Quick answer
Pricing areas exist because the same coded line costs different money to deliver in different parts of Auckland. Travel, parking, site access and how tightly the work clusters all move the real cost, so a schedule of rates carries a separate rate for each area. Quote every work order against its own area's rate, never a blended average.
Key points
- A schedule of rates repeats the same coded lines across pricing areas such as Tāmaki, Henderson, New Lynn, Mt Roskill, Ellerslie, Auckland CBD and North Shore, with a different rate per area.
- The install is identical; what changes is everything around it: travel time, parking, carrying distance, lifts and stairs, and how many addresses share the trip.
- Access-heavy lines like a 304 stainless wet bench move most between areas. Small per-No. lines like childproof catches barely move at all.
- A contractor who prices one blended rate everywhere loses money in the dear areas and loses the jobs in the cheap ones, because competitors price the area.
- The discipline is simple: confirm the pricing area on every work order before you price it, and invoice against that same area so the claim reconciles.
Two work orders land in the same week, both carrying the same coded line: a 304 stainless wet bench, supply and install, the shape of code a schedule calls CBT330. The first address is a driveway job in Tāmaki. Van on the concrete, eight metres to the front door, bench in and seated by early afternoon. The second is an apartment tower in the Auckland CBD with a loading dock you book by the half hour, a service lift that takes a 900 mm bench on the diagonal or not at all, and no parking within two blocks. Same code, same bench, nowhere near the same cost to deliver.
That gap is the whole reason pricing areas exist. A schedule that paid one number for that wet bench everywhere would overpay the driveway and underpay the tower, and within a year every contractor on the panel would have worked that out and started declining the towers. So the schedule splits Auckland into areas and carries a rate for each one. The line is the same line. The rate column repeats.
The codes in this piece are illustrative, there to show the shape of it. Your issued Schedule of Rates governs, with its own codes, units and area boundaries. What does not change is the logic underneath, and that logic decides whether the areas make you money or quietly take it.
What a pricing area is on a schedule of rates
A Schedule of Rates prices a kitchen as measured lines: a wet underbench cabinet per No., dry underbench cabinetry per metre, wall cabinetry per metre, a laminate benchtop per metre, down to cutlery inserts and childproof catches per No. If the coding itself is new to you, start with how the kitchen schedule of rates codes work and come back, because areas only matter once the lines make sense.
The pricing area is the second axis. The schedule names a set of geographic areas, and every coded line carries a rate per area. So a metre of dry underbench cabinetry, the CJC250 shape, has one rate in Henderson and a different one in the CBD, set at tender time and fixed for the contract term. Seven areas means the same line exists as seven numbers. None of them is wrong. Each one is priced for what it actually takes to deliver that line in that part of town.
Why does the same coded line pay differently across Auckland?
Because the joinery is the constant and the delivery is the variable. The cabinet that leaves the workshop for Mt Roskill is identical to the one that leaves for the North Shore. Everything after the tailgate differs, and four drivers do most of the moving.
- Travel and parking: a 15-minute run from an East Tāmaki workshop with the van on the driveway is a different day from 50 minutes across the bridge plus a paid parking building and a trolley walk at the far end.
- Access: ground-floor door versus loading dock, lift booking, stair carries and long internal corridors. Access adds labour hours before a single tool comes out.
- Density of work: six addresses within a couple of kilometres share one trip and one setup. One isolated address carries the whole trip on its own.
- Site conditions: CBD and apartment work brings induction time, protection to common areas, and restricted working hours that stretch a half-day job across a whole one.
None of that shows up in the code. CBT330 reads the same on both work orders. The area column is where the schedule admits the difference.
Access is a labour cost you cannot see in the code
Take the wet bench, because it is the heaviest, most awkward line in a social-housing kitchen. On a driveway job one installer moves a 900 mm stainless sink bench from van to kitchen on a trolley in five minutes. In a tower it is two people, moving blankets, corner protection on the lift walls, a dock window booked two days ago, and the better part of an hour between tailgate and bench position. The install itself, scribing, fixing, plumbing connections by others, takes the same time in both places. The delivery-to-room time is what tripled.
Now run the same comparison on a line like childproof catches, the CHC400 shape, priced per No. A catch weighs nothing and fits in a pocket. Its cost barely moves between a Tāmaki driveway and a CBD tower. This is why a schedule does not apply one flat loading across the board: areas move each line by a different amount, and the heavy, bulky lines move furthest. When you sanity-check an issued schedule, look at the spread on the wet bench and the spread on the catches. The first should be wide and the second narrow, and if they are not, query it before you sign, the same way you would query units of measure on a quote that has to match the invoice.
