Does the calculation work with our own markups?

Yes. Site overheads, general business costs, risk and profit are entered as markups per cost type in the settings — labour, material, subcontracted work and equipment are charged separately. That is ongoing configuration, not development: if your rates change at the turn of the year, you change them yourself.

Can we get our wholesaler's prices in?

Yes, via Datanorm — in and out. Items, units and supplier terms land in the catalogue and are available in the calculation. Datanorm is built in and not a surcharge module; the same goes for the GAEB import.

What exactly does the post-calculation do?

It puts the calculated figures next to what actually happened: hours recorded per fitter and assignment type, booked material, subcontracted work — all on the same job. So you see not only that a boiler replacement cost more than expected, but where it went. The prerequisite is that hours get recorded; that is exactly why time tracking runs on the fitters' phones and not on a slip of paper.

And the maintenance contracts — do they run through this as well?

Yes, as a recurring series per system and customer, with questionnaires as the report and an invoice out of the visit. What that looks like in a plumbing and heating business is described on the page managing maintenance contracts in a plumbing and heating business.

How long until we can calculate with it?

You do not start from scratch: krafteq Handwerk already covers the daily work of a plumbing and heating business — you do not have to describe it, only try it out. We set up your test instance, usually within three working days, with the terms, units and templates of the trade. Whatever does not suit your calculation after that belongs in the fine-tuning after go-live.

What if we want to stay with our spreadsheet?

Then stay with it — as long as the calculation rests with one person and the volume of quotes is manageable, a spreadsheet grown over years is honestly hard to beat. The question arises once two people are calculating, prices change more often, or nobody can say any more which job carried its weight.

Which contract terms apply?

Contract language is German. The terms in your written offer and our German terms and conditions (AGB) govern; this page describes the model and is not a contract.

Isometric illustration of a plumbing and heating calculation with hierarchical line items, Datanorm prices, markups per cost type and post-calculation against recorded hours

Calculation for plumbing, heating and HVAC businesses

Calculation software for plumbing and heating businesses — from the Datanorm price to the post-calculation

Q: Can we calculate GAEB tenders with it?

Yes. GAEB 90 with D81, D83, D84 and D86, GAEB 2000 and GAEB DA XML come in, and the export goes back validated as X84 or X86. For public procurement, the VHB and EFB 221, 222 and 223 price sheets are produced as PDFs from the calculated line items. If your business does no tender work, we simply switch the area off.

Friday evening, the calculation spreadsheet open: item prices typed across from the wholesaler's list, markups added in your head, and the quote goes out on Sunday. Whether the job actually paid off, nobody knows once the final invoice is out. krafteq Handwerk calculates with your wholesaler's Datanorm prices, applies your markups per cost type, turns the calculation into the quote — and at the end puts the recorded hours and the booked material next to it. Standard software for plumbing, heating and HVAC, bought instead of rented. We are currently rolling krafteq Handwerk out with the first businesses: you test it free of charge, receive an individual offer afterwards, and we set up your business together with you.

Datanorm wholesaler prices in and out

Markups per cost type instead of one flat surcharge

Post-calculation against recorded hours and booked material

Try it free

Calculation, quote, job and time tracking sit in one body of data — the post-calculation comes out of that, not out of a second spreadsheet.

Where you are nowDoes this sound like your calculation?

krafteq Handwerk is built for plumbing, heating and HVAC businesses with 5 to 50 employees — sanitary installation, heating construction, air conditioning and ventilation. These five situations are the ones we hear most often on the subject of calculation:

The calculation lives in a spreadsheet

A calculation spreadsheet grown over years that nobody but you fully understands: material prices maintained by hand, the markups as a formula in a column far to the right, every new quote a copy of the last one. That works — until the wholesaler changes prices or somebody grabs the wrong copy.

Typing prices across instead of importing them

Your sanitary wholesaler supplies items and terms as Datanorm. Anyone not importing them types boilers, heat pumps, fittings and radiators by hand — and, in case of doubt, calculates with last year's prices.

The quotes pile up

Enquiries come in faster than quotes go out. Whoever quotes too late loses the job to the colleague who was faster. That is the most expensive consequence of slow calculation — and the one least talked about.

Nobody knows whether the job paid off

The final invoice is out, the hours are on slips of paper, the material on delivery notes. Whether the calculated hours were enough could be worked out — but not in one evening. So nobody does it, and the same system gets calculated the same way next time.

Datanorm, GAEB and post-calculation as a surcharge

In many subscription offers the Datanorm interface, the GAEB import and the post-calculation are add-on modules that only show up on a close reading of the price list. What is included and what is not belongs before the contract, not after.

Software for plumbing and heating businesses in overview

FeaturesWhat the calculation in krafteq Handwerk can do

German trades practice is built in, not bolted on: hierarchical line items, markups per cost type, Datanorm, GAEB and the price sheets of public procurement. The installation arrives with the terms and units of the plumbing and heating trade — not as an empty system.

Calculation with Datanorm wholesaler prices

You import your wholesaler's item and price data via Datanorm and export it again as well. Catalogue categories arrive with the trade's units, and supplier terms hang on the item. You calculate with the prices that apply today rather than with last winter's list.

