I am not a timber framer - so take this with a grain of salt.
Having been part of a very small business and a medium business - it is very hard to get started with pricing plans like that. I had a painting and siding company and once tried to make a spreadsheet where I had to enter the # of windows, doors, sq footage, etc... and it came up with a price. I was all over the place. I screwed around with that for two weeks and finally gave up. I found it easier and cheaper to quote by the seat of my pants. Things that I couldn't enter into my spreadsheet like a 12/12 pitch on a roof I need to walk on really messed up my quotes.
In the medium business that I work for now, we do multi million dollar jobs. I quote these and the sales team discusses them before they are sent. These quotes are quoted by each machine we have to build. At the end, we add a "SNAFU" to cover the mistakes that inevitably happen. I like this method better because your costs are accurately shown in the cost item, and the snafu covers the screw ups. You could use this to bid by the joint and add a snafu.
Our big problem is materials. Steel can cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars if it goes up between when we bid the job and when we buy the steel. We haven't figured a way around this yet, but it's what really kills us. I can work late to get more done if I am off on labor - that never really hurts - it's the materials.
The other big lesson I've learned is to grow slowly. Three people don't usually get three times as much done as one person, especially if that one person is you. Get quality people in there and try to not add more than 1 or 2 people per year unless you have to.
When you're small it's best to keep fixed expenses low at the expense of revenues (not buying a new truck even if you do have to work on it every weekend and waiting on that new barn even if you can get more done with it). This keeps you out of trouble and keeps your margins high until you have a nice cushion set. That reason alone is why I am now working for another company and not myself anymore.
