I am never sure what the labour/unit in RemodelMax represents. Does it include set-up, clean-up, fine adjustments, fetching things from the Home depot, losing tools etc and labour efficiency, weather etc? In the same vane, the materials are a bit of a mystery as well. Do they include or exclude fasteners. pickup and delivery, sorting the pile, movement around the site etc.) If we could define those factors we could then develop efficiency factors for labour and materials.

For specifics about how RemodelMAX determines its pricing structure I encourage you to contact them directly (1-800-858-5629, or http://www.remodelmax.com).

My impression, however, is that the time allocated for each task does NOT include preparation time and/or trips to Home Depot. You might consider entering custom line items specifically for miscellaneous labor/tools (ie 4 hours of miscellaneous labor, $200 of miscellaneous material costs) to account for these uncertainties. The "pure" approach is to account for all of your expected costs down to the penny, rather than bumping up the markup amount a bit to cover unknowns. Taking the time to think through every detail that will cost your company time/labor is crucial.

That having been said, many users will use the "material multiplier" field to embed extra costs into their line items. Even with accurate planning and cutting, for example, there will always be a waste factor for most lumber items. Every time an item is entered into an estimate its material costs are multiplied by the material multiplier, which is by default 1.0, so it has no effect. By changing this value to 1.1 for lumber categories you could add 10% to the material costs in anticipation of some of it ending up in the dumpster.

Click here to learn how to use the global material multiplier editor (to change this value simultaneously for an entire category of parts): http://www.clearestimates.com/online-manual/253.htm