempus Tools has a huge range of features designed to take the guesswork out of quoting, and to instead form a standardised, efficient process that can easily be managed by a single employee.

Reclaiming the holidays

Holidays such as Easter, Christmas, New Year, school holidays, and other breaks throughout the year can be a great time to rest, relax, or visit loved ones. But for small job shops, if you’re the only person who knows how to provide quotes, taking a vacation is not a viable option!

With Tempus Tools in place, it’s simple for any staff member to learn how to prepare quotes. They don’t need to have any CAD/CAM skills or prior training, and can be taught the user-friendly software quickly, so they can begin quoting sooner.

To learn more about Tempus Tools, please click here.

Author: Bruce Thomas, Executive (Product)