Pricing When the Cedi Moves: How to Quote Without Losing Money

Every Ghanaian business that sells anything imported — steel, aluminium, glass, motors, roofing sheets, paint — is quietly in the currency business too. You quote in cedis, you buy in a price that tracks the dollar, and the gap between those two moments is where your margin lives or dies.

You cannot control the rate. You can control seven things.

1. Put a validity period on every quotation

The cheapest protection in business, and most workshops still skip it:

This quotation is valid for 14 days from the date above.

Fourteen days is the norm for fabrication; seven is reasonable when the market is moving fast. It is not aggressive — a client who understands that steel moves will respect it, and you have said it before it matters rather than after.

2. Make the deposit cover the materials

The single most important rule: a deposit that buys the steel, today. Not 20%, not "something small to start" — enough to walk to the supplier and buy the material at the price you quoted. Then price risk stops existing on that job, because the cost is already fixed and sitting in your yard.

Custom fabrication should never start at zero deposit. See how to get clients to pay on time.

3. Buy for the job, not for the month

When rates move, hoarding material feels clever and is mostly not — it ties up cash, and some of it will be the wrong size for the next job. Buy for jobs you have deposits on. Where you can genuinely stock, stock the sizes you use on every job (2" square pipe, common sheet), not the specials.

4. Quote long projects in stages

For staged or long-running work, quote the stages rather than one fixed total for six months of work:

• Stage prices, each with its own validity
• Or a firm price for stage one and indicative prices for later stages, stated as indicative
• Or a material adjustment clause, in plain language:

Prices are based on material costs as at the date of this quotation. Where material prices change by more than 10% before purchase, the affected items will be re-quoted for your approval before we proceed.

That clause has to be in the quotation the client accepted. Introducing it halfway through a job is not a clause, it is a surprise.

5. Separate materials from labour in the quotation

When your quotation shows materials and labour as separate lines, a repricing conversation is about one line, not about your integrity. "The steel line has moved; labour and transport are unchanged" is a conversation. "The gate is now more expensive" is an argument.

6. Reprice properly, or absorb it deliberately

If a client accepts outside the validity period, or a stage lands after a move:

1. Tell them before you buy, not after you deliver.
2. Show the specific change. "The 2" pipe we quoted at GH₵ X is now GH₵ Y at the supplier."
3. Give options — reprice, reduce the specification, or split the job.
4. Decide consciously whether to absorb a small movement for a good client; that is marketing, and it is fine — as long as you know you are doing it.

What you must not do is quietly thin the steel to hold the price. That is the industry's worst habit, and it is the reason clients no longer believe anybody's quotation.

7. Know your real numbers

You cannot see a squeeze coming if you do not know your margin. Two habits:

• Track material prices monthly. A simple list of your ten commonest items and what you last paid tells you instantly whether a quote from three weeks ago still stands.
• Review finished jobs — quoted versus actual — on one job a month. Full method in how to price a fabrication job.

Common questions

How long should a quotation be valid in Ghana? Commonly 7 – 14 days for fabrication and imported items. State it; do not leave it to interpretation.

Can I add a currency clause to a quotation? You can include a material adjustment clause in plain language, agreed upfront. Quoting in dollars for local retail work tends to annoy clients and can create its own problems — describe the risk instead of exporting it.

What if the client refuses to pay more after the rate moved? If the quotation had expired, you are entitled to re-quote. If it had not, honour it and treat the loss as the cost of the lesson — then add the validity line to every quotation from now on.

Should I hold stock when the cedi is falling? Only sizes you use constantly, and only with cash you do not need. Stock is not savings.

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Fabri Manager puts the validity period, the deposit terms and the itemised material lines into every quotation by default — so the protection is automatic instead of remembered.