Job costs and margin
How to record what a job cost you, and how to read the margin a job made.
What it is for
The margin answers one question: what did this job bring in, minus the costs the job itself caused.
Job costs are the direct costs of one job that are not on a subcontractor's invoice and not wages: materials, hire, a skip, fuel or travel to that site. You enter them on the job with the receipt. Enter them before VAT.
Overheads do not belong in job costs. Tools, general diesel, insurance and the accountant are costs of the business, not of one job.
The word VAT may be different for your company's country.
Who can use it
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Owner | See the margin. Add, edit and delete job costs. |
| Admin | The same as an owner. |
| Supervisor, crew, accountant | Nothing. They never see a margin or a job cost. |
Margins and job costs can be switched off for the whole company in Settings, Features, with the Job margins and job costs switch. It is on by default. When it is off, the Margin section, the Margin % column and Job costs are hidden for everyone and no job cost can be added or changed. Nothing is deleted. Everything is back when the switch is turned on again.
Add a job cost
- Open the job and scroll to Job costs.
- Click Add job cost.
- Fill in Amount before VAT, Category and What was it. Check the Date.
- Add the receipt with Take photo or Choose from gallery. Wait until the file says Ready to save.
- Click Save job cost. With a receipt ready the button reads, for example, Save 1 receipt to job costs.
You see Job cost added. The cost is in the margin at once.
Edit a job cost
- In Job costs open the ⋮ menu of the row and click Edit.
- Change the fields. Use Add receipts to add more receipt files.
- Click Save changes. With a new receipt ready the button reads, for example, Save 1 receipt to this job cost.
You see Job cost saved.
Delete a job cost
- In Job costs open the ⋮ menu of the row and click Delete.
- Confirm Delete this job cost?.
The cost leaves the margin. The row is kept in the background for the record of changes.
The list
Job costs is a section on the job page and on the job's edit page. Under the heading it says Direct costs this job caused, before VAT. Overheads (tools, general diesel, insurance) do not belong here. The newest date is first. With no rows it says No job costs yet.
Columns
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Date | The date of the cost. Sortable. |
| Category | A coloured badge. Not shown on a phone. Sortable. |
| Description | What it was. The search box searches this column. |
| Supplier | Who you bought from. A dash when empty. Not shown on small screens. You can hide it in the column picker. |
| Amount (net) | The amount before VAT in your company's currency. Sortable. The Total of all rows is under the column. |
| Receipt | A paperclip when a receipt is attached. Click it to open the first receipt in a new tab. A dash when there is none. |
Row actions
The ⋮ menu of a row holds Edit and Delete. There are no bulk actions on job costs.
Fields
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Amount before VAT | Required. A number, 0.01 or more. |
| Category | Required. Materials, Hire, Skip, Fuel / travel or Other. A new cost starts on Materials. |
| What was it | Required. Up to 255 characters. |
| Date | Required. Starts on today. |
| Supplier | Optional. Free text, up to 255 characters. It is not linked to the supplier list in Settings. |
| VAT (optional) | Optional. Zero or more. It is kept for reference only. The margin uses the amount before VAT. |
| Receipt | Optional. See below. |
Receipts
Take a photo of the receipt, or attach the PDF if it came by email. You can add several files. Allowed: JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP and HEIC photos, and PDF. Each file can be up to 512 MB.
A finished upload is not saved yet. It is saved when you click the save button of the form. If you close the form with a file ready, you are asked whether to discard it. See Photos and files.
When you edit a cost, the field is called Add receipts and new files are added to the ones already there. The receipts already saved are not listed in the edit form, and a receipt cannot be removed from a cost in this section.
The Margin section
Open a job. Margin is the last block of the job details, with the line What this job brought in minus the costs it caused. You can fold it away.
At the top you see three things:
- The margin as an amount in your company's currency.
- The margin as a percentage of what was invoiced, with one decimal. It is only shown when something is invoiced.
- A label: Healthy, Thin, Loss, Incomplete or No margin yet.
Final and not final
A margin is final only once the job's final invoice is issued: the job's status is Invoiced or Paid. Before that a deposit with no costs yet reads as 100%, and costs that came in before the final invoice read as a loss.
So for a job in any other status (Quoted, Agreed, Scheduled, In progress, Snagging, Completed or Special) the Margin section still shows the figures so far, in grey with no label, and one line under them: Not final: the final invoice is not issued yet. The colours below start once the job is Invoiced or Paid.
How the margin is worked out
Margin = invoiced before VAT, minus subcontractors, minus employee labour, minus job costs.
What is never in it:
- VAT.
- RCT. RCT deducted by your client is a credit against your company's own tax, not a cost.
- Overhead. Subcontractor lines the office marked as overhead, and all invoice lines and hours of a person whose costs are set as overhead, are in no job's margin.
- Hours logged by subcontractors. Their invoices are the cost.
A short version of this rule is printed at the foot of the Margin section, with the colour limits.
