I believe LJ stopped producing the paper pricing charts, which seemed to favor lower than avg markups for moulding and higher for materials and labor, about 8-10 years ago. They used to be in the back of the catalog and were updated once per year. The reality is that are price changes every week, as well as new or discontinued items. It's very much a moving target, and a POS updates with these changes daily or weekly. (depending how often you tell it to). It will also notify you when something has been discontinued, so you'll know to pull the sample off the wall and won't have to have the customer come back in to pick a different moulding. You'll have their customer ordering history on file, mailing list, accounts receivable, and it wont print measurements or part numbers for the materials on the customer's copy. Those things just go on the framers copy (the workorder), but not the customer's copy (the invoice). (The same applies to QUOTES) They're very easy to learn, and you can teach others to use it much faster than a manual method.
I recommend a POS even for a small one person shop. It is so much quicker and efficient, with clear legible paperwork. The cost is minimal, compared with the value of time you would spend keeping prices current with a manual system. (or money "left on the table" because you are charging material prices from a year or two ago, and not from this month) Mouldings, Mats, and Fabrics automatically increase weekly as the market changes. (you specify the markup formula, it knows the current cost, to calculate retail for the area sold). Glazing, Specials, and Labor are things that the framer still has to set themselves, based on their profit goals and freight/supplier situation. We adjust our glazing price table twice per year, in our shop, to reflect any changes from the supplier. (You just put the cost per lite, to reflect the sizes you will be cutting from, so it allows for waste) It also handles a waste factor for moulding, when calculating price.
Whether you are pricing manually or with some kind of POS, it's still important to know HOW to do it manually and maintain the same basic rules. (what your labor costs are, how much you want to mark up various materials, etc)
If this is something you want to consider, all the major POS companies offer a free demo. Most of them are for 30 days.
Good luck!
Mike
Get The Picture, Lincoln RI