Track costs and markup on Price Book items

A price without a cost behind it is a guess. WorkZen stores both on every Price Book item, so each line you quote carries its own answer to "what do we actually make on this?"

The three fields: Cost, Price, Markup

The item form has Cost, Price, and Markup, and they are one linked calculation, not three separate inputs:

You change	WorkZen updates	How
Cost	Markup	(price - cost) / cost, as a percentage
Price	Markup	Same formula, recalculated
Markup	Price	cost x (1 + markup / 100)

So you can work in either direction. Know your target sell price? Enter Cost and Price, and the markup shows itself. Price everything cost-plus? Enter Cost and a Markup percentage, and the price is calculated for you.

Tip

Markup is measured against cost, not against price. A $100 cost sold at $150 is a 50% markup, even though the profit is a third of the price. If you think in margin-on-revenue, remember the two numbers differ.

Where the numbers follow you

When an item lands on an estimate or invoice, its cost is copied onto the line item along with the price. The document editor shows a Cost column with the item's markup percentage badged beneath it, and the Edit Item dialog on any line has the same Cost, Price, and Markup trio with the same live recalculation. Adjust a price during negotiation and you watch the markup move in real time, before you commit.

Clients never see any of this

Cost and markup are internal. The client approval page, emailed documents, and their printable versions are built from a public version of the document that does not contain cost or markup fields at all. Clients see the item name, description, quantity, price, and totals, nothing more.

Inside your company, editing Price Book items requires the Manage Price Book permission (admins and managers by default). Team members who can build estimates and invoices see the Cost column in the editor, because quoting well requires knowing it.

Why bother

Costs on items cover the materials-and-services side of profitability. Expenses linked to jobs cover the rest: fuel, permits, subcontractors. Together they turn "we invoiced a lot this month" into "and here is what it cost us to earn it". The habit starts here, with one extra field per item.

Step by step

Open the item

Go to Price Book, open the item's category, and click New Item, or use the Edit Item action on an existing item.

Enter the Cost

Type what the item costs you. This field is optional, but everything below depends on it.

Set Price or Markup

Enter the Price and WorkZen fills in the Markup percentage, or enter a Markup and WorkZen calculates the Price. Change any one and the others stay in sync.

Save

Click Create Item (or save your edit). The cost now travels with the item onto every document it lands on.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. An item works fine with only a Price. Without a cost, WorkZen simply has nothing to derive a markup from, and the Cost column on documents shows N/A for that line.

No. The client approval page, the emailed documents, and the printable versions are built from a public data set that contains no cost or markup fields at all. Cost stays internal by design, not by styling.

Editing Price Book items requires the Manage Price Book permission, which admins and managers have by default. Everyone on the team can browse the Price Book, since building documents requires reading items.

Markup is the profit as a percentage of cost, calculated as (price minus cost) divided by cost, times 100. An item that costs you $100 and sells for $150 shows a 50% markup.

No. Adding an item to an estimate or invoice copies its numbers at that moment, cost included. Price Book changes only affect documents created afterward.