Density: clustered addresses share the travel
Maintenance work makes this obvious. A batch of six kitchen joinery jobs across one suburb is one van, one route, tools set up once, and the travel cost spread six ways. The same six jobs scattered from Henderson to Ellerslie to the North Shore is three separate half-days. The line items are identical; the density is not, and an area's rates are partly a bet on how tightly the work in that area tends to cluster. Contractors running kitchen joinery work orders for maintenance companies feel this weekly: the profitable weeks are the clustered ones.
| Driver | Suburban driveway | CBD apartment | Effect on the rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Travel and parking | Van on site, no cost | Dock booking plus paid parking | Adds fixed cost per visit |
| Carry to room | 8 m, one person | Dock, lift, corridor, two people | Adds labour hours |
| Work density | Often clustered addresses | Usually one-off addresses | Trip shared vs carried alone |
| Site rules | Start when you arrive | Induction, protection, quiet hours | Stretches the day |
The same coded line, priced per area: the rate ladder.
The blended-rate trap
The tempting move at tender time is one rate per line, everywhere. Easier to build, easier to check, decisive-looking. It is also a machine for adverse selection. Price the wet bench at the midpoint of what Tāmaki and the CBD really cost you, and two things happen at once. In the cheap areas, a competitor who priced the area undercuts you and takes the volume. Over in the dear areas you are the cheap option, so you win everything, and every one of those jobs pays you the midpoint against tower-job costs.
The blend does not average out, because you do not win an average sample. You win the losers. Contractors usually discover this six months in, when the work mix has skewed toward the CBD and North Shore and the margin report will not explain itself. The structure of the rate does not save you either way; a schedule priced by the metre or by lump sum fails the same way if the geography under it is averaged.
Check the area on every work order before you price
The working discipline is small and boring, which is why it works. Keep one rate sheet with the coded lines down the side and the pricing areas across the top, agreed at contract stage. Then run every work order through the same three steps before a number goes on it.
- Read the address and confirm which pricing area it sits in. Do not assume from the suburb name; area boundaries in a schedule do not always match where you think a suburb ends.
- Price every line on the order from that area's column, and write the area code on the order itself so the pricing survives into the file.
- Invoice against the same area's rates, so the certifier checks your invoice against the same column of the same schedule. Mismatched areas are one of the quiet ways a claim stalls.
On volume packages the same check runs once per block instead of once per address, and it belongs in the quote review before award. The wider reconciliation logic is laid out in pricing kitchens to the Kāinga Ora schedule of rates: claim and invoice built from the same quantities, same codes and, just as importantly, the same area column.
Price the areas, not the average
A good next 48 hours looks like this. Split your rate sheet into the areas your contract actually names, even if some columns start out identical. Pull the last ten work orders and re-cost them honestly per address: travel, parking, carry, site rules. Where the blend was bleeding, adjust those columns and leave the rest of the sheet alone. Then make the area check the first step of pricing any new order, ahead of quantities.
We price supply and install this way across Auckland from the East Tāmaki workshop, because a rate that respects the geography is the only kind that holds for a whole contract term. It is unglamorous arithmetic, and it is the difference between a schedule that pays you and one that slowly does the opposite.
Frequently asked questions
What are pricing areas in a schedule of rates?
Pricing areas are the geographic zones a schedule of rates uses so the same coded line can carry a different rate in different places. A wet underbench cabinet has one rate in Tāmaki and another in the Auckland CBD because travel, parking, access and work density differ. The line, unit of measure and spec stay identical across areas; only the rate column changes. Your issued schedule defines the exact boundaries.
Why does the same SOR code pay a different rate in different suburbs?
Because only the delivery changes. The cabinet is identical whether it goes to Henderson or the North Shore. What changes is travel time, parking cost, the carry from van to kitchen, lift bookings, induction time and whether other jobs share the trip. Rates set per area price that reality. A single flat rate would overpay easy addresses and underpay hard ones.
Should I quote one blended rate across all of Auckland?
No. A blended rate wins you the jobs it loses money on and loses you the jobs it would profit on, because competitors who price per area undercut you where delivery is cheap and leave you the dear addresses. Six months in, your work mix skews toward the expensive side of town at midpoint rates. Price each area's column separately, even if some end up close together.
How do I know which pricing area a work order is in?
Check the address against the area definitions in your issued schedule. Area boundaries are contract documents, and they do not always follow where a suburb name seems to end. Make the check the first step of pricing, write the area code on the work order, and invoice from the same area column so certification has nothing to query.
Do pricing areas matter for small lines like catches and inserts?
Barely, and that is worth noticing. A childproof catch or cutlery insert costs almost the same to deliver anywhere, so its rate should be nearly flat across areas. Heavy, bulky lines like a 304 stainless wet bench swing furthest, because access and carry time dominate their cost. When you review an issued schedule, that spread pattern is a quick sanity check on whether the areas were priced thoughtfully.
What happens if I invoice against the wrong pricing area?
The certifier checks your invoice against the schedule column for the address's actual area, finds a mismatch on every line, and the claim stalls while it gets requeried. If the wrong area paid more, expect it clawed back; if it paid less, you have donated the difference unless you catch it. Writing the area code on the work order at pricing time is cheap insurance against both.
Does clustered work really change what an area costs to serve?
Yes, materially. Six joinery jobs within a couple of kilometres share one van run and one setup, so travel cost per job is a sixth of what an isolated address carries. Maintenance contractors see it in their weekly margin: clustered weeks profit, scattered weeks do not. Area rates are partly a bet on typical density, which is why isolated, hard-access areas price higher.