I agree that they should be able to charge for their time. This was a fixed price contract, with allowances. Their profit should have been calculated into the fixed price portion of the contract. The allowances were so that we both new how much I could spend when picking things out. By telling me after the fact that they multiplied the actual list cost by 13% before comparing it to my allowance they reduced my allowances by 13%. We did not negotiate and sign a contract that stated that.