Including reimbursable fees and markups to your bill is standard practice for many engineering and professional service firms. According to the book Project Management for Building Designers and Owners by Howard Birnberg:

“Many design firms mark up reimbursables. The typical markup is 10%, with a range from 5 to 25%. Often, firms attempt to justify this markup by claiming that they are incurring additional administrative, clerical, and coordination time…and expense in processing these items. This claim is often difficult to substantiate…”

Thankfully Lancaster Civil is not your standard engineering firm. We don’t charge additional fees or markups for reimbursable expenses such as printing or mileage. We handle all of our purchasing and invoicing electronically so there’s no need for us to tack on an extra charge to process anything. If we need to print up a set of plans or engineering reports, you simply pay the same price that we paid. We don’t even charge reimbursement for vehicle mileage within the six county region that we operate. You probably don’t get paid mileage to drive to your job, so why should we charge you extra to drive to our jobs?

We’re passionate about building communities and relationships…and charging you more than we need to doesn’t help forward either of those two objectives, so we just don’t do it.

Electronic invoicing, straightforward billing, and no additional fees. It’s just another way that we’re designed for community.