Job costing helps your team understand whether work is profitable. It combines job revenue, product and service costs, labor, and expenses so managers can see how each job contributes to the business.
Open Jobs.
What job costing uses
Profitability is calculated from:
- Line items: Products and services on the job, including unit costs and unit prices.
- Labor: Time entries from timesheets, based on each team member’s labor cost.
- Expenses: Expenses recorded against the job.
- Revenue: Job line item totals before tax and after job-specific pricing choices.
Job costs are internal. Clients see the prices and invoices you send them, not your costs or profit margin.
User permissions
Review permissions before giving users access to job costing.
Users who review job costing usually need access to:
- Jobs.
- Pricing.
- Timesheets.
- Expenses.
- Reports.
Manage access in Roles and Permissions.
Set hourly labor cost
Labor cost is the internal cost of a team member’s time. It should reflect more than hourly wage when your team uses full burdened cost.
Include:
- Wage.
- Payroll taxes.
- Benefits.
- Employer costs.
Manage team details in Manage Team.
Labor cost applies to future time entries after the value is updated. When a team member’s cost changes, update it so new timesheets calculate accurately.
Set up line item costs
For job costing, products and services should have unit costs as well as unit prices.
Use Products and Services to store:
- Item name.
- Description.
- Unit cost.
- Unit price.
- Markup.
- Taxable status.
Add material costs to product line items. Track labor through timesheets and field expenses through expenses so costs are not counted twice.
Costs on one-off jobs
For one-off jobs, job costing looks at the full job.
Review:
- Job revenue.
- Line item costs.
- Labor cost.
- Expense cost.
- Total cost.
- Profit.
- Profit margin.
This helps managers see whether the job was priced correctly and whether field execution stayed within the expected budget.
Costs on recurring jobs
Recurring jobs can be reviewed by recent activity, visit behavior, and invoicing setup.
Cost review is especially useful for:
- Fixed-price recurring jobs.
- Per-visit recurring jobs.
- Jobs with custom visit line items.
- Jobs with repeated labor or material usage.
Use consistent time tracking and expense entry so recurring job profitability stays meaningful.
Line items
Line items are the products and services being charged.
For each line item, review:
- Quantity.
- Unit cost.
- Unit price.
- Total.
- Taxable status.
The unit cost is what your business spends. The unit price is what the client is charged.
Labor
Labor cost comes from time tracked against the job.
Track time through Timesheets or from job-related time entries.
A time entry should include:
- Team member.
- Date.
- Start and end time or duration.
- Notes.
- Job connection.
Stopped and saved time entries are used in job cost calculations.
Expenses
Expenses connected to a job are part of job costing.
Open Expenses to record or review:
- Expense name.
- Accounting code.
- Description.
- Date.
- Total.
- Reimbursement details.
- Receipt.
Use expense categories in Expense Tracking to keep reporting clean.
Profit alerts
Profit alerts help managers catch margin issues before they become a pattern.
Use alerts to flag jobs that fall below the margin threshold your business expects. Review flagged jobs on the job detail page, activity feed, and job reports.
When a job is below target, check:
- Line item pricing.
- Labor time.
- Material costs.
- Discounts.
- Expenses.
- Scope changes.
Reporting
Open Jobs Performance Report to review profitability and performance.
Useful report columns include:
- Job revenue.
- Expense total.
- Time tracked.
- Labor cost.
- Line item cost.
- Total cost.
- Profit.
- Profit percentage.
Use the report to improve pricing, staffing, route planning, and service packages.
Avoid double counting
If a material cost is added as both a line item cost and a separate expense, profit can look lower than expected.
Use a consistent rule:
- Put standard material cost on product line items.
- Put purchases, reimbursements, and job-specific spending in expenses.
- Put labor cost in timesheets.
Clear cost entry makes job profitability easier to trust.