Markups per cost type, not flat

Site overheads, general business costs, risk and profit sit as separate markups per cost type on the calculation. Labour, material, subcontracted work and equipment each carry their own share — instead of one single surcharge across everything, which regularly misses on material-heavy heating jobs.

Hierarchical line items as in a plumbing and heating quote

Headings, sub-headings and line items with quantities and units — the structure your clients expect from a sanitary or heating quote. Catalogue and supplier prices flow into the line item, and the structure is retained all the way to the invoice.

Quote straight from the calculation

The calculated line item becomes the quote line — no second entry, no retyping. Print layouts are set to the form your customers and clients know from you, and the quote goes out as a PDF.

GAEB for tenders

You import GAEB files from architects, planners and general contractors directly: GAEB 90 with D81, D83, D84 and D86, GAEB 2000 and GAEB DA XML. The export goes back validated as X84 or X86. For public procurement, the VHB and EFB 221, 222 and 223 price sheets are produced as PDFs from the calculated line items.

Post-calculation against recorded hours and material

Calculated line items, hours recorded per fitter and assignment type, and the booked material all hang on the same job. Planned and actual therefore sit side by side without anyone collecting timesheets and delivery notes — and the next boiler replacement of the same kind gets calculated with what it really cost.

Time tracking that lands where it is needed

Fitters record their hours in the daily view on phone or tablet: job, assignment type, hours. No retyping at month end. The site sees only job, measurement, hours and receipts — no prices, no customer data. The scoping is enforced on the server.

From the calculation through to the e-invoice

Interim and final invoices come out of the job, as XRechnung in XML format or as a ZUGFeRD PDF, plus receivables, dunning and the DATEV export for your tax advisor. The invoice knows the calculated line item because it comes from the same record.

E-invoicing for trades businesses — obligations and formats

Re-calculate a real job

We set up your test instance, configured for the plumbing and heating trade. You enter your markups, import a Datanorm file and re-calculate a completed job — usually within three working days, without a sales call.

Try it free See the model and terms

No subscription
No sales call
No obligation

SequenceFrom the enquiry to the post-calculation — one body of data

That post-calculation so rarely happens in a plumbing and heating business is seldom down to willingness. It is down to the four separate stores in between: quoting tool, spreadsheet, timesheets, delivery-note folder. Here it is one sequence.

Enquiry and survey

The enquiry becomes a record: customer, system, site visit. Whatever you capture on site — boiler type, pipe runs, measurements, photos — hangs on the same record and is there again in the calculation.

Nothing is captured twice, and nothing sits forgotten in an inbox.

Calculate

Line items from the catalogue or from the imported GAEB file, prices from Datanorm, markups per cost type from your settings. The result is the calculation and the quote at once — you do not write it a second time.

The quote is created where the calculating happened — not in a second file on Sunday evening.

Execute

The quote becomes the job. Fitters see their daily view on the phone, record hours per assignment type, book material, and add photos and measurements. Everything hangs on the job, not in a message thread.

The hours land where the checking happens later.

Invoice and check back

Interim and final invoices come out of the job, as XRechnung or ZUGFeRD PDF, with a DATEV export for your tax advisor. And checking back afterwards no longer means collecting timesheets and delivery notes — planned and actual sit on the same record.

You see which jobs carry their weight — before you calculate the next one the same way.

The modelBought instead of rented — for the calculation too

You buy the software once. You rent the operation of your installation — or take it over yourself. The concrete terms are fixed in your offer, not on this page.

Fixed-price perpetual licence instead of monthly rent

You buy a perpetual right of use to the software delivered. Billing is per business, not per user and not per workstation — the accounts for your fitters are included, even if you hire two more in spring.

A dedicated installation per business

Your own database, your own domain, your own configuration — no shared system with other businesses. That is exactly why your markup structure can be represented the way your business actually calculates. Data export at any time.

Fine-tuning after go-live

In the first year all updates and security updates are included, as is fine-tuning within the agreed scope: whatever does not suit your calculation in the first few months, we adjust. After that, updates run through maintenance — and without maintenance your version simply keeps running.

FAQCommon questions about plumbing and heating calculation

For quote, job and invoice, yes — interim, final and recurring invoices come out of the job, as XRechnung or ZUGFeRD PDF. Receiving e-invoices has been mandatory since 2025, and sending them becomes binding in stages from 2027 and 2028 respectively under the Wachstumschancengesetz. What that means for your business is on the page e-invoicing for trades businesses. It does not replace bookkeeping itself: postings, receipts and DATEV export yes, and your tax advisor does the posting.

A fixed-price perpetual licence, one-off, plus the running operation of your installation — no monthly licence fee, no per-head billing, no extra plans for Datanorm, GAEB or post-calculation. The first year of operation is included, and self-operation on your own server is an equally valid option. How the model is built is on the page buy trades software instead of renting it; the concrete terms are fixed in your offer.

Would you rather talk about your calculation first?

Book a 30 to 60 minute first call. You describe how you calculate and check back today, and we give an honest assessment — even if the answer is that your spreadsheet is fine for now. No sales pitch, no obligation.

No sales call
No obligation
30–60 minutes