Colours
| Colour | Label | When |
|---|---|---|
| Green | Healthy | 20% or more. |
| Amber | Thin | From 0% to under 20%. |
| Red | Loss | Under 0%. |
| Grey | Incomplete | Subcontractor costs on this site are waiting to be put on a job. |
| Grey | No margin yet | Nothing is invoiced yet. |
| Grey, no label | (none) | The job is not Invoiced or Paid yet. See Final and not final. |
Income
Each amount is a link to the list behind it, filtered to this job.
| Line | What it is |
|---|---|
| Quoted | The total before VAT of the accepted estimates linked to this job, with their numbers. no accepted estimate when there is none. For comparison only. |
| Invoiced (ex VAT) | The totals before VAT of this job's invoices that are sent, part paid or paid. Draft and void invoices do not count. A deposit invoice and the final invoice both count. The final invoice already takes the deposit off, so nothing is counted twice. |
| Cash received | The payments recorded on those invoices. For information. The margin is based on what is invoiced, not on what is paid. |
| RCT deducted | Only when RCT is switched on for your company. The RCT your client held back. It is a Revenue credit, not a cost, and is not in the margin. |
Costs
The heading is Costs caused by this job.
| Line | What it is |
|---|---|
| Subcontractors | Lines, before VAT, of approved or paid subcontractor invoices that count for this job. A line counts for the job the office allocated it to. If the office did not move it, it counts for the job on the line, and if the line names no job, for the job on the invoice. Under the label you see how many invoices. The amount opens the subcontractor invoices of this job. |
| Employee labour | Approved hours of employees on this job, times each person's full hourly cost. The hourly cost is fixed at the moment the hours are approved, so a later pay change does not change old jobs. Hours get onto a job in two ways: the person picks the job on the day in Log hours in the crew app, or the office sets it with Change jobs on the week in Crew Time (see Change the job of hours). Hours logged with no job (shown as Unregistered work on the time entry) are in no job's margin, and neither are the hours of a person whose costs are set as overhead. Under the label you see how many approved entries and hours, or no costed hours. The amount opens the time entries of this job. |
| Materials, Hire, Skip, Fuel / travel, Other | The job costs you entered, one line per category used, with how many costs. The amount jumps down to the Job costs section. |
| Total costs | The sum of the lines above. |
Incomplete margin
A grey banner at the top reads, for example, Incomplete: 2 subcontractor lines on this site are not allocated to a job.
It means subcontractors have invoiced for work on this job's site without naming a job, and the office has not yet said which job the cost belongs to. The banner adds Until they are, the figures below leave those costs out. So the margin looks better than it is. The figures stay grey until it is sorted.
Click Allocate subcontractor costs in the banner. It opens the allocate costs list for this site. Once every line is on a job, the banner goes and the margin gets its colour.
Pending subcontractor invoices
A subcontractor invoice that is submitted but not yet approved is not a cost yet. When there are any, a line under the headline shows what the margin would be if they were all approved. It starts If the pending subcontractor invoices (amount) are approved:.
Warnings
Amber boxes under the headline tell you when a figure is missing.
| Warning | What to do |
|---|---|
| No invoices issued yet, so there is no margin to show. Draft and void invoices do not count. | Issue the invoice for the job. |
| Uncosted employee hours, with the people and their hours, for example "Uncosted employee hours: Bob (6.00 h). Set each person's full hourly cost on their user page: the hours are costed as soon as it is saved. Until then they count as zero." | Approved hours of an employee that carry no hourly cost. These hours count as zero. Set Full hourly cost on that person's user record and save. Their approved hours without a cost are costed at once, at the cost you saved, and the warning goes. Hours that already have a cost keep it. |
| subcontractor invoice awaiting approval (amount) not yet in the costs | Approve or reject the submitted invoices. |
Moved costs
Subcontractor costs moved by the office lists every subcontractor invoice line whose cost was moved in to this job or out of it. Each row says In from or Out to and the other job, the person and invoice, who moved it, when and why. A move made by the automatic rule says so. A line moved out shows as a minus amount.
Moving a cost never changes the subcontractor's invoice. It only changes which job's margin carries the cost. All reallocated costs opens the full list.
The Margin % column
The jobs list has a Margin % column for owners and admins. It is shown at first. You can hide it in the column picker of the list.
- A job that is not Invoiced or Paid yet shows a grey Not final badge, with no percentage. Hover over it: Shows when the job is invoiced. Open the job for the figures so far. See Final and not final.
- An Invoiced or Paid job shows the margin percentage as a badge in the same green, amber or red.
- A dash means nothing is invoiced yet.
- The word incomplete after the percentage, in grey, means subcontractor lines on the site are not allocated to a job. Hover over it for the count.
- The column cannot be sorted.
- The column is not shown in the card layout.
What happens after
- A job cost changes the job's margin as soon as it is saved or deleted.
- Receipts are stored with your company's files and count towards your storage.
- Every job cost that is added, changed or deleted is recorded, with who entered it.
- Job costs are not on invoices, and the crew and the accountant never see them.
Common mistakes
- "The amount must be more than zero." A job cost cannot be zero or negative. Enter the amount before VAT.
- "The date is required.", "The description is required.", "The category is required." Fill the field the message is under.
- "VAT cannot be negative." Leave the VAT field empty or enter zero or more.
- "Job margins and job costs are switched off for this company." Turn the job margins switch back on in Settings, Features.
- Entering the amount with VAT. The margin is before VAT on both sides. Enter the net amount and put the VAT in its own field.
- Putting overheads on a job. A new tool or the monthly fuel bill is not a cost of one job. It makes that job look worse than it was.
- The margin looks too good. Check for the grey Incomplete banner, for invoices awaiting approval and for uncosted hours.
- No Margin section on the job. You are not an owner or admin, or job margins are switched off.