On a housing development you don't price plots, you price house types. Every Stretford on the site is the same money; so is every Burwell semi-end. Mucka works the same way: set the price once against the type, and every plot of that type picks it up.
On a 154-plot site that's 25 numbers instead of 154. And when the builder agrees a rise next year, it's one edit per type rather than re-typing the lot.
Set your stages first
Open the site, find the Rate card section, and tap Set the stages.
Stages are what every plot goes through — and they're yours to name, because no two sites are the same. One development is first fix, second fix, sanitaryware and final fix. The next has MVHR first, second and final, ASHP covers and waterbutts. Another has board and lodgings.
So Mucka offers the usual four as a starting point and expects you to change them:
- First fix
- Second fix
- Sanitaryware
- Final fix (test & commission)
Add your own with Add a stage, move them with the arrows so they read in the order the work actually happens, and save.
Put the house types in
Tap Add house types and paste the column straight out of the builder's spreadsheet — one per line:
Stretford
Burwell (semi-end)
Burwell (semi-mid)
4b7p
Use the builder's own names, not yours. Those are what's on the drawings and on the valuation they pay against, so when there's a query about plot 4 you're both looking at the same word.
Pasting the same list again is safe — Mucka adds what's missing and tells you the rest were already there.
Price each type
Tap a house type to open it. You get a line per stage with two boxes: labour and materials.
They're separate on purpose. Real site work has stages that are one or the other — "commission, labour only", "board and lodgings, no labour", "shower tray materials, two per plot". One box couldn't hold that.
Type the figures in however they're written on the sheet — £3,395.55 is fine, so is 3395.55. As you type, Mucka shows what a plot of that type is worth, and what that comes to across all the plots of that type.
Leave a box empty if that stage isn't part of this type's price. Empty is not the same as £0. An empty stage means "not priced"; £0.00 means "priced, at nothing", which is a real answer for something the builder supplies. Mucka keeps them apart, and won't show you a total that's quietly missing a stage — it says "2 stages left" instead, so you can see which types you haven't finished.
Say which plots are which type
A price does nothing until the plots know what they are. Open a house type and, under the prices, you'll see Which plots are Stretford? — put the numbers in the same way you added them:
1-20, 45
The box arrives holding the plots already set to that type, so you're editing a list rather than starting from nothing. That list is the answer — a plot you take out of it stops being that type, and Mucka says how many before you save. If a plot is currently another type it gets moved, and you're told which type it came off, because moving a plot changes what it's worth.
Plots have to exist first. If you name one that isn't on the site, Mucka tells you which and leaves everything alone rather than quietly creating it — that's usually a typo in a range, and adding plots is a separate job.
You can see it from the other side too: each row in the Plots list shows its house type, and the search box there matches on it, so typing Stretford gives you every Stretford on the site.
What the site is worth
Once types are priced and plots know which type they are, the Rate card heading shows the whole site's value — every type's price times the number of plots that are that type.
If nothing's priced yet it shows nothing at all, rather than £0.00. A development reading as worth nothing would be alarming and wrong.
Tick the work off as it happens
Under the rate card is Progress — one row per plot, one box per stage. Tap a box when that stage is signed off on that plot, tap it again if you put it back.
The heading counts finished plots, and above the grid Mucka shows the number you actually want:
£19,041.75 done, not yet invoiced · £3,808.35 invoiced
That's every stage you've ticked, priced off its plot's house type, split into what's still owed to you and what's already been billed.
Work you've done but not priced is counted, not valued at nothing. If three ticked stages belong to a house type with no price on them, you'll see "3 done stages have no price yet" rather than a total that's quietly short. That figure gets read out to a builder, so it says when it's incomplete.
An invoiced stage locks. Once a stage has been billed it shows a padlock and can't be un-ticked — otherwise you'd have an invoice pointing at work Mucka says never happened. Void the invoice and it frees up again.
Invoice a stage
Once a stage is ticked off and its house type is priced, it can be billed. Open ready to invoice above the board and you'll see each one — Plot 1 · First fix · £3,395.55 — with an Invoice button.
That raises a draft invoice against the plot and the site, with the builder as the client. Nothing is sent — it goes in your invoices list like any other draft, and you send it when you're ready.
Labour and materials go on as separate lines. That matters if you're billing as a subcontractor: CIS is deducted on the labour only, so the two have to stay apart all the way to the invoice.
Once a stage is invoiced its box locks on the board. Void the invoice if it needs putting back.
One at a time, on purpose. There's no "invoice all forty first fixes" button — that's forty invoices in one tap, and it deserves more thought than a button.
Changing things later
- A price change — open the type, change the figure, save. Every plot of that type follows.
- Renaming a stage — edit it in place. The prices and any sign-offs stay with it.
- Removing a stage — Mucka tells you exactly what goes with it first: "Removing 'Second fix' also removes 100 prices off the rate card and 616 plot sign-offs. That cannot be undone." Then it's your call. Nothing happens until you say so.
- Removing a house type — if plots are set to it, Mucka says how many and warns they'll be left unpriced. The plots themselves are never deleted.
Common gotchas
- The stages belong to the site, not the business. Two developments can have completely different stage lists, and usually do.
- One house type name per site. "Stretford" and "stretford" are the same type, so you can't accidentally start a second rate card for it in lower case.
- Blank isn't free. It's the single thing worth remembering on this screen.
- The rate card only shows on a site. Tick This is a site on the project first — see run a site with plots.