SK 
EN for joiners and custom furniture
A system for a joiner that turns dimensions into cuts, fittings and a price
Custom furniture is the hardest thing there is to price, because every job is different and there is nothing to compare it against.
A system for a custom joinery workshop starts at 1 400 € and the first version is usually ready within a week. From the dimensions of your carcasses it works out the cut list, the sheet material usage including offcuts, the edging, the fittings and the price based on your own rates, so a quote takes tens of minutes instead of a whole evening.
Why pricing furniture is a trap
The cut list is written by hand for every job
A kitchen has thirty parts, and one typo in a thickness means a whole extra board.
Waste from a board is a guess
One board yields eighty percent one time and half the next, depending on how the parts fall together.
Fittings get priced in too late
Hinges, runners, soft close. Small on their own, together a real part of the price.
The price comes from a feeling
You know what you charged last time, but not how much you made on it. That is why raising prices is so hard.
What such a system includes
The job broken down into carcasses and parts from the dimensions you enter. Out of it drops a cut list with thicknesses, decors and edging, so no single part shows up for the first time at installation.
Sheet material usage including trim and waste based on how the parts fit onto a board. That is the difference between a quote that holds and a quote that looks good until the moment you have to buy more.
Fittings and hardware as items tied to the carcass type, so they get counted on their own. A drawer always has the same runners, and that is exactly the thing there is no point typing out by hand.
A price from your own rates for material, labour and installation, plus the margin you see before you send the quote, not after you hand over the job.
A record of work in progress, meaning what is drawn, what is cut and what is waiting for fittings. In a workshop running several jobs at once, that is the difference between guessing a deadline and knowing it.
- Dimensions and carcasses You enter what you measured at the client.
- Cut list and nesting Parts, thicknesses, decor, edging and board usage including trim.
- Fittings and hardware Counted from the carcass type, not from memory.
- Quote with margin You see how much you make on it before you send it.
What stands behind it
I have not yet built for a joinery workshop specifically. The closest is the system for scaffolding rental, where a cut list and price are worked out from dimensions, which is the same type of calculation. What is not there is optimisation of sheet material nesting, and that is the hardest part; at the start we would work out how much of it you actually need.
The closest finished system is the one for scaffolding rental. There too a cut list, weight and price are worked out from dimensions, and there too the original calculation lived in Excel.
During the switch, 10 errors turned up in that Excel, the ones the client had been sending quotes on for years. With joinery calculations the chance of such an error is even higher, because there are more parts.
Frequent questions
We use a program for cutting plans. Will this replace it?
It does not have to, and usually should not. The common approach is to leave the nesting program where it is and build pricing and job tracking on top of it, which it cannot do.
We also do batch work, not just kitchens. Can it handle that?
Yes, repeated carcasses are saved as a template and the next job is created from it in a minute. That is exactly where the biggest saving is.
Can we set our own decors and material prices?
Yes, the catalogue of decors, edging and fittings are data you manage yourself and can rewrite in bulk when a supplier raises prices.
How long does it take?
The first version within a week. Most of the time goes into matching the calculation to how you price today, because every workshop has its own rules for edging and joints.
Do you know how much you made on your last kitchen?
Tell me how you price today. Once it runs, every job shows what is really left on it while you are still building it. The first call is free and it usually turns up where your margin is leaking too.
Book a call →