It usually arrives halfway through the first conversation. “Oh — we’ve already bought the suite, it’s sat in the garage. So it’s just the fitting, isn’t it?” Said cheerfully, as if they’ve done you a favour by taking a job off your list.

Sometimes they have. Often it’s the job that runs two days over, needs three trips to the merchant that were never in the price, and finishes with a polite stand-off about a cracked basin nobody can account for. When the customer supplies the goods — free-issue, labour-only, fit-only, whatever you call it — the shape of the job changes. The price and the paperwork have to change with it.

General guidance, not legal advice. For the current position on consumer rights and who is liable for faulty goods, check gov.uk or take proper advice.

What actually goes wrong

Not pessimism — this is the standard list, and every one of them lands on your day, not theirs.

Wrong spec. A basin with one tap hole and a three-hole mixer to go in it. Isolation valves in 15mm for a 22mm feed. Underlay bought for stick-down when the floor’s a click system. None of it is unfittable; all of it costs you half a day and a trip.
Short quantities. Tiles ordered to the bare measured area with no allowance, so you’re three boxes short at four o’clock on day two — and that batch has sold out, so the replacement is a shade off and the whole wall has to be re-set out.
Damaged or faulty in the box. The flat-pack vanity with a chipped door, found when you open it. Someone has to wait for the replacement, and the diary says that someone is you.
Delivery dates that aren’t dates. “It’s coming Tuesday” turns into Friday. Your week doesn’t flex, and the next job’s start date doesn’t either.
The liability gap. A cartridge fails in four months. They don’t ring the website they bought it from — they ring you, because you’re the one who was in the house.
No margin to absorb any of it. On a supply-and-fit job, the markup you earn on materials quietly funds the hour at the trade counter and the odd thing that goes wrong. Strip the supply out and that cushion goes with it, while the number of things that can go wrong goes up.

Fit-only hours are worth more, not less

This is the bit trades get backwards. Because the invoice total is smaller, it feels like a smaller job that should carry a smaller rate. In reality the same number of days now has to cover all your overheads on its own, with no supply margin alongside it and more unpaid faffing baked in.

Take an illustrative three-day fit at a day rate of, say, £300 — your figure will differ, and if you’ve never worked yours out properly, start with that sum:

	Supply and fit	Customer supplies
Labour, 3 days	£900	£900
Materials (cost £1,400 + markup)	£1,680	—
Goods handling	included	nil
You’re paid	£2,580	£900

The £900 is identical, but the job isn’t. On the right-hand column you’re still sourcing the sundries, still taking the delivery, still checking the boxes, still sorting the shortfall — and there’s nothing in the price for any of it.

So don’t quote fit-only work off the same labour line you use for supply and fit. Three ways to deal with it, and most trades end up using a mix:

1. A separate fit-only rate

Keep one labour figure for jobs you supply and a higher one for jobs you don’t. It’s not a penalty, it’s arithmetic: the second kind of job has to stand up without a materials margin behind it. Set it once and apply it consistently so it reads as policy, not mood.

2. A goods-handling charge

If you’re taking delivery, checking items against the spec, storing them dry and secure and chasing the retailer when something’s wrong, that’s a line on the quote — “receive, check and handle client-supplied goods”, priced as a half-day or a fixed sum. Customers rarely argue once they see what it covers, because most of them haven’t thought about who does it.

3. Quote it both ways

The most useful move of the three. Price the job supplied-and-fitted, then price it fit-only underneath with the handling charge and exclusions visible. Seeing both does the explaining for you: the supplied version carries one guarantee and one person to ring, and a fair few customers hand the buying straight back. The ones who don’t have chosen it with their eyes open.

Check the goods in before day one

The single thing that saves the most grief: everything on site, opened and checked, before you start — not on the morning you start.

Ask for the order confirmation or spec list in advance and read it against the job. Wrong items found a fortnight out are a non-event.
Count it. Boxes, metres, lengths, batch numbers on anything patterned or colour-matched.
Open the fragile and the fiddly. Sanitaryware, glass, doors, worktops, anything flat-packed.
Check the bits people forget to buy: wastes, traps, fixings, brackets, trims, adhesive, grout, silicone, isolating valves.
Photograph anything already damaged, the day you find it, and send it to them.
Agree in writing who signs for deliveries. If it’s you, that’s part of the handling charge; if it’s them, say so.

Build in the slip, too. A fit-only start date is a date that depends on someone else’s courier, so leave yourself a day either side rather than stacking the next job hard against it.

Your guarantee stops where your work stops

Be explicit about this in writing, because it’s the thing most likely to turn into a row months later.

You guarantee your workmanship — that it’s installed correctly, to the manufacturer’s instructions, and that it works when you leave. You can’t guarantee a product you didn’t buy, didn’t specify and can’t warranty. If a customer-supplied mixer starts weeping at the body, the replacement part is between them and their retailer. Your time fitting it is chargeable, and that needs to be on the page before anyone starts rather than discovered afterwards — the same principle as pricing changes as they come up instead of absorbing them.

Wording for the quote

Drop this into your standard terms and adjust it so it sounds like you. Numbered, so you can refer to a clause instead of waving at a paragraph.

Client-supplied materials

1. This quote is for labour and specified sundries only. All
   items listed as client-supplied are to be bought, paid for
   and delivered by the client.
2. All client-supplied goods must be on site, complete,
   correct and undamaged before the agreed start date.
3. We will check goods against your order on arrival where a
   handling charge is included; otherwise checking is the
   client's responsibility.
4. We accept no responsibility for the suitability, quality,
   quantity or availability of client-supplied goods, or for
   delays caused by late or incorrect delivery.
5. Where a shortfall, fault or wrong item stops work, standby
   time and return visits are chargeable at £— per day /
   £— per half day.
6. Our guarantee covers our workmanship only. Product
   warranties remain between the client and their supplier.
7. Sourcing replacements on the client's behalf is chargeable
   unless agreed otherwise in writing.

Then make sure it’s accepted with the price, not emailed over later.

When to politely decline

Some of these jobs aren’t worth having, and it’s better to work that out before you’re committed than halfway through.

Walk away when the goods are plainly not fit for the job and they won’t change them; when you’re being asked to warrant someone else’s bargain-bin purchase; when the “materials” are turning up in instalments from four different sellers; or when the whole exercise is really about getting a reputable trade to fit the cheapest possible parts.

You don’t need a speech. “I can fit those, but I can’t stand behind the parts themselves, and if anything’s missing or faulty it’ll mean a return visit at day rate. Honestly, on this one I’d rather supply them myself so there’s one person responsible — if you’d rather buy them, I understand, but I’m probably not the right fit for it.” Clear, friendly, and it leaves the door open.

The takeaway

Customer-supplied materials aren’t automatically a bad job — they’re a different job, and the mistake is pricing them like the normal one with the materials line deleted.

Charge a labour rate that stands up without a supply margin behind it, put the receiving and checking on the quote as real work, get everything on site and opened before you start, and write down plainly what you’re not responsible for. Do that and fit-only jobs stop being the ones you quietly dread.

Queezy lets you build a quote on site line by line, so a fit-only job shows exactly what’s included, what’s client-supplied and what isn’t covered. Download it free on iPhone.

Pricing a Job When the Customer Supplies the Materials