Mixing a colour for a builder

What does this tour show?

It follows one repeat order at the mixing counter. At half past eight a builder in the sample business wants Harbour Mist again, code HM 2041, a soft blue-grey on a pastel base. Nuwan, the owner, finds the colour, enters four litres for the builder, checks the tints against the canisters, marks it mixed and prints the label. Ten minutes from request to labelled tin.

Repeat colours are a large part of trade paint work. A contractor painting a block of flats comes back for more of the same colour every few days, and the second tin has to match the first. That only works if the formula is saved, the scaling is right and the tints are really in the machine.

Why does a saved formula matter so much?

Because a mismatch shows up on a wall, in daylight, after the painter has already used half the tin. Mixing from memory or a handwritten card is where small errors creep in. The New mix drawer keeps the formula, shows how many times it has been mixed (37 for Harbour Mist in the sample) and does the multiplication for you.

Here is what the drawer works out for a four litre batch from the per-litre formula:

At the sample price of Rs 2,350 a litre, the whole batch comes to Rs 9,400. The sample shop is not VAT-registered, so no VAT is added; a registered shop would see its own rate on the same line.

Step by step

1. Open Mixing and start a New mix. The drawer opens on step 1 of 3, Choose the colour. The heading also shows how many mixes have been made today, which is a quick sense of how the morning is going.
2. Type the colour code or the name. "HM 2041" or "Harbour Mist" both work. Colours can also be browsed by family (blues, greys, whites, greens) if the customer only has a swatch. The saved formula appears with its times mixed.
3. Enter how many litres. Step 2 asks how much. Type 4. The amount drives every tint quantity on the next step, so get it right before moving on.
4. Choose who it is for. Pick the builder from your customers. Their name and phone number go onto the batch and the label, so the right tin goes to the right site.
5. Check the scaled tints. Step 3 lists each tint with the amount for this batch and whether its canister has enough. If one shows short, refill it now, before dispensing, not after.
6. Read the price and the base tin. The price for the whole batch is on the same drawer, along with the base tin that will come off stock (pastel base for this colour). If the price looks wrong, it is far easier to fix here than at the till.
7. Dispense and mix as normal. Run the tints, shake or stir, and check the colour against the swatch in the way your shop always does.
8. Press Mark as mixed. The tints come off their canisters, the base tin comes off stock and the drawer shows "Mixed and ready to sell" with the batch number, in the form MIX-2026-0142.
9. Print the label. The label preview shows volume, base, date, who mixed it and the customer. It prints at 100 x 50 mm, a size that fits the side of a four litre tin.

Why print a label on every tin?

A label turns an anonymous tin into a traceable one. When the builder rings in three weeks for "the same again", the batch number and date on the tin take you straight back to this mix. If a second tin looks a shade different on the wall, you can see whether it came from a different base batch or a different day, rather than arguing from memory.

Tips at the mixing counter

• Search by code when the customer has it. Names repeat across fan decks; codes rarely do.
• Confirm the litres out loud with the customer before step 3. "Four litres, one tin" avoids an eight litre surprise.
• If a builder buys the same colour every week, ask them to keep a label from the first tin. It speeds up the search.
• Keep the label printer loaded at opening. A mix with no label tends to stay unlabelled.
• Let the person who actually mixed the batch press Mark as mixed, so the "Mixed by" name on the label is true.

Common mistakes

• Pressing Mark as mixed before dispensing. The tints leave stock on screen even if the batch is abandoned. Mark it when the paint is really in the tin.
• Mixing for "walk-in" when the buyer is a trade customer. The batch then has no name and phone, and the till sale cannot be traced back to it easily.
• Ignoring a short canister warning. The machine may still dispense, but not the full amount. The colour will drift.
• Changing the tint amounts by hand without saving a new formula. The next repeat will use the old recipe and will not match.
• Leaving mixed tins unlabelled on the shelf. Two similar greys side by side are easy to swap.

What should you do next?

The mixed batch is now stock, waiting on the till. The next tour, a trade sale on account, picks it up there: the builder collects the tins with rollers and tape, gets their usual discount, and pays at the end of the month. If you want to understand how to set a price per litre that covers base, tint and labour, the how to price products guide and the markup vs margin guide are a good start. The stock control guide explains why taking tints and bases off stock at the moment of mixing keeps your counts honest.

How EasyTaskr helps

EasyTaskr saves paint formulas, scales the tints to the batch size, shows each canister's stock before you mix, and gives every batch a number and a printed label. Marking a batch mixed takes the tints and the base tin off stock, and the batch is then on the paint till ready to sell.