1. Price from landed cost, not invoice value
What the stock cost you is the supplier invoice plus freight, loading and any shortage on delivery. Setting a selling rate from the invoice value alone is the commonest reason a shop finds its highest-turnover line is also its thinnest. Record freight against the purchase and your price list starts from a number that reflects reality.
2. Where the rate should live
On the item, not in a person's memory and not on a bill. Held on the item, a rate applies to every sale from every device the moment you set it — the counter, a supervisor at a site, a second branch. That single arrangement removes the most expensive small error in a rate-driven trade: a staff member billing at yesterday's number because that is the one they remember.
3. Daily updates in rate-driven trades
In steel, other metals and anything linked to a commodity, the rate moves before the shop opens. The routine is two minutes: take the morning rate, work out your selling price, update the item. Everything billed afterwards uses it. Shops that skip this on a busy morning lose money on every ton that day and rarely notice, because the loss appears as a margin that is slightly lower than expected.
4. Party-wise rates, recorded not remembered
Wholesale and distribution do not have one price. A regular dealer has his rate, a new buyer has another, and a party who settles in a week has earned a third. Holding those against the party means the correct price appears whoever is billing, which matters most when you are not the one at the counter. Where something is negotiated on the day, override the line — and keep the override recorded, so discounting stays visible instead of quietly eating the margin.
5. Sharing a list customers can use
Contractors and dealers ask for rates constantly, and most shops send a photograph of a handwritten sheet. A price list generated from your items, carrying your shop details and today's rates, goes out as a PDF and converts enquiries without a phone call. Put a validity note on it in a rate-driven trade so it does not become a commitment you never intended.
6. Watch the gap close
Purchase rates rise faster than selling prices get revised, because revising a selling price is a conversation and absorbing a cost increase is not. Purchase rate against sale rate per item is the report that finds it, and running it monthly regularly turns up a fast-moving line where the margin has quietly gone. That is a five-minute habit with a large return.