Why changing your rates doesn't restate existing quotes
If you change your labour rate, material cost, or margin in Business Settings, Surfacely will not retroactively update any quote you've already built. This is deliberate. Understanding why matters for how you run your business.
The rule
Every quote snapshots the rates that were active at the moment it was generated. Once saved, those rates are locked to that quote doc. Future pricing changes flow into new quotes only.
Why this is right
- Legal certainty. Once a quote is sent, it's a commercial offer. Retroactively restating the numbers would be dishonest and in many markets, illegal.
- No accidental damage. You can iterate your pricing (raise margin, adjust rates, swap products) without fear of breaking quotes that are already with clients.
- Clean history. Three years from now, you can look at any old quote and know exactly what rates were used — no reconstruction needed.
What to do when paint prices go up mid-job
If you've sent a quote and your paint supplier raises prices before the job starts, you have three options, in order of preference:
- Absorb it if it's small — the goodwill of holding your quote is worth it.
- Issue a variation if it's significant and the client understands — variations are scope changes, and material cost uplift is a legitimate one.
- Build a new quote version if the job hasn't started and the client is reasonable — Surfacely's quote versioning keeps the history clean.
Why it matters: this rule means you can run continuous price optimisation on your business (raising margin as you get better, adjusting rates seasonally) without ever worrying that a client will see a different number to what you promised them. That's the foundation of being able to run a disciplined business.